Pat Brown

Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown (April 21, 1905 – February 16, 1996) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 32nd governor of California from 1959 to 1967. His first elected office was as district attorney for San Francisco, and he was later elected attorney general of California in 1950, before becoming the state's governor after the 1958 election.

Born in San Francisco, Brown had an early interest in speaking and politics. He skipped college and earned an LL.B. law degree in 1927. In his first term as governor, Brown delivered on major legislation, including a tax increase and the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The California State Water Project was a major and highly complex achievement. He also pushed through civil-rights legislation. In a second term, troubles mounted, including the defeat of a fair housing law (1964 California Proposition 14), the 1960s Berkeley protests, the Watts riots, and internal battles among Democrats over support or opposition to the Vietnam War. He lost the 1966 California gubernatorial election for a third term to future president Ronald Reagan; his legacy has since earned him regard as the builder of modern California.

His son Jerry Brown was the 34th and 39th governor of California, as well as the 31st attorney general of California, holding two offices he once held. His daughter, Kathleen Brown, was the 29th California state treasurer, and an unsuccessful Democratic nominee for governor in 1994.

Background

Brown was born in 1905 in San Francisco, California, one of four children of Ida (née Schuckman) and Edmund Joseph Brown. His father came from an Irish Catholic family, with his grandfather Joseph immigrating from County Tipperary, Ireland. His mother Ida was from a German Protestant family. He acquired the nickname "Pat" during his school years; the nickname was a reference to his Patrick Henry–like oratory. When he was 12 and selling Liberty Bonds on street corners, he would end his spiel with, "Give me liberty, or give me death."

Brown was a debate champion as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society at San Francisco's Lowell High School, where he held twelve offices of student government; he graduated from Lowell in 1923. Rather than pursue an undergraduate degree, he instead worked in his father's cigar store, which doubled as a gambling shop. He studied law at night, while working part-time for attorney Milton Schmitt, receiving an LL.B. degree from San Francisco Law School in spring 1927. After passing the California bar exam the following fall, he began full-time employment in Schmitt's office.

Brown ran as a Republican Party candidate for the State Assembly in 1928, but lost badly; he moved to the Democratic Party in 1934, as the Great Depression had made him lose confidence in the pro-business Republican Party. He quickly became a New Dealer, and an active party participant. His second attempt at election to public office came in 1939, running for district attorney of San Francisco against Matthew Brady, an incumbent of nineteen years, who beat him handily.

In 1946, as the Democratic nominee, Brown lost the race for attorney general of California to Los Angeles County District Attorney Frederick N. Howser. Running again in 1950, he won election as Attorney General and was re-elected in 1954. As Attorney General, he was the only Democrat to win statewide election in California.

First term as governor, 1959–1963

thumb|right|upright=1.2|Pat and [[Bernice Brown at a campaign stop in Los Angeles, 1958]]

In the 1958 California gubernatorial election, he was the Democratic nominee for governor, running on a campaign of "responsible liberalism," with support for labor, and forcing the ballot name change of Proposition 18 from "Right-to-Work" to "Employer and Employee Relations," whereas Brown's opponent campaigned for such right-to-work laws as Proposition 18 provided. Brown appointed Fred Dutton as chief of staff as a reward for his enormously energetic and effective role as campaign manager. Bert Levitt, a Republican friend, was named director of finance to draw up a state budget. The role of press secretary went to reporter Hale Champion. Further down the ladder, Brown cleaned house, replacing all the political appointees of his predecessor, Goodwin Knight. His team worked hard in preparation for the governor's inauguration. Although he was basically a moderate, Brown reached out to the powerful left wing in his party by emphasizing the word “liberal” repeatedly. He proclaimed: "Offered government by retreat, the people preferred progress." California was attracting newcomers at the rate of 500,000 a year, and there was no time to be lost in responding to the needs they created.

A number of measures designed to benefit working people were introduced, including a Fair Employment Practices Commission that helped African Americans break through the informal barriers that had kept them out of white-collar positions. Numerous other reforms were passed, largely thanks to cooperation from the Democratic leaders in the state legislature, including George Miller Jr. in the Senate and Bill Munnell and Jesse Unruh in the Assembly.

Tax increase

Brown wanted to expand state services but first had to end the deficit and obtain enough revenue for his plans. Tax increases were headed by the personal income tax, where the top rate went from 6% to 7%, with new exemptions for the poor. There was an increase in the profits taxes paid by banks and corporations, a tax on cigarettes, beer, and betting, as well as a severance tax on oil and natural gas. A few compromises were made, but in the end, Brown got his money for expansion of the state budget.

California State Water Project

thumb|left|Map of the State Water Project infrastructure

With his administration beginning in 1959, Brown set in motion a series of actions whose magnitude was unseen since the governorship of Hiram Johnson.

Opposition to the State Water Project was immediate, especially with Sacramento River Delta users worrying about saltwater intrusion which had already been a concern without factoring in redirection of outward freshwater flow. Residents of the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California were concerned about the increase in water draw the South might demand as populations expanded. While Southern support for the project was clear, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California worried that the project did not ensure permanent rights to Northern water. This led the legislature to amend the plan, prohibiting the state's southern water rights from being rescinded, clearing any remaining reservations from the state's southern water authorities. Governor Brown was a staunch supporter of the plan, energetically opposing critics and seeking solutions. He lobbied Congress to exempt California from the 160-acre rule, lauding the benefit of employment and progress to the state's northern and southern residents, calling for an end to the north–south rivalry. Brown also reduced his introductory bond issuance from $11 billion to $1.75 billion, beginning a television campaign to appeal to residents. In September 1961, Brown appointed the secretaries of the first four superagencies (of eight then planned). The superagencies continue to exist today as part of the long-term legacy of the Brown administration, although there are currently only seven, and there are several Cabinet-level departments outside of them.

Another part of Brown's 1961 plan was to consolidate many basic maintenance functions such as building maintenance and grounds maintenance into a single government department, in lieu of the traditional approach in which each agency separately handled those functions. In September 1963, Brown began to appoint officials to lead the new California Department of General Services, after the legislature passed and he signed a bill creating that department.

Education

Californians were energized by the need to catch up with the Soviet Union, which had taken the lead in technology by launching the world's first space satellite Sputnik 1. Brown signed the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960. This new system defined the roles of the University of California, the California State University, and California Community College systems, each with different goals, objectives, offerings, and student composition. It provided a model for other states to develop their own similar systems. Governor Brown sought free higher education for California students, which the Master Plan provided. His successor, Ronald Reagan, would change this policy, insisting on student tuition. With the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, state education funding fell further, straining Brown's Master Plan due to lack of property tax funds.

Re-election of 1962 against Richard Nixon

thumb|left|Governor Brown speaks on Charter Day at [[UC Berkeley, 1962]]

Brown's first term as governor was very successful, but failings on important matters to him were costly. Agriculture and special interests defeated his best efforts to pass a $1.25 per hour minimum wage, and Brown's opposition to capital punishment was overruled by the practice being supported statewide. Brown was a supporter of Senator John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, but Brown's California delegation to the Democratic National Convention did not abide by his support for Kennedy, which nearly cost Kennedy the nomination. Brown's opponent in 1962 was former Vice President Richard Nixon. Having narrowly lost the presidency to Kennedy in 1960, Nixon was not interested in the governorship of his native California other than as a path to the White House. while the Rumford Fair Housing Act was passed, which provided that landlords could not deny people housing because of ethnicity, religion, sex, marital status, physical handicap, or familial status. This new law brought a slew of lawsuits against the state government, and led to California Proposition 14 (1964), which overturned the Rumford Act with nearly two-thirds in favor. The U.S. Supreme Court decision of Reitman v. Mulkey (387 U.S. 369) upheld the California Supreme Court's ruling that the proposition overturning the Rumford Act was unconstitutional.

Brown's terms in office were marked by a dramatic increase in water-resources development. The California Aqueduct, built as part of the program, was named for him. He also presided over the implementation of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, fair employment legislation, a state economic development commission, and a consumers' council. He sponsored some 40 major proposals, gaining passage of 35. By August 13, the third day of riots, Governor Brown ordered 2,300 National Guardsmen to Watts, which increased to 3,900 by the night's end. By the conflict's end, 1,000 people were wounded and 34 died, $40 million worth of damage was inflicted, and 1,000 buildings destroyed. This incident began massive protests and riots throughout the state which, along with developments of the Vietnam War, began Brown's decline in popularity. One of his more notable commutations was the death sentence of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, whose execution in the gas chamber for first-degree murder had been postponed because of an attempted suicide some hours before it was scheduled to take place. After Walker recovered, his execution was postponed while he was being restored to mental competency. After Walker was declared sane in 1961, Brown commuted Walker's death sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Walker was later paroled after the California Supreme Court held that the governor could not legally deny a prisoner the right to parole in a death-sentence commutation. Another prisoner whose death sentence was commuted by Brown committed at least one murder after being paroled. he later became an opponent of it.

The California Republican Party seized upon Brown's increasing unpopularity by nominating a well-known and charismatic political outsider, actor and union leader Ronald Reagan. With Richard Nixon and William Knowland working tirelessly behind the scenes and Reagan trumpeting his law-and-order campaign message, Reagan received almost two thirds of the primary vote over George Christopher, the moderate Republican former mayor of San Francisco; his push towards the general election held great momentum. At first, Brown ran a low-key campaign, stating that running the state was his biggest priority, but later began campaigning on the record of his eight years as governor. As Reagan's lead in the polls increased, Brown began to panic and made a serious gaffe when he ran a television commercial in which he told a group of schoolchildren that his opponent was an actor, and reminded them "it was an actor who shot Abraham Lincoln. The comparison of Reagan to John Wilkes Booth did not go over well, furthering the decline of Brown's campaign.

While no person elected Governor of California has been denied a second term since Earl Warren defeated Culbert Olson in 1942, Brown's losing bid for a third term to Ronald Reagan was the last time, as of 2022, an incumbent governor lost in the general election (Gray Davis' loss in the 2003 recall was a non-quadrennial election). Today, Governor Brown is widely credited with the creation of modern California.

Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938)
Kathleen Lynn Brown (born September 25, 1945)

In 1958, as governor-elect, Brown appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel show What's My Line?

After leaving office, Brown returned to the practice of law and also experienced success in business, investing in a company involved with the Indonesian petroleum industry. losing California to Kefauver. During Governor Brown's first term, the national census confirmed that California would become the nation's most populous state. This, along with Brown's political popularity, would contribute to two national presidential victories, when he pledged his votes to the national candidates, John F. Kennedy in 1960, and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, at the Democratic conventions. As governor, Brown was again California's favorite son in 1960, winning his home state with a large margin to his only opponent, George H. McLain. Running only in the California primary, the state's sheer population size placed him second, behind the eventual nominee, John F. Kennedy, thus repeating his 1952 state and national rankings. However, only one delegate cast his vote for Brown at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

During the 1964 primaries, by running again only in California, the nation's largest state electorate vote, Brown placed first this time in both the California and the Democratic national primary total, besting the eventual nominee. However, along with over a dozen other candidates, aside from George Wallace, Brown was a stalking horse for incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson, whose nomination was assured.

Brown also briefly sought the vice presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, winning one vote.

Electoral history

References

External links

Edmund G. "Pat" Brown letters, 1975-1993. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.
Official Biography and portrait from State of California
California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown. documentary film
Brown family of California at The Political Graveyard
Pat Brown's FBI files, hosted at the Internet Archive:
General file
FBI investigation of Brown commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission
Edmund G. Brown and Jerry Brown. Photographs from the Edmund G. Brown Papers, 1905-circa 1990 at the University of California, Berkeley Libraries