The son of a wealthy U.S. senator from New England, George Herbert Walker Bush fought in World War II, served in Congress, and headed the Central Intelligence Agency under Richard Nixon. When Ronald Reagan tapped him for second place on the Republican ticket in 1980, Bush tailored his more moderate positions to Reagan’s conservative agenda. At the end of Reagan’s second term, Republicans rewarded him with the presidential nomination.

In the Democratic primaries in 1988, civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson—whose Rainbow Coalition campaign centered on the needs of minorities, women, the working class, and the poor—won several primaries and seven million votes. But the centrist candidate, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, won the nomination. On election day, Bush won 54 percent of the vote while the Democrats gained seats in Congress.

Promising “a kinder, gentler nation,” President Bush was more inclined than Reagan to approve government activity in the private sphere. For example, Bush approved the Clean Air Act of 1990, the strongest, most comprehensive environmental law in history. Some forty million Americans benefited when Bush signed another regulatory measure in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), banning discrimination against people with disabilities and requiring that private businesses and public facilities be accessible to them. As a breeze rippled over the White House lawn at the signing ceremony, disability advocate Cynthia Jones said, “It was kind of like a new breath of air was sweeping across America. . . . People knew they had rights. That was wonderful.” (See “Experiencing the American Promise: Suing for Access: Disability and the Courts.”)

Yet Bush also needed to satisfy party conservatives to whom he had pledged “Read my lips: No new taxes.” Bush vetoed thirty-six bills, including those extending unemployment benefits, raising taxes, and mandating family and medical leave for workers. Press reports increasingly used the words stalemate and divided government.

Continuing a trend begun during the Reagan years, some states compensated for this paralysis with their own innovations. State legislatures enacted laws to establish parental leave policies, improve food labeling, and protect the environment. Dozens of cities passed ordinances requiring businesses receiving tax abatements or other benefits to pay wages well above the federal minimum. In 1999, California passed a much tougher gun control bill than reformers had been able to get through Congress.

The huge federal budget deficit inherited from Reagan impelled Bush in 1990 to abandon his “no new taxes” pledge, outraging conservatives. The new law modestly raised taxes on high-income Americans and increased levies on gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and luxury items, while leaving intact most of Reagan’s massive tax cuts. Neither the new revenues nor controls on spending curbed the deficit, however, which was boosted by rising costs for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and natural disasters relief.

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Like Reagan, Bush created a more conservative Supreme Court. His first nominee was a moderate, but in 1991, when the only African American on the Court, Thurgood Marshall, retired, Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a conservative black appeals court judge who had opposed affirmative action when he headed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Reagan. Charging that Thomas would not protect minority rights, civil rights groups and other liberal organizations fought the nomination. Then Anita Hill, a black law professor and former EEOC employee, accused Thomas of sexual harassment. Thomas angrily denied the charges, and the Senate voted narrowly to confirm him. The hearings angered many women, who noted that only two women sat in the Senate and denounced the male senators for not taking sexual harassment seriously.