One of his last accomplishments in Sacramento was to sponsor a constitutional amendment pushed by Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh that created a full-time state legislature in California.

[citation needed] During the Watergate scandal, Waldie was a vocal critic of President Richard Nixon.

Three days after Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox (in what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre"), Waldie introduced a resolution calling for the impeachment of the President, one of the first members of the House Judiciary Committee to do so.

Instead, he campaigned for the Democratic nomination for Governor of California in the June primary election but was defeated by then-Secretary of State Jerry Brown, who went on to win in November.

He was chairman of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission from 1978 to 1979 and the executive director of the White House Conference on Aging (1980).