Tom Berryhill, a Stanislaus leader whose heart we could count on

Voters with semi-decent memories will remember how Tom Berryhill in 2006 laughed off his opponent’s desperate and classless attack mailer doubting that Berryhill’s heart was stout enough for the rigors of public office.

Berryhill, who was running for California Assembly, had endured heart problems for years and received a heart transplant six years before. Citing outdated statistics, opponent Bill Conrad resorted to a smear campaign, unwisely suggesting that voters bypass Berryhill because he might not survive an entire two-year term in Sacramento.

Then-Modesto Bee columnist Jeff Jardine had a field day with the “pure gutter” mailer, saying it “raised as many questions about Conrad’s heart as it did Berryhill’s. Does Conrad have one at all? ... (This) creates an interesting campaign platform for Conrad: Vote for me instead of him because I probably won’t die in office.”

Berryhill trounced Conrad in that June Republican Primary by more than 40 percentage points, went on to claim the seat in the fall and served 12 years in both houses at the Capitol. He then was elected a supervisor in Stanislaus County, where the Berryhill name is synonymous with political prowess, his father having served in the Legislature and as state secretary of agriculture.

Bill Berryhill, Tom’s brother, also did a stint in the California Assembly when Tom was in the Senate. They had the distinction of being the only siblings serving in both houses at the same time. And Tom was singled out as the only heart recipient in the Legislature.

Thank goodness voters were smart enough to discount Conrad’s crass 2006 mailer, and to choose the heart of a warrior.

“He was a fighter,” his sister, Jane Berryhill, said Sunday, the day after Tom died. “People loved him for his optimistic attitude, including me. He was deeply loved.”

Tom Berryhill’s heart never was in question. It served him — and all of us — well, in both houses of the California Legislature. Because the Capitol is run by veto-proof Democratic supermajorities in both the Assembly and Senate, Republicans like Berryhill are terribly outnumbered. It’s no place for the faint-hearted, and Berryhill was anything but.

A heart for service

Instead of retiring to the farm after term limits ended his time in Sacramento — and despite declining health — Berryhill continued to fight for his people upon his election as a Stanislaus County supervisor. It might have been tempting to take an easier path, but the course of least resistance was never Berryhill’s way.

In recent memory, the five-member Board of Supervisors has never been more in the news than these days on account of its public duty for local response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The job suddenly became much harder, absorbing criticism from media and constituents for managing a crisis no one has tackled before, because we’ve never had a virus like this one.

Deteriorating health kept Berryhill, 67, from attending meetings this year, but he always dialed in, participated and cast votes by telephone.

Until his courageous, true heart finally stopped on Saturday.