Rob Reiner Turned Political Activism Into Lasting Impact, Playing Key Role In Efforts On Early Childhood Development, LGBTQ+ Rights

UPDATED: As figures including Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom shared their tributes to Rob Reiner, it was a reminder that the director-actor’s impact on politics went beyond fund raising and celebrity endorsement.

Over several decades, Reiner led efforts to pass an early childhood development initiative in California, and he later helped spearhead a drive to overturn the state’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. Ever outspoken in speeches and on social media, he more recently organized to challenge the Trump administration and produced God and Country, which chronicled the emergence of Christian nationalism.

Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead on Sunday at their Brentwood home. Sources told Deadline that they had been stabbed. Their son Nick, 32, has been arrested and booked early Monday.

Obama said in a statement that Reiner “gave us some of our most cherished stories on screen. But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people — and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action. Together, he and his wife lived lives defined by purpose. They will be remembered for the values they championed and the countless people they inspired.”

After a remarkable run of box office and critical successes, Reiner turned to politics with The American President, a 1995 release starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. With a screenplay from Aaron Sorkin, the movie helped shape the latter’s The West Wing, which stands out as an idealized view of the political process.

The movie, Reiner said at a WBEZ Chicago retrospective in September, “celebrates what a presidency is all about and what a good president is all about.”

He recalled that two issues were at the center of the movie, gun control and the environment. At the time, President Bill Clinton was running for re-election, and during on of his rallies, “he starts talking about a 20% reduction in fossil fuel emissions over the next 10 years. And then his handlers said, ‘What are you talking about? We haven’t talked about that.’ He said, ‘But I saw this film. That’s a good idea. I like that idea.'”

In 1998, Reiner championed Proposition 10, a ballot initiative to put a 50 cent tax on cigarettes to go to fund early child development via education, health services and childcare. Reiner hired as his political adviser Chad Griffin, a young staffer in the Clinton White House who had been a liaison on The American President.

Reiner’s success with the initiative helped generate speculation that he himself would make the plunge into politics, perhaps for a run as governor of California. That never happened, but Reiner became an active voice in campaigns and the state and federal level. He campaigned with Howard Dean in his 2004 presidential run, and held and hosted events for Hillary Clinton for her 2008 bid, later endorsing Obama when he won the nomination.

In 2008, in the aftermath of California voters’ passage of Proposition 8 in 2008, banning same-sex marriage in the state, Reiner, his wife Michele, and Griffin and Kristina Schake had been dining at the Beverly Hills Hotel. A chance meeting with one of the Reiners’ acquaintances led them to contact Ted Olson, the conservative lawyer who had represented George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential recount challenge in the Supreme Court. Olson ended up joining with his counterpart in the recount, David Boies, in a federal court challenge of Proposition 8, spearheaded by Griffin and Reiner, who formed the group the American Foundation for Equal Rights to fund and promote the case.

At the time, there was some discord in the LGBTQ community that such an approach was the right legal strategy, given the uncertainty and fear that a conservative-leaning Supreme Court would ultimately render a decision with an adverse precedent.

But Reiner and other backers were not dissuaded, insisting that such foundational rights were too important to let stand. The lawsuit led to a first-of-its-kind trial in 2010 on the constitutional right to same-sex marriage, with plaintiff couples Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, and Sandy Stier and Kris Perry testifying.

They won a landmark district court ruling and later at the appellate level, before the case made its way to the Supreme Court. The high court ruled in 2013 that the defenders of Proposition 8 lacked standing to bring the case, after California’s governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Jerry Brown, refused to back it.

At the same time, public opinion had shifted in favor of same-sex marriage, and further legal challenges from other groups brought the issue back to the Supreme Court in 2015. That led to the Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling that required that states recognize the marriages of same-sex couples.

Reiner backed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, trekking to the Democratic National Convention as she accepted the nomination. After Donald Trump’s surprise victory, Reiner was a major Hollywood voice in opposition, while using his platform to try to highlight the influence of Russia on U.S. elections. In 2017, he and a number of scholars on the right and the left were part of a group, Committee to Investigate Russia, to provide a one-stop shop as investigations were in full swing.

The Clintons said in a statement that the Reiners “inspired and uplifted millions through their work in film and television. And they were good, generous people who made everyone who knew them better through their active citizenship in defense of inclusive democracy, setting an example for us all to follow. Hilliary and I will always be grateful for their friendship, unfailing kindness, and support.”

James Costos, the former U.S. ambassador to Spain and a political advocate, wrote in a Substack post, “Together, Rob and Michele were deeply engaged in political advocacy to protect and strengthen our democracy, encouraging civic participation, defending fundamental freedoms and standing up to forces that sought to divide us.”

He added, “This loss is simply devastating, and my heart is with everyone who loved them.”

The Reiners were among the co-hosts of a Democratic National Committee fundraiser held on Thursday at the home of Costos and designer Michael Smith, with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Conan O’Brien the headliners.

With Trump back in the White House this year, Reiner continued to warn of the threat to American rule of law.

Reiner told WBEZ in September, “It’s really gotten to a very, very scary place in this country, and we’re going to have to figure out how to dig ourselves out of this before it’s too long. But we have got to keep speaking out. Everybody has to keep speaking out.”

He added, “We’ve been the longest living democracy ever, and we certainly haven’t done everything right. We’ve done a lot of things wrong, but we go in fits and starts to move in the right direction. There was a time a woman couldn’t vote. There was a time Black person couldn’t vote. There was a time a Black person couldn’t marry a white person. There was a time where people of the same sex couldn’t marry. We move forward. We move forward. But this is the biggest step backward I’ve ever seen, and I’m hoping it’s not too big a step backward that we can’t bounce back and jump forward.”