Charles Hugh Warren (April 26, 1927 – November 7, 2019) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician who served in the California State Assembly from 1963 to 1977 and held a Cabinet-level position as chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) under U.S. President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1979.
In the California State Assembly, Warren became a strong proponent of environmental initiatives. He was one of the principal authors of the Coastal Protection Act, which established the California Coastal Commission as a permanent body, and the bill that created the California Energy Commission. At CEQ, he oversaw the promulgation of legally binding regulations for federal agency compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act requirement for environmental impact statements.
Early life, education, and military service
Warren was born in 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri, and spent most of his childhood there and in Kansas City, Kansas. When he was a young child, the family moved to Kansas City, Kansas, where he started elementary school, finishing elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri, after his family returned there. He attended Benton High School in St. Joseph, Missouri, where his family lived for about years, then returned to Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated from Paseo High School in 1942 at age 15, having skipped two grades during his early education. Too young to join the United States military, which was absorbing the majority of male high school graduates in that World War II year, he took a job in North Kansas City with Standard Steel Works, a steel fabricating company that was manufacturing equipment for the military.
While he was working at the steel company, Warren began attending night school at a junior college in Kansas City, then enlisted in the military in the Army Specialized Training Program. As an Army trainee he was enrolled in an accelerated engineering program at Kansas State University. After doing well academically there, he was accepted into a military training program in Japanese language and area studies that was being conducted at Yale University. He completed that program shortly after his 18th birthday, having spent four-quarters at Yale. As an 18-year-old in the summer of 1945, he began basic training at Camp Roberts in California. His military training was cut short after Japan's surrender ended the war. The Army then sent him to the University of Minnesota to continue his studies of Japan and its language. After three months in Minnesota, he was sent to Japan, where he spent the final year of his U.S. Army service.
Warren was discharged from the Army in November 1946. He then enrolled as an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, he went to law school at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
Career in government and law
As a student in the Bay Area, Warren developed an interest in politics. He joined the San Francisco Young Democrats, serving as its chairman at one time, and helped to organize the California Democratic Council. After law school, Warren was admitted to the bar and joined a San Francisco law firm that represented labor unions. After some time there, he moved to Los Angeles, where he went to work for a larger law firm. In Los Angeles, he decided to focus his attention on his legal work and stayed out of politics for several years. He became engaged in electoral politics in 1961 after Democratic political operative Dick Tuck, who knew Warren from his political activity in San Francisco, encouraged him to become a candidate for a Republican-held California State Assembly seat in a Los Angeles County district.
California State Assembly
In 1962, Warren ran for office in the 56th Assembly District, first winning the Democratic primary and then defeating incumbent Chet Wolfrum in the general election, becoming the only Democrat to beat an incumbent in that year's California legislative election. He was to serve 14 years in the California State Assembly, from 1963 through 1977. The district he represented included the areas of Hollywood and Wilshire; after redistricting it was renumbered, becoming the 46th Assembly District.