Pat Brown
Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown 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, 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 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 twenty-two years, who beat him handily.
District attorney
Four years after his defeat, Brown ran for district attorney again in 1943 with the slogan "Crack down on crime, elect Brown this time." His victory over Brady was decisive, coming to the surprise of San Francisco politicians, as well as bookmakers who had put 5 to 1 odds against his election. He was reelected to the office in 1947, and after seven years in office, received the support of Republican Governor Earl Warren. He emulated the course followed by Warren when the Governor himself was the Alameda County district attorney. His actions against gambling, corruption, and juvenile delinquency brought attention to his office.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
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. In the general election, Brown defeated Republican U.S. Senator William F. Knowland by 1,029,165 votes, Proposition 18 and other anti-labor ballot measures were voted down, and Democrats were elected to a majority in both houses of the legislature, and to all statewide offices, excepting Secretary of State.Brown was known for his cheerful personality, and his championing of building an infrastructure to meet the needs of the rapidly growing state. As journalist Adam Nagourney reports: "With a jubilant Mr. Brown officiating, California commemorated the moment it became the nation's largest state, in 1962, with a church-bell-ringing, four-day celebration. He was the boom-boom governor for a boom-boom time: championing highways, universities and, most consequential, a sprawling water network to feed the explosion of agriculture and development in the dry reaches of central and Southern California." 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
With his administration beginning in 1959, Brown set in motion a series of actions whose magnitude was unseen since the governorship of Hiram Johnson. The post–World War II economic expansion brought millions of newcomers to the state which, along with the state's cyclical droughts, severely strained California's water resources, especially in dry Southern California. This began the California State Water Project, whose objective was to address the fact that one half of the state's people lived in a region containing one percent of the state's natural supply of water. Much of the state's extant water was controlled by regional bodies, and the federal government. These federally controlled areas were under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Reclamation, which was considering the implementation of a "160-acre principle", a policy contained within the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, limiting delivery of federally subsidized water to parcels equal to the size of a homestead, which was 160 acres. This brought strong opposition from the agricultural industry, and as such would require significant splintering of existent land holdings. To relieve this threat to the agricultural economy, Brown and other state leaders began the State Water Project, whose master plan included a vast system of reservoirs, aqueducts, and pipelines powered by pump stations and electrical generating plants to transport the water statewide. This included the capture of the Sacramento River runoff, redirecting the seabound water through the San Joaquin Valley, not only irrigating the arid desert regions, but also providing Southern California, particularly Los Angeles County, with the water required to sustain expansions in population and industry. The entire project was projected to take sixty years, costing $13 billion, nearly $104 billion in 2015 dollars.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. Governor Brown insisted on the Burns-Porter Act which sent the bond issue to a referendum; the 1960 vote saw Butte County as the sole Northern California county not voting against the measure. However, the growth in Southern California's population led to the plan's adoption.