Jerry Brown
34th and 39th Governor of California
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Lieutenant	Abel Maldonado (2011) [1] Gavin Newsom (since 2011)
Preceded by	Arnold Schwarzenegger
In office January 6, 1975 – January 3, 1983
Lieutenant	Mervyn M. Dymally (1975–1979) Mike Curb (1979–1983)
Preceded by	Ronald Reagan
Succeeded by	George Deukmejian
31st Attorney General of California
In office January 9, 2007 – January 3, 2011
Governor	Arnold Schwarzenegger
Preceded by	Bill Lockyer
Succeeded by	Kamala Harris
47th Mayor of Oakland
In office January 4, 1999 – January 8, 2007
Preceded by	Elihu Harris
Succeeded by	Ron Dellums
24th Secretary of State of California
In office January 4, 1971 – January 6, 1975
Governor	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	H. P. Sullivan (Acting)
Succeeded by	March Fong Eu
Personal details
Born	Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr. (1938-04-07) April 7, 1938 (age 74) San Francisco, California
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Anne Gust
Residence	Oakland, California
Alma mater	Santa Clara University University of California, Berkeley Yale Law School
Religion	Roman Catholicism[2]
Website	Office of Governor Brown Jerry Brown

Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California (1975–83), and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor (2011–present).^[3] He is the son of Pat Brown, the 32nd Governor of California (1959–67).

Both before and after his first two terms as governor, Brown was elected to a number of state, local and party offices. Brown previously served as a member of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees (1969–1971), Secretary of State of California (1971–1975), chairman of the California Democratic Party (1989–1991), Mayor of Oakland (1999–2007) and Attorney General of California (2007–2011).

At the time of his election to a third, non-consecutive term as governor, on November 2, 2010, Brown was serving as the 31st Attorney General of California, an elected position. Brown was formally inaugurated as governor on January 3, 2011, the 28th anniversary of the end of his last term. During his first term (as California's 34th Governor), he was the sixth-youngest Governor of that state. Upon his inauguration as California's 39th Governor, he became its oldest serving governor.^[4] At the age of 74, Brown is also the oldest currently serving governor in the United States.

Brown sought the Democratic nominations for President of the United States in 1976, 1980, and 1992, and was the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in California in 1982 but was unsuccessful in these attempts.

Early life and education[link]

Brown was born in San Francisco, California, as the only son of four siblings born to Bernice Layne Brown and former lawyer, District Attorney of San Francisco and later Governor of California Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr.^[5] Jerry Brown has Irish ancestry through his paternal grandfather and German ancestry through his paternal grandmother.^[6] He was a member of the California Cadet Corps at St. Ignatius High School, where he graduated in 1955. He then studied at Santa Clara University. In 1956, Brown entered Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit seminary, intending to become a Catholic priest. However, Brown left the seminary and entered University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics in 1961. Brown went on to Yale Law School and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1964.^[5]

After law school, Brown worked as a law clerk for California Supreme Court Justice Mathew Tobriner and studied in Mexico and Latin America.

Legal career and entrance into politics[link]

Returning to California, Brown took the state bar exam and passed on his second attempt.^[7] Brown then settled in Los Angeles and joined the law firm of Tuttle & Taylor. In 1969, Brown ran for the newly created Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees, which oversaw community colleges in the city, and placed first in a field of 124.^[8]

In 1970, Brown was elected California Secretary of State. Brown argued before the California Supreme Court and won against Standard Oil of California, International Telephone and Telegraph, Gulf Oil, and Mobil for election law violations (Brown vs. Superior Court).^[8] In addition, he forced legislators to comply with campaign disclosure laws. While holding this office, he discovered the use of falsely notarized documents to earn a tax deduction by then-President Richard Nixon. Brown also drafted and helped to pass the California Fair Political Practices Act, which established the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Governor of California (1975–1983)[link]

First term[link]

In 1974, Brown was in a primary race with Speaker of the California Assembly Bob Moretti, San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto, Representative Jerry Waldie, and others. Alioto had support in Northern California and Moretti in Southern California. Brown had the name recognition of his father, Pat Brown, whom Democrats fondly remembered for his progressive administration.^[9] Brown won the primary, and in the General Election on November 5, 1974, Brown was elected Governor of California over California State Controller Houston I. Flournoy. Republicans ascribed the loss to anti-Republican feelings from Watergate, the election being held only ninety days after President Richard Nixon resigned from office. Brown succeeded Republican Governor Ronald Reagan, who had planned on retiring from office after serving two terms.^[10] Eight years after his father left Sacramento in 1967, Jerry Brown took office on January 6, 1975.^[11]

After taking office, Brown gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative.^[12] The American Conservative later noted he was "much more of a fiscal conservative than Governor Reagan."^[13] His fiscal restraint resulted in one of the biggest budget surpluses in state history, roughly $5 billion.^[14][15] For his personal life, Brown refused many of the privileges and perks of the office, forgoing the newly constructed governor's residence and instead renting a modest apartment at the corner of 14th and N Streets, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento.^[16] Instead of riding as a passenger in a chauffeured limousine as previous governors had done, Brown drove to work in a Plymouth Satellite sedan.^[17][18]

During his two-term, eight-year governorship, Brown held a strong interest in environmental issues. He appointed J. Baldwin to work in the newly created California Office of Appropriate Technology, Sim Van der Ryn as State Architect, and Stewart Brand as Special Advisor. Brown appointed John Bryson, later the CEO of Southern California Edison Electric Company and a founding member of the Natural Resources Defense Council, chairman of the California State Water Board in 1976. Brown also reorganized the California Arts Council, boosting its funding by 1300 percent and appointing artists to the council^[8] and appointed more women and minorities to office than any other previous California governor.^[8] In 1977, he sponsored the "first-ever tax incentive for rooftop solar" among many environmental intiatives.^[19] In 1975, Brown obtained the repeal of the "depletion allowance", a tax break for the state's oil industry, despite the efforts of lobbyist Joe Shell, a former intraparty rival to Richard M. Nixon.^[20]

Like his father, Brown strongly opposed the death penalty and vetoed it as Governor, which the legislature overrode in 1977. He also appointed judges who opposed capital punishment. One of these appointments, Rose Bird as the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, was recalled in 1986 by voters angry at her opposition to the death penalty. She and two other Brown appointed justices were the first such removals in California history.^[21] In 1960, he had lobbied his father, then Governor, to spare the life of Caryl Chessman and reportedly won a 60-day stay for him.^[22][23]

Brown was both in favor of a Balanced Budget Amendment and opposed to Proposition 13, the latter of which would decrease property taxes and greatly reduce revenue to cities and counties.^[24] When Proposition 13 passed in June 1978, he heavily cut state spending and, along with the Legislature, spent much of the $5 billion surplus to meet the proposition's requirements and help offset the revenue losses which made cities, counties and schools more dependent on the state.^[14][24] His actions in response to the proposition earned him praise from Proposition 13 author Howard Jarvis who went as far to make a television commercial for Brown just before his successful reelection bid in 1978.^[24][25]

The controversial proposition immediately cut tax revenues and required a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes.^[26] Proposition 13 "effectively destroyed the funding base of local governments and school districts, which thereafter depended largely on Sacramento for their revenue".^[27] Max Neiman, a professor at the Institute of Government Studies at University of California, Berkeley, credited Brown for "bailing out local government and school districts" but felt it was harmful "because it made it easier for people to believe that Proposition 13 wasn't harmful."^[19]

Second term[link]

Brown at premiere of Sylvester Stallone's movie F.I.S.T. in 1978

On November 7, 1978, Jerry Brown was re-elected governor. The Republican candidate was state Attorney General Evelle J. Younger, (1918–1989) a former Los Angeles County District Attorney. Jerry Brown had the attention of the state, national and international media.

Brown was responsible for appointing the first openly gay judge in the United States when he named Stephen Lachs to serve on the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1979.^[28] In 1981, he also appointed the first openly lesbian judge in the United States, Mary C. Morgan of the San Francisco Municipal Court.^[29] Brown completed his second term having appointed a total of five openly gay judges, including Rand Schrader and Jerold Krieger.^[30][31] Brown had completed his first term as governor without appointing any openly gay people to any position, but he cited the failed 1978 Briggs Initiative, which sought to ban homosexuals from working in California's public schools, for his increased support of gay rights.^[28]

Brown proposed the establishment of a state space academy and the purchasing of a satellite that would be launched into orbit to provide emergency communications for the state—a proposal similar to one that was indeed eventually adopted. In 1979, an out-of-state columnist, Mike Royko, then at the Chicago Sun-Times, picked up on the nickname from Brown's girlfriend at the time, Linda Ronstadt, who was quoted in a 1978 Rolling Stone magazine interview humorously calling him "Moonbeam".^[32][33] A year later Royko expressed his regret for publicizing the nickname,^[34] and in 1991 Royko disavowed it entirely, proclaiming Brown to be just as serious as any other politician.^{[35][36][37][38]}

Brown chose not to run for a third term in 1982 and instead ran for the United States Senate, but lost to then San Diego mayor Pete Wilson. He was succeeded as governor by George Deukmejian, then the Attorney General of California, in 1983.

1976 Democratic presidential primary[link]

While serving as governor, Brown twice ran for the Democratic nomination for president. The first time, in 1976, Brown entered the race in March after the primary season had begun, and over a year after some candidates had started campaigning. Brown declared, "The country is rich, but not so rich as we have been led to believe. The choice to do one thing may preclude another. In short, we are entering an era of limits."^[39][40]

Brown's name began appearing on primary ballots in May and he won big victories in Maryland, followed by Nevada, and his home state of California.^[41] He missed the deadline in Oregon, but he ran as a write-in candidate and finished a strong third behind Jimmy Carter and Senator Frank Church of Idaho, another late candidate. Brown is often credited with winning the New Jersey and Rhode Island primaries, but in reality, uncommitted slates of delegates that Brown advocated in those states finished first. With support from Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, Brown won a majority of delegates at the Louisiana delegate selection convention; thus Louisiana was the only southern state to not support Southerners Carter or Alabama Governor George Wallace. Despite this success, he was unable to stall Carter's momentum, and his rival was nominated on the first ballot at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Brown finished third with roughly 300 delegate votes, narrowly behind Congressman Morris Udall and well behind Carter. His name was placed in nomination by United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez.

1980 Democratic presidential primary[link]

Governor Brown in 1978

In 1980, Brown challenged Carter for renomination. His candidacy had been anticipated by the press ever since he won re-election as governor in 1978 over the Republican Evelle Younger by the biggest margin in California history, 1.3 million votes. But Brown had trouble gaining traction in both fundraising and polling for the presidential nomination. This was widely believed to be the result of the more prominent candidacy of liberal icon Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Brown's 1980 platform, which he declared to be the natural result of combining Buckminster Fuller's visions of the future and E. F. Schumacher's theory of "Buddhist economics", was much expanded from 1976. Gone was his "era of limits" slogan, replaced by a promise to, in his words, "Protect the Earth, serve the people, and explore the universe." Three main planks of his platform were a call for a constitutional convention to ratify the Balanced Budget Amendment, a promise to increase funds for the space program, and, in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, opposition to nuclear power. On the subject of the 1979 energy crisis, Brown decried the "Faustian bargain" that he claimed Carter had entered into with the oil industry, and declared that he would greatly increase federal funding of research into solar power. He endorsed the idea of mandatory non-military national service for the nation's youth, and suggested that the Defense Department cut back on support troops while beefing up the number of combat troops. He described the health care industry as a "high priesthood" engaged in a "medical arms race" and called for a market-oriented system of universal health care.

As his campaign began to attract more members of what some more conservative commentators described as "the fringe", including activists like Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, and Jesse Jackson, Brown's polling numbers began to suffer. Brown received only 10% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and he was soon forced to announce that his decision to remain in the race would hinge on a good showing in the Wisconsin primary. Although he had polled well there throughout the primary season, an attempt to film a live speech in Madison, the state's capital, into a special effects-filled, 30-minute commercial (produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola) was disastrous.^[42]

1980s[link]

In 1982, Brown chose not to seek a third term as Governor. Instead, Brown ran for the U.S. Senate for the seat being vacated by Republican S.I. Hayakawa. He was defeated by Republican San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson by a margin of 52% to 45%. After his Senate defeat, Brown was left with few political options.^[43] Republican George Deukmejian, a Brown critic, narrowly won the governorship in 1982, succeeding Brown, and was reelected overwhelmingly in 1986. After his Senate defeat in 1982, many considered Brown's political career to be over.^[43] Brown traveled to Japan to study Buddhism, studying with Christian/Zen practitioner Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle under Yamada Koun-roshi. In an interview he explained, "Since politics is based on illusions, zazen definitely provides new insights for a politician. I then come back into the world of California and politics, with critical distance from some of my more comfortable assumptions."^[44] He also visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, where he ministered to the sick in one of her hospices.^[45] He explained, "Politics is a power struggle to get to the top of the heap. Calcutta and Mother Teresa are about working with those who are at the bottom of the heap. And to see them as no different than yourself, and their needs as important as your needs. And you're there to serve them, and doing that you are attaining as great a state of being as you can."^[44]

Upon his return from abroad in 1988, Brown announced that he would stand as a candidate to become chairman of the California Democratic Party. Brown won the position in 1989 against investment banker Steve Westly.^[46] Although Brown greatly expanded the party's donor base and enlarged its coffers, with a focus on grassroots organizing and get out the vote drives, he was criticized for not spending enough money on TV ads, which was felt to have contributed to Democratic losses in several close races in 1990. In early 1991, Brown abruptly resigned his post and announced that he would run for the Senate seat held by the retiring Alan Cranston. Although Brown consistently led in the polls for both the nomination and the general election, he abandoned the campaign, deciding instead to run for the presidency for a third time.

1992 Democratic presidential primary[link]

When Brown announced his intention to run for president against President George H.W. Bush, many in the media and his own party dismissed his campaign as having little chance of gaining significant support. Ignoring them, Brown embarked on an ultra-grassroots campaign to, in his words, "take back America from the confederacy of corruption, careerism, and campaign consulting in Washington".^[47] Brown tapped into a populist streak in the Democratic Party.

In his stump speech, first used while officially announcing his candidacy on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Brown told listeners that he would only be accepting campaign contributions from individuals and that he would accept no contribution over $100.^[48] Continuing with his populist reform theme, he assailed what he dubbed "the bipartisan Incumbent Party in Washington" and called for term limits for members of Congress. Citing various recent scandals on Capitol Hill, particularly the recent House banking scandal and the large congressional pay-raises from 1990, he promised to put an end to Congress being a "Stop-and-Shop for the moneyed special interests".

As Brown campaigned in various primary states, he would eventually expand his platform beyond a policy of strict campaign finance reform. Although he would focus on a variety of issues throughout the campaign, most especially his endorsement of living wage laws and his opposition to free trade agreements such as North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he mostly concentrated on his tax policy, which had been created specifically for him by Arthur Laffer, the famous supporter of supply-side economics who created the Laffer curve. This plan, which called for the replacement of the progressive income tax with a flat tax and a value added tax, both at a fixed 13% rate, was decried by his opponents as regressive. Nevertheless, it was endorsed by The New York Times, The New Republic, and Forbes, and its raising of taxes on corporations and elimination of various loopholes which tended to favor the very wealthy, proved to be popular with voters. This was, perhaps, not surprising, as various opinion polls taken at the time found that as many as three-quarters of all Americans believed the current tax code to be unfairly biased toward the wealthy.

Quickly realizing that his campaign's limited budget meant that he could not afford to engage in conventional advertising, Brown began to use a mixture of alternative media and unusual fund raising techniques. Unable to pay for actual commercials, he used frequent cable television and talk radio interviews as a form of free media to get his message to the voters. In order to raise funds, he purchased a toll-free telephone number, (the same number is still in use by Brown) which adorned all of his campaign paraphernalia.^[49] During the campaign, Brown's repetition of this number combined with the moralistic language used, led some to describe him as a "political televangelist" with a "anti-politics gospel".^[50]

Despite poor showings in the Iowa caucus (1.6%) and the New Hampshire primary (8.0%), Brown soon managed to win narrow victories in Maine, Colorado, Nevada, Alaska, and Vermont, but he continued to be considered an also-ran for much of the campaign. It was not until shortly after Super Tuesday, when the field had been narrowed to Brown, former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, and frontrunning Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, that Brown began to emerge as a major contender in the eyes of the press. On March 17, Brown forced Tsongas from the race when he received a strong third-place showing in the Illinois primary and then defeated the senator for second place in the Michigan primary by a wide margin. Exactly one week later, he cemented his position as a major threat to Clinton when he eked out a narrow win in the bitterly-fought Connecticut primary.

As the press focused on the primaries in New York and Wisconsin, which were both to be held on the same day, Brown, who had taken the lead in polls in both states, made a gaffe: he announced to an audience of various leaders of New York City's Jewish community that, if nominated, he would consider the Reverend Jesse Jackson as a vice-presidential candidate.^[51] Jackson, who had made a pair of comments that were perceived to be anti-Semitic about Jews in general and New York City's Jews in particular while running for president in 1984, was still despised in Jewish communities. Jackson also had ties to Louis Farrakhan, who said Judaism was a "gutter religion," and with Yasir Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.^[51] Brown's polling numbers suffered. On April 7, he lost narrowly to Bill Clinton in Wisconsin (37–34), and dramatically in New York (41–26).

Although Brown continued to campaign in a number of states, he won no further primaries. Although overwhelmingly outspent, Brown won upset victories in seven states and his votes won to money raised ratio was by far the best of any candidate in the race.^[52] He still had a sizable number of delegates, and a big win in his home state of California would deprive Clinton of sufficient support to win the Democratic nomination, possibly bringing about a brokered convention. After nearly a month of intense campaigning and multiple debates between the two candidates, Clinton managed to defeat Brown in this final primary by a margin of 48% to 41%. Although Brown did not win the nomination, he was able to boast of one accomplishment: At the following month's Democratic National Convention, he received the votes of 596 delegates on the first ballot, more than any other candidate but Clinton. He spoke at the convention, and to the national viewing audience, yet without endorsing Clinton, through the device of seconding his own nomination. There was animosity between the Brown and Clinton campaigns, and Brown was the first political figure to criticize Bill Clinton over what became the Whitewater controversy.^[49]

Mayor of Oakland (1999–2007)[link]

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown (left) with U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (middle) and San Francisco Supervisor Gavin Newsom (right) in Feinstein's Washington Office. Both were considered possible challengers for Brown in the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Feinstein would remain in the Senate and Newsom would become Brown's Lieutenant Governor.

What was to become Brown's re-emergence into politics after six years was also the start of the renaissance of Oakland, California, a down-on-its-luck "overwhelmingly minority city of 400,000."^[53] Brown ran as an independent "having left the Democratic Party, blasting what he called the 'deeply corrupted' two-party system."^[53] Prior to taking office, Brown campaigned to get the approval of the electorate to convert Oakland's weak mayor political structure, which structured the mayor as chairman of the city council and official greeter, to a strong mayor structure, where the mayor would act as chief executive over the nonpolitical city manager and thus the various city departments, and break tie votes on the Oakland City Council.^[53] He won with 59% of the vote in a field of ten candidates.^[53] The political left had hoped for some of the more progressive politics from Brown's earlier governorship, but found Brown "more pragmatic than progressive, more interested in downtown redevelopment and economic growth than political ideology".^[54]

The city was rapidly losing residents and businesses, and Brown is credited with starting the revitalization of the city using his connections and experience to lessen the economic downturn, while attracting $1 billion of investments, including refurbishing Fox Theater (Oakland), the Port of Oakland and Jack London Square.^[53] The downtown district was losing retailers, restaurateurs and residential developers, and Brown sought to attract thousands of new residents with disposable income to revitalize the area.^[55] Brown continued his predecessor Elihu Harris's public policy of supporting downtown housing development in the area defined as the Central Business District in Oakland's 1998 General Plan.^[56] Since Brown worked toward the stated goal of bringing an additional 10,000 residents to Downtown Oakland, his plan was known as "10K." It has resulted in redevelopment projects in the Jack London District, where Brown purchased and later sold an industrial warehouse which he used as a personal residence,^[53] and in the Lakeside Apartments District near Lake Merritt. The 10k plan has touched the historic Old Oakland district, the Chinatown district, the Uptown district, and Downtown. Brown surpassed the stated goal of attracting 10,000 residents according to city records, and built more affordable housing than previous mayoral administrations.^[55]

Brown had campaigned on fixing Oakland's schools, but "bureaucratic battles" dampened his efforts. He concedes he never had control of the schools, and his reform efforts were "largely a bust".^[53] He focused instead on the creation of two charter schools, the Oakland School for the Arts and the Oakland Military Institute.^[53] Another area of disappointment was overall crime. Brown sponsored nearly two dozen crime initiatives to reduce the crime rate.^[57] Although he did decrease crime by 13 percent overall, and increased the police force, the city still suffered a "57 percent spike in homicides his final year in office, to 148".^[53] Critics were unable to convince voters in the 2006 race for attorney general that he was responsible for the increased crime rate.^[53]