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Enduring contradictions in career of Jerry Brown
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Oct 23, 2010 04:39am |
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| Category | Profile |
| Author | Bob Egelko |
| Media | Newspaper - San Francisco Chronicle |
| News Date | Saturday, October 23, 2010 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description |
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.
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. |
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