A titanic figure in the California Democratic party in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s, and co-architect of the “Willie Brown-John Burton political machine,” former statehouse leader and US Congressman John Burton has died while in hospice care.

If you weren’t observing California politics in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, it’s hard to overstate the power and influence of John Burton, who held SF’s seat in Congress — now long-held by Nancy Pelosi — in the early 70s, and went on to both the California state Senate and state Assembly, eventually beoming chair of the California Democratic Party.

Burton is credited with convincing Pelosi to run for his former seat in Congress, and with launching the political career of his one-time staffer Barbara Boxer. Burton is also the co-architect of the famed “Burton-Brown political machine” with Willie Brown, who had been his roommate at SF State in the 1950s.

But John Burton died on Sunday in a hospice facility in San Francisco, after years of poor health, according to KRON4. He was 92.

“Today, working families have lost one of the most outspoken, ferocious and unyielding champions our nation has ever known. John Burton was a towering progressive warrior, who for half a century never pulled a punch in his dogged fight for a fairer future for our children,” Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said in a Sunday statement. “All who knew John knew that behind his profanity-laden language was a profound progressive vision for how to make real the promise of America.  As I wrote in the forward to his memoir, I Yell Because I Care, John yelled a lot because he cared a lot — especially about our most vulnerable neighbors.”

A Cincinnati, Ohio native, Burton and his family moved to SF when he and his brother Philip were in their boyhoods. Philip Burton would end up running for the state Assembly, and John would win that seat in 1964 when his brother was termed out. John Burton then successfully ran for Congress in 1974, though resigned from his seat in 1982, to address his cocaine and nitrous oxide addiction. It was the 1980s, and things were wild, man.

He was succeeded in the seat by his brother Philip, who died of a heart attack a year later. Philip's wife Sala Burton took over the seat until her death from cancer in 1987, after which it became Pelosi's.

But John Burton's political comeback was the stuff of legend. He was back in the state Assembly in 1988, and then served two terms in the California Senate from 1996 to 2004. That’s when the famed “Brown-Burton machine” was formed while Brown was SF mayor, as the two hand-picked candidates, including for SF ayor, who would always seem to go on to win. (Or in the case of Burton’s daughter Kimiko, Willie Brown just appointed her as SF Public Defender.)

And Burton was famed for his dirty mouth and constant use of profanity. The also illustriously foul-mouthed SF political operative Rose Pak said that when she was a Chronicle reporter early on in her career, John and Philip Burton taught her how to swear, and "called everybody under the sun ‘motherfucker.’"

"I thought it was a term of endearment," Pak said.

Burton’s family asks that in lieu of flowers, that donations can be made to the John Burton Advocates for Youth, a charity that benefits young people in foster care or experiencing homelessness.

Related: Rose Pak Once Thought 'Motherf***er' Was a Term of Endearment [SFist]

Image: President Pro-tempore of the California State Senate, John Burton, speaks at a conference called, "Our democracy after 9/11: can we save it?" February 17, 2002 in Los Angeles, CA. The conference focused on the alleged lack of democracy in the U.S. after the terrorist attacks. (Photo by J. Emilio Flores/Getty Images)