Jerry Brown For Governor: My Take

This week it wasn’t much of a sur­prise when Attor­ney Gen­eral Jerry Brown declared he was run­ning for Gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia once again.  You can reach his cam­paign web­page here.

The announce­ment had been expected for some time.  There are no other polit­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates run­ning.   (The web­site Politics1 cur­rently lists three oth­ers: retired busi­ness­man, real estate investor, and San Diego econ­o­mist Richard Aguirre; non-profit group founder and Pas­tor Joe Sym­mon; and Fred Medill, a col­lege stu­dent and founder-operator of Fred TV.)

Why He’s Run­ning
Prior Accom­plish­ments High­lighted
On Grid­lock And Gov­er­nance
Expe­ri­ence
Opin­ion
Question(s) For You

Why He’s Running

In his March 2^nd dec­la­ra­tion Brown said, “The polit­i­cal break­down in Sacra­mento is threatening(:) …”

• Jobs,
• Our schools and the
• State’s credit rating.

“… which is the worst in the coun­try … Our state is in seri­ous trou­ble and the next gov­er­nor must have the prepa­ra­tion, the knowl­edge and the know-how to get Cal­i­for­nia work­ing again. That is what I offer and that’s why I’m declar­ing my can­di­dacy for governor.”

“These are really seri­ous times, but our state is still the best place on earth to live and to raise a fam­ily,” Brown said. “Our busi­nesses lead the world in tech­nol­ogy and inno­va­tion. Our nat­ural envi­ron­ment is sec­ond to none. By mak­ing the tough deci­sions now, we can get through this cri­sis leaner and more effi­cient, poised for a come­back that will lead to a whole new period of pros­per­ity. That’s what dri­ves my can­di­dacy. But it’s not going to hap­pen overnight or with empty promises and photo ops. It takes patience and courage. But, together, we can all get Cal­i­for­nia work­ing again.”

Brown said that if elected he will be guided by three “gov­ern­ing principles.”

1. “First, I‘ll tell you the truth. No more smoke and mir­rors on the bud­get. No more puffy slo­gans and plat­i­tudes. You deserve the truth and that’s what you’ll get from me.”
2. “Sec­ond, in this time of reces­sion when peo­ple are finan­cially strapped, there will be no new taxes unless you the peo­ple vote for them.”
3. “Third, we have to down­size state gov­ern­ment from Sacra­mento and return deci­sions and author­ity to the cities, to the coun­ties and to local schools.”

On Grid­lock And Governance

Tak­ing a sub­tle swipe at cur­rent Gov­er­nor Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger and Repub­li­can con­tender Meg Whit­man, Brown said the key to end­ing the state’s par­ti­san grid­lock is a Gov­er­nor with in-depth knowl­edge of how gov­ern­ment and Sacra­mento pol­i­tics actu­ally function.

“Some peo­ple say that if you’ve been around the process you can’t han­dle the job, that we need to go out and find an out­sider who knows vir­tu­ally noth­ing about state gov­ern­ment. Well, we tried that and it doesn’t work. We found out that not know­ing is not good.”

Brown said the answer to Sacramento’s prob­lems “is not a scripted plan cooked up by con­sul­tants or mere ambi­tion to be gov­er­nor… We need some­one with insider’s knowl­edge, but an outsider’s mind,” Brown added, “a leader who can pull peo­ple together — Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats, oil com­pa­nies and envi­ron­men­tal­ists, unions and busi­nesses. We need to work together as Cal­i­for­ni­ans first. And at this stage in my life, I’m pre­pared to focus on noth­ing else but fix­ing this state I love.”

Brown explained that he has seen state gov­ern­ment “from every angle.”  “I’ve seen our government…when it works and when it doesn’t work. And it’s no secret that Sacra­mento isn’t work­ing today. The par­ti­san­ship is poi­so­nous. Polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing has replaced lead­er­ship. And the bud­get, it’s always late, always in the red and always wrong.”

Prior Accom­plish­ments Highlighted

In mak­ing his dec­la­ra­tion of can­di­dacy Brown and his staff cited many accom­plish­ments dur­ing his pre­vi­ous tenure as Governor:

“When I was gov­er­nor, Cal­i­for­nia added 1.9 mil­lion new jobs in eight years,” Brown said. “I know we can do it again and be the leader in renew­able energy, good jobs and qual­ity schools.”

Brown was California’s gov­er­nor from 1975 to 1983. Dur­ing those years he says he mar­shaled both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans in the leg­is­la­ture to slow the growth of state gov­ern­ment, elim­i­nate cap­i­tal gains taxes for many small busi­nesses, abol­ish the busi­ness inven­tory tax, index per­sonal income taxes, adopt the nation’s first energy effi­ciency stan­dards, and make Cal­i­for­nia the leader in co-generation, solar and wind energy. Private-sector jobs grew at almost dou­ble the national rate.

Brown says he con­sis­tently had bud­gets approved on time and built a pru­dent bud­get sur­plus to serve as a “rainy day fund”. He reduced the num­ber of state employ­ees per 1,000 Cal­i­for­ni­ans from 9.6 in 1975 to 9.2 in 1982. The tax bur­den for Cal­i­for­nia res­i­dents declined from $6.90 per $100 of income in 1975 to $6.72 in 1982.

Fol­low­ing the pas­sage of Propo­si­tion 13 in 1978, which cut prop­erty taxes col­lected by local gov­ern­ments by 2/3, Brown claims he used the state’s “rainy day fund” to help local school dis­tricts, police and fire depart­ments, cities and coun­ties main­tain essen­tial ser­vices. Propo­si­tion 13 author Howard Jarvis said, “I knew Gov. Brown was the man who could make it work.”

While curb­ing the growth of state gov­ern­ment, Brown insti­tuted cutting-edge envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions that became guide­lines for the nation to fol­low. He strength­ened the Cal­i­for­nia Coastal Com­mis­sion and estab­lished com­pre­hen­sive poli­cies gov­ern­ing devel­op­ment along the coast. He signed the nation’s first leg­is­la­tion requir­ing high school stu­dents to demon­strate basic pro­fi­ciency before grad­u­a­tion. State fund­ing for higher edu­ca­tion, includ­ing com­mu­nity col­leges, more than dou­bled dur­ing Brown’s eight years as governor.

His terms as Mayor of Oak­land, from 1999 to 2007, were also pos­i­tively cited. Brown’s dec­la­ra­tion claimed he recruited 10,000 new res­i­dents to the city, attract­ing more than 200 new busi­nesses to Oak­land, and cut­ting the num­ber of seri­ous crimes by over 30 percent.

Expe­ri­ence

Here is a brief list­ing of Jerry Brown’s elec­toral history:

1969 — Elected to Los Ange­les Com­mu­nity Board of Trustees

1974 — Runs for Gov­er­nor of California

1975 — Inau­gu­rated as the 34th Gov­er­nor of California

1976 — Runs unsuc­cess­fully for Pres­i­dent, but does best Pres­i­dent Carter in five primaries

1983 — Ends two terms as Governor

1989 — Elected State Demo­c­ra­tic Party Chairman

1992 — Runs unsuc­cess­fully for Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion, bests Bill Clin­ton in six states

1998 — Elected Mayor of Oak­land Cal­i­for­nia with 59% of the vote

2002 — Re-elected Mayor of Oak­land, receives 64% of the vote

2006 — Elected Attor­ney Gen­eral of California

2007 — Ends sec­ond term as Oak­land Mayor, assumes Office of Cal­i­for­nia Attor­ney General

2010 — March 2, Announces can­di­dacy for Cal­i­for­nia Governor

Opin­ion

I have been a Demo­c­rat in Cal­i­for­nia since I was first able to reg­is­ter as a voter some 40 years ago.  And I was an active young Demo­c­rat in my late teens through late 20s.  But I have never voted for Jerry Brown in any guber­na­to­r­ial or pres­i­den­tial pri­mary.  I just didn’t con­sider him “my kind of Demo­c­rat”.  There was always another can­di­date I pre­ferred more.

I will, how­ever, vote for him in this year’s pri­mary and gen­eral elec­tions.  This despite the fact that I was really hop­ing a younger, vibrant, and well-know Demo­c­rat would emerge.

And I will be encour­ag­ing Cal­i­for­nia vot­ers to sup­port Jerry Brown as well.  I think his many years of suc­cess­ful expe­ri­ence with a wide body of indi­vid­u­als and groups are just what we need.  He knows how to work effec­tively with busi­ness, labor, man­agers, work­ers, and inde­pen­dent entre­pre­neurs to build com­mu­ni­ties, pro­vide jobs, and enact fair and equi­table policies.

Above all he has demon­strated com­pas­sion and com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing the tools and con­di­tions under which peo­ple from all walks of life and abil­i­ties can work to improve their indi­vid­ual circumstances.

Com­pas­sion and fair­ness don’t get much atten­tion, weight, or impor­tance it seems in today’s elec­toral con­tests.  Between now and June 8 we will be enter­tained by Repub­li­can guber­na­to­r­ial rivals Meg Ryan and Steve Poizner bash­ing each other over who can be the big­ger heart­less right-wing mon­ster.  They will be attack­ing labor unions, gov­ern­ment employ­ees, folks on pub­lic assis­tance, so-called “ille­gal aliens”, and any­body else con­sid­ered dif­fer­ent and out of place in a well-off able-bodied white conservative’s view of what the world should be like.

I doubt we will hear either Poizner or Whit­man say one thing, for exam­ple, about how they are going to help low-income folks with dis­abil­i­ties con­tinue to live in their own homes when their in-home care work­ers are laid off as a result of Schwarzenegger’s bud­get cutbacks.

No, those two will instead be preach­ing the con­ser­v­a­tive narrow-minded fan­tasy that since they have run suc­cess­ful busi­nesses they can run state gov­ern­ment successfully.

But run­ning a gov­ern­ment requires an almost com­pletely dif­fer­ent set of goals and skills than run­ning a busi­ness.  As Brown said in an inter­view the day after his announce­ment, “… gov­ern­ment is not about sell­ing prod­ucts or slash­ing pay­roll or meet­ing Wall Street met­rics.  It’s about civic engagement.”

Go, Jerry, go.

Question(s) For You

Do you think you will be vot­ing for Jerry Brown for Gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia?
Do you have a favored can­di­date yet?
If not Brown, who would you pre­fer? (Or should that be “whom would you prefer?”)

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