Collection Highlight: Bill Thomas Collection

October, 17, 2024

Bill Thomas Collection

William (Bill) Thomas donated his congressional papers and materials to Bakersfield College in November 2006, upon the end of his term in Congress in 2007. These materials were restricted to approved researchers until 2017 and are now available to the public. Check out our Bill Thomas Collection webpage to learn more details about the collection.

Bill Thomas Biography

Author: Cecil Dexter

Most Bakersfield College students have studied in the Bill Thomas room, with its opulent recessed-wainscot walls, stunning dark-cherry-stained mahogany table, and ambient lighting that gives it an almost numinous atmosphere. Or maybe you had a date night at the William H Thomas planetarium nestled on the northwest corner of the Math/Science building featuring a 36-ft dome- the largest in the Central Valley.  But who is the man behind the dedication, and what has he done that made him such an intrinsic part of Bakersfield College history?

In an interview with Ripon Forum, Thomas stated that he has always been entrenched in politics; from watching the national convention as a youth in the small former mining town of Wallace, Idaho, to participating in student government all throughout his college career. He attended Santa Ana Community College in 1961 where he earned his Associate’s degree prior to transferring to San Francisco State University for his Bachelors and Master’s in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Immediately following his Masters, Bill Thomas came to our very own Bakersfield College to teach political science in 1965. Youth involvement in politics was a special interest for him, and soon after settling here in our town he began advising for the Bakersfield Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Junior League of Bakersfield in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. He also advised the BC Student Government Association during his time as a professor.

His dedication to the future generation of politics was also perhaps influenced by his personal history with community colleges (CCs); In a 2001 interview with the BC Archives newsletter, Thomas stated, “Too many successful people hide the fact that they started in junior college and only mention the university they transferred to. I have always been proud of the role community colleges have played in helping thousands of people, like me, who would not have been able to go to college at all without a tuition-free local college. Of course, there are tuitions charged now, but they are a fraction of the costs of four-year schools.”

He also showed his love of CCs through his advocacy for BC’s employees. He served on the BC Faculty Salary Committee and the District Certificated Employees Council, where he fought for a 5 ½ % wage increase for faculty on campus to match the rising cost of living in 1972.

His work at BC laid the groundwork for his political career; Thomas entered the world of elected government when he won his seat at the Cal State Assembly 33 in 1974, defeating Raymond Gonzales 54-46%; he was the only non-incumbent Republican to win anything in the 1974 election cycle. He even had a debate right here on campus, between himself and Democratic-incumbent Ray Gonzales, where the hot-button issue was a proposed nuclear power plant in Wasco. (Thomas was for the building of the power plant, just not the proposed location of Wasco.)

In 1978, he was elected to the House of Representatives for District 18 by a significant margin- 85,663 to 58,900- despite a trend towards Democrats that year.

Over the span of 28 years, Thomas would serve the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd districts. It was through his career as representative that Thomas would get involved with the House Ways and Means Committee, the oldest tax-writing body in the House of Representatives- active since 1789. The project Thomas touts as his greatest accomplishment was achieved through the Ways and Means Committee.

2001 will forever be known as an infamous year in American history. Following the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the highly televised 9/11 attacks, Americans and their wallets were in “bunker mode,” as some economists called it. Consumer confidence plummeted; people didn’t feel motivated to buy so businesses went under - 219,000 in just the third quarter of 2001.

In a recent interview with Capitol Weekly, Thomas said, “The only tools I ever had was [to] listen to what people want, build a coalition, and pass legislation.”  And that’s exactly what Thomas did when he co-wrote and sponsored the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which became public law on June 7, 2001.

His efforts led to $38 Billion distributed in rebate checks, tax cuts, increased education tax benefits, enhanced child tax credits, and more. The results were immediate- the economy grew and continued to grow for 24 consecutive quarters. In the third quarter of 2003, it grew at a rate of 7.5% above inflation, numbers that hadn’t been seen since 1984.

This act effectively cut the recession short at 8 months, making it one of the shortest recessions in US history. All this only 6 months after he was elected chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. 
In 2003 he struck again, this time with the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, also known as the Medicare Modernization Act. In the five years leading up to the act, seniors had been experiencing higher than usual drug costs, even with Medicare as the program couldn’t afford to keep up with rising treatment costs. The issue was such a large problem that Pres. George W Bush ran on the issue of ensuring that he would expand drug coverage for senior citizens. Rep. J Dennis Halbert from Illinois sponsored the reform act, and Rep. Bill Thomas alongside the Ways and Means Committee pushed it past the House despite much resistance.  At one point following the Senate and House reconciliation of the bill, it was losing 219-215 after a tense 40-minute vote but was eventually passed 220-215. The Senate passed it 61-39, and on November 25, 2003, Pres. George W Bush signed it into law. 
Without a doubt, Thomas was prolific during his time in Congress. He sponsored 29 bills that were enacted, ranging from one to provide for the historical preservation of Japanese Internment camps from WWII to tsunami relief funds for victims of the incredibly deadly Indonesian tsunami in 2004, to many, many tax relief and job-creating bills. In 2005 he successfully secured the largest federal allocation the county has ever seen- $722.6 million for Kern County out of the $286.4 billion Transportation Bill- almost $100 million more than Los Angeles County (much to the chagrin of LA residents who have never experienced the horrors of Kern County’s freeways). In 2006 he secured $1 million federal dollars to modernize the planetarium, which served over 4,500 K-12 students and countless amounts of BC students annually.

In 2007, Bill Thomas retired from the House and joined the American Enterprise Institute to research health care, tax, and trade policies.

In 2009 President Barack Obama created the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the cause of the 2008 financial crisis, and House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell jointly chose Thomas as vice chairman.

Following his vice chairmanship, in 2010, Thomas honored our community college year he also honored our community college with a massive donation of his papers to the Bakersfield College Archives that would make any college green. 130 boxes of documents and 20 crates of artifacts like plaques, photographs, and more. Some of the inclusions include documents from the Ways and Means Committee that aren’t available online, papers from the Medicare Reform bill that he was a key player on, Legislator of the Year award for 1999-2000, even a 1st place chili cookoff award!

After 2010, Thomas appears to have settled into a life outside of the public eye. He served a term on the Board of Trustees for the Kern County Community College District in 2016 but has since been enjoying retired life under the radar in the city he loves, Bakersfield, California. His legacy at BC remains in the fruits of his labor on display for all students to see in the Bill Thomas room, in the Planetarium that he secured the funding to modernize, and in the inspiring tale of a fellow community college student who went on to make significant and lasting impacts on our community.