Nicholas C. Petris was a California State Senator

California State Senate

The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature. There are 40 state senators. The state legislature meets in the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The Lieutenant Governor is the ex officio President of the Senate and may break a tied vote...

 from 1966 until 1996. A Democrat, he represented the 11th district from 1966 to 1976 and the 9th district from 1976 until he was termed out in 1996. He was previously in the California State Assembly

California State Assembly

The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...

, representing the 15th district from 1958 until 1966.

Personal life and education

Petris was born in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

. He received his Bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and his law degree

Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. He was classmates and friends with Warren Christopher

Warren Christopher

Warren Minor Christopher was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as President, Christopher served as the 63rd Secretary of State. He also served as Deputy Attorney General in the Lyndon Johnson administration, and as Deputy Secretary of State in the Jimmy...

, Secretary of State

Secretary of State

Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....

 under President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

.
During the late '60s and early '70s, when Greece was governed by a Dictatorship, he took a stand against it as an honorary Chairman of the California Committee for Democracy in Greece.

Legislative career

Petris dedicated substantial energy and resources toward expanding the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 system. Petris was also the co-author of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act

Lanterman-Petris-Short Act

The Lanterman–Petris–Short Act concerns the involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the State of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman ...

, which brought changes to the mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

 system in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. He was a supporter and advocate of Save The Bay, a nonprofit organization that was successful in restricting and managing land development around the San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

. He was a co-sponsor of the McAteer-Petris Act which established and governs operations of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC).

He introduced bills to ban DDT

DDT

DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....

 and to limit cars to one per family, but neither was passed.

Legacy

Locations named after Petris include:

• The Nicholas C. Petris Center on Health Care Markets & Consumer Welfare at UC Berkeley
• The Nicholas C. Petris Lecture (started in 2001) at San Francisco State University
• The California Department of Transportation Building at 111 Grand Ave., Oakland CA.