9.5: Governor Pat Brown

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown (public domain; FMSky via Wikimedia)

Leadership requires vision. Whether in politics or any other area of life, a leader should have a clear purpose. Why am I here? What are my goals? What is the theme that I wish to promote during my tenure? Governor Edmund Brown, Sr. served two terms as California's Governor, from 1959 to 1967. He acquired the nickname of "Pat" Brown as a twelve-year-old, selling Liberty War bonds on the streets of San Francisco. Brown would finish his speeches with Patrick Henry's famous revolutionary cry, "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" From then on, he was known as "Pat," and he carried this youthful patriotic energy all the way into the Governor's office (Rarick 13). Driven by the Democratic party philosophy of the New Deal, Governor Brown sought to fashion public policies to help California residents live happier, more productive lives and to persuade Californians to spend more for public purposes to benefit the common good. His efforts were rooted in the optimism and wealth of the post-World War II era, and his successes were a product of his ability to join his persuasive skills to the liberal sentiment of the times.

Second, a leader must have a practical strategy to achieve his goals. This strategy involves cajoling the different parts of California's political system—the people, the legislature, the bureaucracies, etc.—to work together. Pat Brown's approach was very old-fashioned, with the ability to be the ever-present politician, ebullient, extroverted, and organized, reaching out at the retail level to build relationships and patronage. His was not the slick-media candidacy that would become more common by the 1970s; he was the hand-shaker, the listener, the bargainer, the politician who sought to gather support in the pursuit of the vision that he saw for California. In short, Pat Brown was a pragmatist, seeking practical political solutions for the social problems facing a rapidly growing state.

Third, a leader's character—worldview, values, and style—is revealed through their goals and strategies. What ultimately matters to the Governor as a person? Governor Brown had a powerful sense of public obligation, that it was his duty to harness his strong work ethic to help the state of California in the best way that he knew how: through politics. An exploration of his political life as Governor shows these leadership qualities.

Pat Brown grew up as one of four children of Ida and Edmund Brown in San Francisco. His father owned a cigar store and engaged in many other business enterprises. As a child, Pat learned to hustle odd jobs, selling newspapers and sodas. He went to Lowell High School, the best public high school in San Francisco, where he showed leadership talent. He was the president of student clubs, student government secretary, and a yell leader. After high school, he worked at his father's cigar store and visited Yosemite National Park with friends for leisure. Brown wanted to go to college, but his father had fallen on hard times, so he went directly to law school at night and worked for a local attorney during the day. By the late 1920s, he had become an attorney himself.

He turned toward civic involvement as a member of the Elks and the Chamber of Commerce. While his first foray into politics was a losing bid for state assembly at the age of 23, he started a clean-government reformist political organization in San Francisco known as the "New Order of Cincinnatus." The organization gained many promising, honest politicians as members. Brown became more well-known. Historically, most Californians were Republicans, as was most of the country outside the South. Brown, however, drawn to New Deal liberalism, decided to switch parties and become a Democratic in 1935 (Rarick, Ch. 4).

As his law practice grew, Brown became active as a fundraiser for the Democratic state party and began running again for local office. In 1943, he was elected San Francisco District Attorney. By 1950, he was elected to his first statewide office, attorney general. Politically, he was a moderate, supporting the pragmatic Harry Truman over the left-wing candidacy of Henry Wallace. As attorney general, he supported liberal civil rights causes, such as protecting the rights of Native Americans, and liberal civil liberties positions, such as banning religious instruction in public schools.

When Republican Governor Earl Warren decided not to run for reelection in 1958, it was a perfect opportunity for Pat Brown to run for this seat. Brown ran on a platform of government activism promising more consumer protections, economic development, protection of civil rights, and spending for roads, schools, and water projects. He ran against the incumbent senator from California, William Knowland, who conducted a lackluster campaign focusing more on fighting Chinese communism than addressing the problems of a rapidly growing state. Brown also benefited from the support of labor with whom he shared opposition to an anti-union "right to work" proposition on the 1958 ballot (which was defeated). Pat Brown won easily, taking all but four of California's fifty-eight counties and a plurality of over one million votes. Moreover, it was a landslide for Democrats, who took control of the state legislature and almost all the elected executive positions (Rarick, Ch. 5).

In his inaugural address of January 5, 1959, Governor Brown set out his platform of "responsible liberalism" (California State Library). California's government must do more. It needed to provide the public services to match the needs of a growing state: new elementary and high schools, colleges and universities, roads and highways, more water projects, deeper commitments to civil rights and workers, and many more initiatives. With strong support from Democratic majorities in the state legislature, the Governor asked for and received increases in revenues—income tax, capital gains tax, and tobacco taxes, among others—to pay for his ambitious agenda.

In his first term of office, the Governor's most notable accomplishments were in four areas. First, in civil rights, a strengthened Fair Employment Practices Commission to investigate and adjudicate job discrimination claims was established. Second, the Governor shepherded the Master Plan for Higher Education through the legislature, which separated the missions of the University of California, the state university system, and the community colleges. He promoted legislation to fund more campuses for each level. Third, the Governor planned the California State Water Project to create the California Aqueduct. This project dammed the Feather River, bringing water over the Tehachapi mountains to southern California. Then, the Governor successfully campaigned for the multimillion-dollar bond proposition to fund the project. Fourth, funded by the gas tax, the state embarked on massive highway and freeway building projects across the state to accommodate a California population that by 1963 would exceed that of any other state.

Brown, in his first year, signed more than one thousand bills. Among the bills, disabled people received more health care and financial help. Unemployment insurance was expanded. Air pollution curbs were instigated. State workers received pay raises. Such historically Republican papers as the Los Angeles Times praised the Governor for his stewardship of a well-thought-out program (Rarick, Ch. 10).

What explains these successes? Indeed, a new governor may enjoy a honeymoon period at the beginning of his term, but far more was at play here. Governor Brown was riding a wave of partisan energy to address the needs of the state with very little opposition from more conservative forces. The enthusiastic boosterism of his projects caught the liberal imagination of Californians. A similar wave would sweep the whole country in 1960 with the election of Kennedy and the inauguration of more vigorous national Democratic activism. Brown succeeded because he took advantage of a relatively rare opportunity to make significant policy changes.

In his first term, the one episode that caused his popularity to plummet was the Caryl Chessman death penalty case. Governor Pat Brown was torn about whether to grant a stay of execution in February 1960 for Chessman, who had been convicted of multiple counts of rape, kidnapping, and robbery. In the early 1960s, the abduction connected with other crimes made him subject to the death penalty. Chessman had spent many years representing himself, proclaiming his innocence, and gaining the sympathy of Hollywood stars such as Marlon Brando to publicize his plea for clemency.

With his past as a district attorney and attorney general, the Governor was sympathetic to supporting the criminal courts' judgment of death. However, his Catholicism and his son Jerry Brown's personal entreaties on Chessman's behalf caused him to ask the legislature for a moratorium on the death penalty. They rejected his request, the State Supreme Court rejected clemency for Chessman, and ultimately, Chessman was executed. Brown's waffling made both opponents and proponents of capital punishment dislike his dithering about the issue (Pawel 113). This would not be the first time he would find it hard to respond to contradictory advice.

In 1962, the Governor prevailed in his reelection campaign against former Vice-President Richard Nixon. In his second term, Brown's most notable accomplishment was helping to pass the Rumford Fair Housing Act of 1963. This Act banned housing discrimination based on ethnicity, race, sex, marital status, physical handicap, or familial status in public and private housing of five units or more. Governor Brown was part of a coalition of liberals who sought to end the severe segregation of African Americans in the inner cities of California. At this time, it was next to impossible for many non-whites to purchase or rent housing in most suburbs. The passage of this Act sparked the first significant reaction to the Governor's liberal agenda. The real estate industry sponsored Proposition 14 to repeal the Rumford Fair Housing Act, arguing that private rights trumped racial equality. The Governor fought vigorously to persuade the California electorate to vote no on 14, but he failed. However, the US Supreme Court ruled Proposition 14 unconstitutional, and thus, the Fair Housing Act prevailed and was reinforced by national legislation in 1968 to achieve similar purposes (Pawel, Ch. 10).

By the mid-1960s, California politics was changing. Conservatives criticized Brown for being too liberal. Within his party, younger Democrats criticized his pro-law enforcement attitudes. The issue came to a head at UC Berkeley with the free speech movement.

Traditionally, the University did not allow anyone to demonstrate on campus. In 1964, civil rights activists wanted to raise money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress on Racial Equality to help organize voter registration drives in the South. One of the activists was Mario Savio, who was arrested while staffing a table on campus. This sparked massive sit-ins in the administrative buildings on campus to protest this lack of freedom. The Governor saw the students as spoiled brats who should be grateful to be able to attend college. The University administration wanted to negotiate with the students; the California Highway Patrol wanted to arrest every trespasser. Brown went with the law-and-order solution, and the subsequent media images of students being dragged away by the police caused Brown grief on both sides. Liberals derided his tactics; conservatives associated his governorship with the disorder (Rarick, Ch. 14). Brown again showed that he was a better booster for an extensive infrastructure program than a decisionmaker under pressure.

A year later, the optimistic spirit of California received its most severe blow yet when a drunk-driving arrest in the south-central Los Angeles Black community of Watts led to widespread rioting, looting, arson, dozens killed, hundreds injured, and millions of dollars in damage. Policing issues were but the tip of the problem. Housing, job, and educational discrimination imposed on African Americans through both de facto and de jure means was the underlying cause.

This time, the Governor was in Greece attending a convention and found himself rushing back to restore order. By 1965, the excitement of liberalism had worn thin. The left criticized moderate Democrats' failure to address the core problems of society. The right argued that liberalism caused chaos, promoted the wrong values, and pushed the California government into becoming an ineffectual nanny state.

Pat Brown ran for reelection in 1966 against Ronald Reagan. Brown underestimated the attraction of Reagan, considering an actor with hardly any political experience to pose little threat to his future. Reagan was a new-style politician adept with the medium of television and at magnifying conservative ire. The hand-shaking ebullient style of Pat Brown belonged to an earlier era in a less populated California where politics could still be somewhat of a retail experience. Brown lost (Rarick, Chs. 15 and 16).

In summary, Governor Brown's natural gregariousness enabled him to reach out and build a coalition of supporters. Catching the liberal wave of the late 1950s, Brown used his strong party majorities to effectively address many of the challenges of the late 1950s and early 1960s. As the Chessman and Free Speech movement episodes show, his administrative skills would sometimes fail him. Ultimately, the times changed, and Brown's politics and leadership style lost their luster.