Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
As governor from 1959 to 1967, Pat Brown was a builder on a grand scale - highways, water projects, the state's university system. His son, Jerry, reached the same office in 1975 and declared an "era of limits."
The new governor put the brakes on road-building and questioned the need to fill vacant judgeships. Symbolically savvy, he swapped the state limousine for a Plymouth, and regularly invoked E.F. Schumacher's book "Small Is Beautiful."
But Jerry Brown came from liberal roots, and his election revived an agenda that Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan had thwarted for eight years.
In two terms, Brown compiled a record that was both liberal and conservative on spending, taxes, crime and labor. It's a record that is coming under renewed scrutiny as he and Republican Meg Whitman approach the end of their race for governor.
In an echo of his "era of limits" rhetoric of 35 years ago, Brown promises to keep a lid on spending so that state government operations "live within our means." Neither he nor Whitman, who has made a similar pledge, has spelled out how to achieve that goal without disrupting critical services.
Brown also approved union organizing rights for teachers and state employees and signed the nation's first collective bargaining law for farmworkers.
But before he left office in 1983, Brown had clashed with liberal allies by cutting school funding and social service programs and endorsing a constitutional amendment for a balanced federal budget.
The same governor who vetoed a death penalty bill in 1977 also signed legislation that sent California's prison population soaring for the next three decades.
And the governor who had denounced Proposition 13's drastic property tax cuts as a "fraud" and a "can of worms" embraced the measure after it passed in June 1978, declaring himself a "born-again tax-cutter." Five months later, Prop. 13's archconservative sponsor, Howard Jarvis, supported Brown for re-election, an endorsement Brown has trumpeted during his current campaign for governor.
As Brown sometimes described his political navigation, "You paddle a little on the left and a little on the right and you paddle a straight course."
His critics said Brown's course mostly shifted with the political winds or the latest intellectual fad. His support of alternative energy sources and, later, a state-sponsored satellite prompted columnist Mike Royko to dub him "Gov. Moonbeam," a nickname that stuck even after Royko apologized.
"There's an essential Jerry ... intellectually curious, searching for significant meaning in life," said state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who was a Democratic legislator from San Leandro during Brown's governorship and later preceded him as state attorney general. "Anyone doing that sometimes looks like they're going in different directions."
Marc Poché, now a judge in Santa Clara County, met Brown in 1955 as the future governor's freshman dorm adviser at Santa Clara University. After Brown's election, Poché served as his top legislative aide for two years before Brown appointed him to the bench.
Both as a student and as governor, Brown "was interested in ideas to the extent you would think he was working on a Ph.D. in philosophy," Poché said. In Sacramento, "we would go into the wee hours of the morning, working these things out. ... Schedules meant very little to him."
Nor did such conventional notions as immediately filling judicial vacancies, said J. Anthony Kline, Brown's legal affairs secretary from 1975 to 1980.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/23/MNI81FIRM2.DTL#ixzz13LA6Lsyp
As governor from 1959 to 1967, Pat Brown was a builder on a grand scale - highways, water projects, the state's university system. His son, Jerry, reached the same office in 1975 and declared an "era of limits."
The new governor put the brakes on road-building and questioned the need to fill vacant judgeships. Symbolically savvy, he swapped the state limousine for a Plymouth, and regularly invoked E.F. Schumacher's book "Small Is Beautiful."
But Jerry Brown came from liberal roots, and his election revived an agenda that Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan had thwarted for eight years.
In two terms, Brown compiled a record that was both liberal and conservative on spending, taxes, crime and labor. It's a record that is coming under renewed scrutiny as he and Republican Meg Whitman approach the end of their race for governor.
In an echo of his "era of limits" rhetoric of 35 years ago, Brown promises to keep a lid on spending so that state government operations "live within our means." Neither he nor Whitman, who has made a similar pledge, has spelled out how to achieve that goal without disrupting critical services.
Brown's record
As governor, Brown signed laws protecting the coastline and farmland and expanding protections against sex discrimination. Two 1975 measures legalized gay sex and reduced marijuana possession from a felony to a $100 fine.Brown also approved union organizing rights for teachers and state employees and signed the nation's first collective bargaining law for farmworkers.
But before he left office in 1983, Brown had clashed with liberal allies by cutting school funding and social service programs and endorsing a constitutional amendment for a balanced federal budget.
The same governor who vetoed a death penalty bill in 1977 also signed legislation that sent California's prison population soaring for the next three decades.
And the governor who had denounced Proposition 13's drastic property tax cuts as a "fraud" and a "can of worms" embraced the measure after it passed in June 1978, declaring himself a "born-again tax-cutter." Five months later, Prop. 13's archconservative sponsor, Howard Jarvis, supported Brown for re-election, an endorsement Brown has trumpeted during his current campaign for governor.
As Brown sometimes described his political navigation, "You paddle a little on the left and a little on the right and you paddle a straight course."
His critics said Brown's course mostly shifted with the political winds or the latest intellectual fad. His support of alternative energy sources and, later, a state-sponsored satellite prompted columnist Mike Royko to dub him "Gov. Moonbeam," a nickname that stuck even after Royko apologized.
Just misunderstood?
Sympathetic observers said Brown's independent mind and willingness to question established concepts were mistaken for indecisiveness or opportunism."There's an essential Jerry ... intellectually curious, searching for significant meaning in life," said state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who was a Democratic legislator from San Leandro during Brown's governorship and later preceded him as state attorney general. "Anyone doing that sometimes looks like they're going in different directions."
Marc Poché, now a judge in Santa Clara County, met Brown in 1955 as the future governor's freshman dorm adviser at Santa Clara University. After Brown's election, Poché served as his top legislative aide for two years before Brown appointed him to the bench.
Both as a student and as governor, Brown "was interested in ideas to the extent you would think he was working on a Ph.D. in philosophy," Poché said. In Sacramento, "we would go into the wee hours of the morning, working these things out. ... Schedules meant very little to him."
Nor did such conventional notions as immediately filling judicial vacancies, said J. Anthony Kline, Brown's legal affairs secretary from 1975 to 1980.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/23/MNI81FIRM2.DTL#ixzz13LA6Lsyp
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