Jerry Brown - The California Democrat's heir apparent

October 31, 9:56 AMLA History ExaminerCharles Nichols

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Jerry Brown

Gavin Newsom, the only declared Democrat running for Governor of California has dropped out of the race. Despite California's reputation as the land of fruits and nuts it was highly unlikely that had Newsom won the Democrat's primary election that he would have become governor. It was a posibility, there are plenty of "Gray Davis" Republicans with money who could make a run for it. Given the choice between the two, Republicans would have stayed home, much as they chose to stay home rather than vote John "MadMan" McCain for President and Newsom (or his clone) would be Governor.

There is still plenty of time however, for some other lunatic-left Democrat to make a run for the nomination.  After all, there certainly isn't a shortage of rich liberals in California and many of them have a mansion here in Los Angeles and vicinity that they can use as a legal residence to qualify for the ballot.

Barring that, the primary nomination is Jerry Brown's to lose.  The question remains, "Can Jerry Brown win the general election?"

Jerry Brown will easily carry San Francisco in the general election for governor, no surprise there. Brown can only hope that its current mayor, Gavin Newsom will sit on the sidelines and not campaign on his behalf because Brown can not win the general election without winning Los Angles County and he needs to win well here.

2010 is an off year election.  There will be no presidential candidates bringing Democrats to the polls and Democrats have historically not done very well running for governor. Even the late multi-term mayor of Los Angeles, the late Tom Bradley lost twice to the Republican candidate, George Deukmejian, in the 1980s. And Tom Bradey was a very popular mayor in Los Angeles.

Let's take a look at how well Democrats have done over the years.  In the last 100 years there have only been four Democrats who were elected governor of California.  Culbert Olsen served a single term during the Great Depression of the 1930s (1939-1943).  The next Democrat Governor of California was Jerry Brown's father Edmund Brown who was defeated in 1966 by Ronald Reagan. Reagan was succeeded by Jerry Brown who was in turn followed by a successsion of Republicans until the election of Gray Davis.  Gray Davis, as you might remember, was recalled by the votors and replaced by the nominal Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. Looking at the last few elections results for Los Angeles County: Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) (2006) 46.1% (Phil Angelides (D) 49.1%); Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) (2003) 45.0% (Cruz M. Bustamante (D) 37.4%); Gray Davis (D) (2002) 55.9% Bill Simon (R) 35.0% Even with 55.9% of the vote, Gray Davis narrowly defeated Bill Simon (R) by 0.2% in the statewide election results. As I mentioned, a Democrat must do well in Los Angeles County to offset votes from the rest of the state. So, as you can see, Jerry Brown isn't going to make his decision to run lightly.

Jerry Brown faces a second hurdle, given the demographics of Los Angeles County, and typical voter turnouts; he will have to run multiple separate, simultaneous elections.  One election will be to win the voters who are old enough to remember him as governor and another will be to win the voters who have never heard of him.

The median age of people living in Los Angeles County is 34.5 years.  That means half of the people now living in the county weren't even born when Jerry Brown was last elected governor (1978). 35.5% weren't even born in the United States, which helps explain why Arnold Schwarzenegger did so well here.  47.3% are Hispanic which, despite their overwhelmingly Democrat Party registration, are socially conservative.  Notwithstanding, the left-wing Latino activists who get most of the press, Hispanics have no problem with the death penalty, oppose gay marriage and believe homosexuality and abortion are immoral. Above all, they will support a candidate they perceive to be "macho" even if it is just a caricature as in the current "gubernator" Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jerry Brown needs to light a candle and pray that his Republican opponent is a woman or milksop Republican male. Even then, this would translate to a reduction in the number of Hispanic voters who turnout and not necessarily a vote for Brown, and Jerry Brown needs their vote; being a Roman Catholic won't be enough.

Brown has the authority, under the Constitution of the State of California, to step in and prosecute cases the County District Attorney refuses to prosecute. The current District Attorney of Los Angeles, Steve Cooley, has refused to prosecute the police officers responsible for the 2007 May Day melee at MacArthur Park. It is a given that Brown will not prosecute any of them as well. Brown values the support of the public employee unions far too much. A Republican candidate who has at least half a brain could use Brown's failure to his advantage by trumpeting it in the Hispanic press but where are you going to find a Republican with the money to run a statewide campaign in California with at least half a brain?

Brown's history of being on both sides of every issue will appeal to the Limousine Liberals and Barbecue Bolsheviks who hug the costal areas of the state but won't necessarily fare too well with the people who work for a living, particularly those who are out of a job. The jobless rate, which currently stands at a severely underestimated 12.7% isn't going to improve much over the next year.  The heavily gerry-mandered California Legislature is dominated by leftist Democrats who are going to stick with their failed economic policies as steadfastly as the now defunct Soviet Politburo did with their all too similar policies. I haven't even factored into account President Obama and the Democrats in Congress who will have controlled both houses of the US Congress for four years come the next election. Four years of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid controlling the US Congress. If that isn't a recipe for economic collapse what is?

The leftists who comprise the core of the modern Democrat Party might even realize that US troops are still in Iraq and Iran and all of their pet grievances they associated with Bush are still being pursued by Obama. In other words, they aren't going to be highly motivated to go to the polls.

I mentioned in an earlier article that Jerry Brown gave an interview shortly after leaving office to one of the high brow talk show hosts of the time. Brown was asked, given California's history of electing Republican governors, how did he manage to get elected twice?  I still recall Brown's answer.  His father had taught him that the only way a Democrat can be elected Governor of California is to be for the death penalty and against gun control. Gray Davis was the lone exception but look how well that turned out. Davis became the second of two governors to ever be recalled in American history, and there have been a lot of governors in the history of the United States.

So what were Jerry Brown's positions on gun control and the death penalty when he was governor and what are his positions now? The simple answer is then, as now, he was both for and against both of these issues. This is one of the reasons he was given the nickname of "Governor Ballerina" the other being that his relationship to Linda Ronstadt was alluded to be purely platonic. It was implied that Brown was a closet homosexual. His break with Ronstadt, coinciding with his leaving office didn't do much to dispel the rumors and even confirmed it in the minds of many of my generation. For the record, Jerry Brown was married in June of 2005 although having Senator Dianne Feinstein officiate his wedding probably wasn't the shrewdest move he could have made but he probably wasn't contemplating running for governor then. Brown's other nickname was "Governor Moonbeam" given to him by a hack, left wing reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper Mike Royko. This particular appellation was undeserved. Brown had proposed establishing a California Space Agency and space exploration was right up there with nuclear energy on the left-wing hit list back then.

As governor, Brown wasn't exactly a Tax and Spend liberal.  Although he dearly loved collecting taxes, and never seemed to meet a tax he didn't like, when it came to spending the tax dollars the state collected, that was a different matter entirely.

There were billions of dollars in a state highway building fund that Brown refused to spend. As a consequence the Interstate I-105 freeway was delayed for decades and cost billions of dollars more than it would have cost to build in the first place. Southern California still suffers from seemingly perennial droughts and consequent water shortages by his refusal to build the Peripheral Canal. Instead of giving rebates to California homeowners who were being driven out of their homes by skyrocketing property taxes, he held the money in reserve. This launched the Proposition 13 property tax initiative which reduced and capped property taxes. In response, the leftists in the state legislature had placed a loop hole ridden alternative on the ballot which Jerry Brown initially supported but once it became apparent that Proposition 13 was going to win in a landslide, Brown did one of his famous pirouettes and came out in support of Proposition 13. Hence the nickname "Governor Ballerina."

Brown didn't need to propose any new gun control laws as governor.  The California legislature and the US Congress had already enacted so many laws he would have been hard pressed to come up with any new ones that hadn't already been enacted by the time he was elected governor.  A little known fact to most voters is that machine guns were legal in California up until 1975. Technically, they still are legal but one needs a permit from the California Attorney General to possess one in the state and Jerry Brown, as California's Attorney General, hasn't exactly handed out the permits as if they were candy. Contrast this with the states bordering California; Oregon, Nevada and Arizona were they are relatively easy to obtain.  The hardest part about buying one in our neighboring states is coming up with the cash. The least expensive machine pistols (e.g., M11/Mac-10) cost close to $5,000 and one can look to spend $20,000 and more for a period Thompson Sub-Machine gun. Also take into consideration the ease which one may carry a loaded gun in these states and their relatively low per-capita crime rates.  All three states have major metropolitan areas and significant minority populations and yet more guns does not equate to more crime. Something to think about California.

But Brown can't resist being on both sides of an issue. Much to the chagrin of the government Attorney who recently argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the right of an individual to carry loaded guns in public (except for certain "sensitive" places) should not apply to the states as it now applies to the Federal Government. One of the judges, during the oral arguments, pointed out to her point blank that her own attorney general (Jerry Brown) had filed a brief with the US Supreme Court saying that the US Supreme Court Opinion in the District of Columbia v. Heller decision should apply to the states. This elicited a rather dismissive response from her which points to a weakness Brown will have attracting the left wing base of his Democrat Party to the polls to vote for him.  There is a price to be paid for being on both sides of an issue as former President Bill Clinton learned.

I read Jerry Brown's brief to the Supreme Court, although he did ask that their Columbia v. Heller decision apply to the states, even here, he has to be on both sides of an issue.  He asked that it apply, but only to keeping handguns in the home (the "specific relief" part of the decision sought by Heller). The Heller decision was for more expansive, an individual can only be prohibited from carrying a loaded gun in certain "sensitive areas" like courthouses and schools. Brown also asked that the states be allowed to maintain "reasonable" restrictions such as California's "unsafe" gun act which prohibits the commercial sale of handguns that have not been approved by the state of California. This is akin to saying that we reporters can write what we please under the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights so long as the state of California approves its publication.

Another little known fact is that it is already legal to openly carry a firearm throughout most of the state of California under state law, with certain restrictions as to manner and place.  For example, within the city limits, the firearm must be unloaded and when requested, one must present it to a police officer for inspection to insure that it is unloaded.  The reality is that since 1926 it has been the policy of the Los Angeles Police department to shoot you should you choose to exercise this right. Concealed carry of a loaded firearm is legal without a permit under certain circumstances as well, even within city limits. Refer to my article on the LAPD Death Squad of the 1920s for the applicable California State Penal Code sections.

I mentioned both in this article and my previous article on Jerry Brown that he has the authority to Prosecute cases the District Attorney refuses to prosecute. As the Attorney General for the State of California, Brown also has the authority to prosecute police officers, Sheriffs and District Attorneys as well. Since Brown has never done so, we can only presume that he believes every malfeasance of office and every case of police brutality that has occurred under his tenure, throughout the state, are perfectly legal. Or could it be that he values the support of the public employee unions more than he does the Constitution of the state of California? Either way, it does not speak well of his qualifications for being the next governor of the state.

The Death Penalty. It was never very clear what his position was when he was governor other than he seemed to support it, or at least did not go out of his way to say he opposed it when he ran for governor but then turned around and vetoed the state law which reimposed it (his veto was overridden). Circumstances of the times precluded testing his current stated position that he opposes the death penalty personally but will follow the law in his elected office (no executions took place when he was governor). Given that as Attorney General, his office requires him to represent the State of California in death penalty appeals, there is a long list of condemned inmates who have so far escaped execution. It is reasonable to conclude that as governor, Jerry Brown would most likely commute the sentence of any and all inmates awaiting execution.

Since history has kind of inverted upon itself in this election, the obvious question is what kind of Republican can defeat Jerry Brown?  Another Ronald Reagan could handily defeat Brown, but all of the Reagan Republicans left the state years ago. For the record, I don't dislike Jerry Brown. I didn't dislike Jimmy Carter, I thought Carter was a disaster as President but I didn't have any personal animosity towards him. I hate Bill Clinton to my very core and have no set opinion on President Obama. As far as I can determine, people either love or hate Obama based on personality. It can't be politics, he is carrying out the policies of his predecessor George Bush so there is no reason why former Bush supporters shouldn't be embracing Obama as well. Obama is just another Bush spelled with all capital letters. I was never a Bush supporter. The last President I supported was Ronald Reagan and he was elected thirty years ago. From my perspective, we have had one loser after another and the time to abolish the office of the Presidency has long since arrived. Come to think of it, why exactly does California need a governor?

I wonder what Alan Keyes is up to these days?

The photograph is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.