Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. (born
April 7,
1938), currently
mayor of the city of
Oakland, California, is an
American lawyer and
political figure. A
Democrat, Brown has had a lengthy political career spanning terms on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees (1969-1971), as
California Secretary of State (1971-1975), as
governor of California (1975-1983), as chairman of the
California Democratic Party (1989-1991), and as mayor of Oakland (1998-present). He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nominations for
president in
1976,
1980, and
1992, and was the Democratic nominee for the US
Senate in 1982. Brown will be the Democratic nominee for
Attorney General of California in the November, 2006 general election.
Brown was born in
San Francisco, California, the only son of former Democratic governor
Pat Brown, on April 7, 1938. He graduated from
St. Ignatius High School and studied at
Santa Clara University. In 1958 he entered Sacred Heart Novitiate, a
Jesuit seminary, intending to become a
Catholic priest.
However, Brown left the seminary and entered the
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 law degree in 1964.
After law school, Brown worked as a
law clerk for
Mathew Tobriner, a justice for the
Supreme Court of California, and studied in
Mexico and
Latin America.
Brown returned to California and was admitted to the
bar. Brown settled in
Los Angeles and joined the
law firm of Tuttle & Taylor. In the late 1960s, he entered politics by organizing
migrant workers and
anti-Vietnam War groups. In 1969, he ran for the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees, which oversaw
community colleges in the city, and placed first in a field of 124, helped by the alphabetical placement of names on the ballot and his family's name recognition.
In 1970, Brown was elected California Secretary of State. Brown used the position, which was historically limited in power, to bring suits against corporations such as
Standard Oil of California, ,
Gulf Oil, and
Mobil for violation of
campaign-finance laws and argued in person before the California Supreme Court.
Brown also enforced laws requiring members of the
California State Legislature to disclose sources of campaign funds and investigated allegedly falsely notarized documents that allowed
Richard Nixon to get a large
tax deduction. Brown also was an important figure in the drafting and passage of the California Fair Political Practices Act. These highly-publicized actions led to statewide acclaim, and led to his election as governor later.
In 1974, Brown was elected governor of California, succeeding the outgoing
Republican governor (and future president)
Ronald Reagan, who himself had become governor after defeating Brown's father, Pat, in the 1966 election. Jerry Brown took office in 1975.
Strongly opposed to the
Vietnam War, Brown had a broad base of support from California's young liberals who dominated the political scene. Upon election, he refused many of the privileges and trappings of the office, forgoing the grand
California Governor's Mansion (which was sold under Brown in 1983) and instead rented a modest apartment. Instead of riding as a passenger in chauffeured
limousines as previous governors had done, Brown drove himself to work in a
compact sedan from the state vehicle pool.
During his governorship, Brown seemed happy to work with innovators. He had a strong interest in environmental issues, which were being highlighted during the decade, especially as a result of the first
Earth Day in spring 1970. Brown 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. He appointed
John Bryson, the CEO of Southern California Electric Company and a founding member of the Natural Resources Defense Council, chairman of the California State Water Board in 1976. Brown reorganized the California Arts Council, boosting its funding by 1300 percent and appointing artists such as environmentalist and poet
Gary Snyder.
Brown appointed the first black (
Wiley Manuel), woman (
Rose Bird), and Latino (
Cruz Reynoso) to the Supreme Court of California.
Brown often proposed unorthodox ideas, including 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 would indeed be adopted by the state. In 1978,
Chicago Tribune columnist
Mike Royko nicknamed Brown "
Governor Moonbeam" because of the latter idea. The nickname quickly became associated with his quirky politics, which were considered eccentric by some in California and the rest of the nation. He was even the subject of "
California Über Alles" by the
punk band the
Dead Kennedys. In 1992, almost 15 years later, Royko would disavow the nickname, proclaiming Brown to be "just as serious" as any other politician.
While serving as governor, Brown twice ran for the Democratic nomination for president. The first time, in 1976, Brown entered the race very late in the primary season as the focus of a movement to stop the nomination of former
Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter, who many in the party felt was unelectable due to his perceived lack of a record for success in his brief tenure as a governor.
Citing his record of having curbed his state's spending and balanced its budget while expanding services in the area of welfare, employment, and consumer and environmental protection, Brown proclaimed his belief that there would soon be a voter backlash against expansive and costly government policies. "This is an era of limits, and we had all better get used to it," he declared. Brown's name began appearing on primary ballots in May and he won a big vitory in
Maryland, followed by
Nevada, and his home state of California. Brown missed the deadline in
Oregon, but he ran as a write in candidate and finished a strong third behind Carter and Senator
Frank Church of
Idaho, another late candidiate. 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. 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.
In
1980, he ran again, attempting to challenge Carter for renomination. His candidacy had been anticipated by the press ever since he won reelection in California by the biggest margin in California history, 1.3 million votes, but he had trouble gaining traction in both fundraising and polling. This was widely believed to be the result of the more prominent candidacy of
liberal icon Senator
Ted Kennedy of
Massachusetts.
As his campaign that year was much longer, his 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." The three main planks of his platform were a call for a
constitutional convention to ratify the
Balanced Budget Amendment, a unilateral opposition to
nuclear power, and a promise to increase funds for the
space program. 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. On the subject of the
Energy Crisis, he decried the "
Faustian bargain" that he claimed Carter had entered into with the
oil industry, and he declared that he would greatly increase the federal
subsidy of research into
solar power. He described the
health care industry as a "high priesthood" engaged in a "medical
arms race" and he called for a market-oriented system of
universal health care.
As his campaign began to attract more and more members of what some described as "the fringe," including the likes of
Jane Fonda,
Tom Hayden, and
Jesse Jackson, Brown's polling numbers began to suffer. He 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, a disastrous and bizarre attempt at filming a live,
special effects-filled, thirty-minute commercial (produced and directed by
Francis Ford Coppola) led to the melt-down of his candidacy. He received just 12% of the vote in the primary. He withdrew from the race the next day, having spent $2 million, won no primaries, and received exactly one delegate to the convention.
Brown's 1980 Presidential Campaign is mentioned in the song "California Uber Alles" by California-based punk legends
Dead Kennedys.
In
1982, Brown chose not to seek a third term as Governor, which was allowed at that time. Instead he ran for the
U.S. Senate. That year, his alleged mishandling of a
medfly infestation of the state's fruit farms sent his approval ratings into a nosedive, and he was defeated by Republican
Pete Wilson by a margin of 51% to 45%. Republican
George Deukmejian won the governorship in 1982, succeeding Brown, and was reelected in 1986. After his Senate defeat in 1982, many considered Brown's political career to be over. During the 1980s, Brown traveled to Japan to study Buddhism, studying with Christian/Zen teacher
Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, among others. He also visited
Mother Teresa in
Calcutta, India, where he ministered to the sick in one of her
hospices.
Upon his return from abroad in
1988, he announced that he would stand as a candidate to become
chairman of the
California Democratic Party. Brown won the position in
1989 against the less experienced
Steve Westly. Westly criticized Brown as the candidate of moneyed interests. Westly later went on to be enormously successful with
eBay and in 2006 ran in the Democratic primary for Governor, but lost to
Phil Angelides.
Brown experienced an abbreviated tenure that could best be described as controversial. He greatly expanded the party's donor base and enlarged its coffers, with a focus on
grassroots organizing and
get out the vote drives. 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 quickly abandoned the campaign, deciding instead to run for the presidency for a third time.
When he 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 an ego-trip with little chance of gaining significant support. Ignoring them, Brown, correctly gauging the anti-
establishment viewpoint of most voters that year, embarked on an ultra-
grassroots campaign to, in his words, "take back America from the confederacy of
corruption,
careerism, and campaign
consulting in Washington." To the surprise of many, Brown was able to tap a
populist streak in the Democratic Party, a feat that many would later see as the precursor to the
2004 presidential campaign of Governor
Howard Dean.
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 dollars. 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
check-bouncing scandal and the large
congressional pay-raises from
1990, he promised to put an end to Congress being a "
Stop-and-Shop for the monied
special interests."
As he campaigned in various primary states, Brown 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
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
fundraising techniques which was derided at the time as "silly," but would later be dubbed "revolutionary." Unable to pay for actual commercials, Brown 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, which adorned all of his campaign paraphernalia. During the campaign, Brown's constant repetition of this number (at
rallies, during
interviews, and in the middle of
debates), combined with the ultra-
moralistic language he used, led some to describe him as a "political
televangelist."
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 now 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 serious
gaffe: He announced to an audience of various leaders of
New York City's community that, if nominated, he would consider the Reverend
Jesse Jackson as a vice-presidential candidate. Jackson, who had made a pair of
anti-Semitic comments about Jews in general and New York City's Jews in particular while running for president in
1984, was still a widely hated figure in that community and Brown's polling numbers suffered. On
April 7, he lost both primaries to Clinton by a razor-thin margin.
Although Brown continued to campaign in a number of states, he won no further primaries. Despite this, 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 nomination, which Brown apparently thought would revert to him by default. 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 he did not win the nomination, Brown 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.
For several years, Brown hosted a talk and call-in radio show on the local
Pacifica group station, KPFA. The radio show and Brown's political action group were called
We the People. In discussions he strongly critiqued both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as the death penalty. In early 1998, Brown announced that he was leaving the Democratic Party and changed his party registration to "
Decline to State". He terminated his show that same year to run for the nonpartisan office of Mayor of Oakland (all municipal and county offices in California are by law nonpartisan).
In June 1998, he was elected
mayor of the city of Oakland, and took office in January 1999. Within a few weeks of his inauguration, one of his first acts as Mayor of Oakland was to invite the
United States Marine Corps to stage war games titled
Urban Warrior in the defunct Oakland Army Base and on the closed grounds of the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital after the
National Park Service rejected the Marines' request to use
Crissy Field in San Francisco. Hundreds of Oakland citizens and anti-military activists rallied against the exercise. A later action was to get the approval of the electorate to convert Oakland's
weak mayor political structure (the mayor as chairman of the city council and official greeter) to a strong mayor structure (the mayor as chief executive over the nonpolitical
city manager and thus the various city departments and not a council member). This strong mayor structure in many ways is similar to that of the nearby city of
San Francisco. Other efforts including acquiring millions of dollars in state and federal funding to open two charter schools that are now among the top-ranked in Oakland. Brown was reelected with over 60 percent of the vote in
2002.
Much to the dismay and anger of his progressive supporters, Brown's politics since becoming Mayor of Oakland have moved far more centrist. He explains this ideological shift as dealing with the realities of being a big-city mayor with real problems. After having left the Democratic Party because he felt that it no longer stood up for progressive ideals, Brown re-registered as a Democrat shortly thereafter. In
2000, Brown endorsed
Al Gore for President shortly before the California primary, although Gore was being challenged from the left by
Bill Bradley.
In
2003, Brown and fellow Democratic Mayor
Jim Hahn of
Los Angeles praised Republican Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger for his decisive actions regarding the suppression of the reinstitution of portions the
vehicle license fee (labeled by opponents as the
car tax) and some restoration of state funding for city governments, implying that
Gray Davis (who had been Governor Brown's Chief of Staff in the
1970s) had acted poorly in this regard.
Since Brown's terms in office before 1990 are not covered by term limits that came into effect in 1990, it is possible that he could once again run for governor. However, in early
2004, Brown expressed his interest to be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for
Attorney General of California in the
2006 election. On
May 18,
2004, he formally filed the necessary papers to begin his campaign for the nomination. According to the campaign's official website, he has already raised nearly $5 million in contributions. Recent polls have shown him leading all other candidates in the race. [
1]
Brown beat fellow Democrat
Rocky Delgadillo for the nomination for Attorney General. He will face
Republican State Senator Charles Poochigian in the general election.
For many years Brown remained unmarried. He could occasionally be seen dating high-profile women, the most notable of whom was
Linda Ronstadt. Brown also had a long friendship with
Lorenzo Jacques Barzaghi, his aide-de-camp, a former French paratrooper whom he met in the early 1970s and put on his payroll. According to author Roger Rapaport, "this combination clerk, chauffeur, fashion consultant, decorator and trusted friend had no discernible powers. Yet late at night, after everyone had gone home to their families and TV consoles, it was Jacques who lingered in the Secretary (of state's) office."
Barzaghi lived with Brown in the warehouse in
Jack London Square, and was brought into Oakland city government upon Brown's election as mayor, where Barzaghi first acted as the mayor's armed bodyguard. Brown later awarded Barzaghi with high paying city jobs, including "Arts Director." Brown dismissed Barzaghi in July 2004.
In
March 2005, Brown announced his engagement to his partner, Anne Gust, former chief counsel for
Gap. They were married on June 18 in a ceremony officiated by Senator
Dianne Feinstein in the
Rotunda Building in downtown Oakland. They had a second, religious ceremony later in the day in the Roman Catholic church in San Francisco where Brown's parents had been married. Brown and Gust live near downtown Oakland, at the former
Sears Roebuck Building, with their black labrador, Dharma.
Since
May 2005, Brown has been a contributing author at
The Huffington Post weblog.
Brown has been subject to a fair share of political criticism in his career, from being labeled "Governor Moonbeam" by Chicago Tribune columnist
Mike Royko, (who later said he was sorry he did it), to being blamed for amassing, as Governor, a huge surplus in state coffers that led to the infamous tax rebellion, the Jarvis Gann initiative, (
proposition 13) which halted increases in property taxes for both homeowners and corporations that held onto their property. Declaring himself a "Born-Again Taxcutter," Brown tried to jump in front of Proposition 13 at the last minute in the election year of 1978.
In 2006, the murder rate in Oakland in the first two months was triple the same period in 2005, leading some critics to suggest that Brown had failed to make the city safer. Violent crime decreased by a third during his tenure, however, and he attempted to enact several innovative anti-crime programs, including a night curfew for convicted felons. His campaigns to fix the schools, fill downtown with residents, create an "arts" city and curb crime have had mixed success.
"Vitriol can irritate, but it is often the price of freewheeling discussion and the discovery of important stuff."--from his
BlogI will "Protect the Earth, Serve the People and Explore the Universe." campaign slogan in 1980 presidential primary campaign.
"Clinton is not going to get the nomination," the former California governor said during a satellite interview at a Milwaukee television station. "You can put that in your tape recorders and ask me about it in a couple months."(Capital Times, 3/28/92)
"It doesn't matter what I say as long as I sound different from other politicians.'"(Oakland Tribune 9/6/05))
"The power of the individual to be free of government influence should include preventing intrusions in our bedrooms, our blood-stream, our hair and our urine."(Orlando Sentinel, January 23, 1992)
"There is a refreshing note to all of this," said Brown, reflecting on the recall election that ousted Gov. Gray Davis.
Schwarzenegger "ran against special interests, said he'll do right by the people and has shown unprecedented goodwill with bi-partisan appointments to his transition team," Brown said.
"I've been in office and I've been out of office. And if I were to choose, I'd rather be in office."
(Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2004, "Capitol Journal")
"Reelection upon reelection of the same incumbents occurs at the expense of new ideas, new energy, and honest representation."[Jerry Brown's Announcement Speech October 21, 1991]
"A high-class casino would bring in a lot of money a billion and a half goes to South Lake Tahoe from the Bay Area and we could capture a significant amount of that money, and much of it could go to Oakland."(KQED The Celebrity and the City)
"A little vagueness goes a long way in this business." (Newsweek, May 31, 1976)
* Bollins, John C. and Robert G. Williams.
Jerry Brown: In a Plain Brown Wrapper (Pacific Palisades, California: Palisades Publishers, 1978). ISBN 0913530123
* Rapaport, Roger.
California Dreaming: The Political Odyssey of Pat & Jerry Brown (Nolo Press Berkeley CA 1982) ISBN 0-917316-48-7
* Brown, Jerry.
Dialogues (Berkeley, California: Berkeley Hills Books, 1998). ISBN 0965377490
* Lorenz, J. D.
Jerry Brown: The Man on the White Horse (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1978). ISBN 0395257670
* McDonald, Heather.
"Jerry Brown's No-Nonsense New Age for Oakland",
City Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4, Autumn 1999.
* Pack, Robert.
Jerry Brown, The Philosopher-Prince (New York: Stein and Day, 1978). ISBN 0812824377
* Schell, Orville.
Brown (New York: Random House, 1978). ISBN 0394410432
*
Official Web Site of the Brown Campaign*
2006 Candidates for California Attorney General*
Office of the Mayor - City of Oakland*
Brown's Blog*
Biography from the State of California*
Jerry Brown Political History*
A spirited defense of Brown*
Oakland Youth*
Brown's Art district a bust*
"Jerry Brown Gives Us the Aging Rock Star Tour by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor,
Berkely Daily Planet*
Jerry Brown Blog at Huffington Post*
"For Many, Jerry Brown Is the Life of the Party By John Balzar,
Los Angeles Times
