Background
Petris was born in Oakland, California.
Petris was born in Oakland, California.
University of California, Berkeley. Stanford Law School.
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, representing the 15th district from 1958 until 1966. He received his Bachelor"s degree from University of California, Berkeley and his law degree from Stanford Law School.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, 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.
Petris dedicated substantial energy and resources toward expanding the University of California system. Petris was also the co-author of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Acting, which brought changes to the mental health system in California.
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. He was a co-sponsor of the McAteer-Petris Acting which established and governs operations of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC).
He introduced bills to ban DDT and to limit cars to one per family, but neither was passed.
During his last term in office, Nick Petris betrayed his Berkeley constituents by voting "yes" on the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Acting—which deregulated Berkeley"s rent control system and has made the city extremely unaffordable. Locations named after Petris include: The Petris Center on Health Care Markets & Consumer Welfare at University of California Berkeley The Petris Lecture (started in 2001) at San Francisco State University The California Department of Transportation Building at 111 Grand Avenue., Oakland California.