Although a Democrat, Brown nevertheless appointed the conservative Republican Collins to replace Gray Davis as his chief of staff, a position Collins held from 1981 until Brown left office in 1983.[3]
After Sacramento-area Republican Tim Leslie won a special election to the California State Senate to replace John Doolittle, who had been elected to Congress, Wilson encouraged Collins to run for Leslie's vacant seat in the State Assembly.[3] Collins won a special election that September for the Sacramento-area 5th District against fellow Republican Barbara Alby, and narrowly beat her again in the 1992 GOP primary.[4]
Death
Collins died of a sudden heart attack March 19, 1993 in Sacramento[1] while serving his second term in the State Assembly. Alby won the special election to replace him.[citation needed]
Several sites in Sacramento have been named in his honor, including the BT Collins Juvenile Justice Center in Sacramento.[5] When the Sacramento Army Depot was redesignated as an Army Reserve Center in the mid-1990s, it was renamed the B.T. Collins Army Reserve Center.[citation needed]
There is also a park in the City of Folsom named the B.T. Collins City Park located at 828 Willow Creek Drive, Folsom, California. The men's restroom in the Santa Clara University School of Law library was named the "B.T. Collins Memorial Latrine" in his honor;[6] it features a plaque over the urinal with a quote from Collins: "If it ain't in Gilbert's, it ain't the Law."[7]