Edmund G. Brown, Sr.
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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 The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" ( Constitution of California, Article V, Secti ...
in 1950, before becoming the state's governor after the
1958 California gubernatorial election The 1958 California gubernatorial election was held on Tuesday November 4, Democratic candidate Pat Brown won the first of his two terms as governor of California against Republican senator William Knowland. General election results California w ...
. Born in San Francisco, Brown had an early interest in speaking and politics. He skipped college and he earned an
LL.B. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
law degree in 1927. In his first term as governor Brown delivered on a major legislation including a tax increase and the
California Master Plan for Higher Education The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 was developed by a survey team appointed by the Regents of the University of California and the California State Board of Education during the administration of Governor Pat Brown. UC Preside ...
. The
California State Water Project The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public wate ...
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 California Proposition 14 was a November 1964 initiative ballot measure that amended the California state constitution to nullify the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act, thereby allowing property sellers, landlords and their agents to openly discrimi ...
), the 1960s Berkeley protests, the Watts riots, and internal battles among Democrats over support or opposition to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
. He lost the
1966 California gubernatorial election The 1966 California gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1966. The election was a contest primarily between incumbent governor Pat Brown and former actor Ronald Reagan, who mobilized conservative voters and defeated Brown in a landsli ...
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 Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of ...
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 Kathleen Lynn Brown (born September 25, 1945) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 29th Treasurer of California from 1991 to 1995. Brown unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in the 1994 election. Early life and e ...
, was the 29th
California State Treasurer The state treasurer of California is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of California. Thirty-five individuals have held the office of state treasurer since statehood. The incumbent is Fiona M ...
.


Background

Brown was born 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 County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after t ...
, 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 Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first a ...
–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. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
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 Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
, corruption, and juvenile delinquency brought attention to his office. In 1946, as the Democratic nominee, Brown lost the race for
Attorney General of California The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" ( Constitution of California, Article V, Secti ...
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 The 1958 California gubernatorial election was held on Tuesday November 4, Democratic candidate Pat Brown won the first of his two terms as governor of California against Republican senator William Knowland. General election results California w ...
, 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 with a near three-fifths majority, 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 Adam Nagourney (born October 10, 1954) is an American journalist who covered the 2020 presidential race for ''The New York Times''. Life and career Nagourney was born in New York City and graduated from the State University of New York at Purcha ...
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 Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
and development in the dry reaches of central and
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
." Brown appointed
Fred Dutton Frederick Gary Dutton (June 16, 1923 – June 27, 2005) was a lawyer and Democratic Party power broker who served as campaign manager and Chief of Staff for California Governor Pat Brown, Special Assistant to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and ...
as chief of staff as a reward for his enormously energetic and effective row last 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 of Knight's political appointees. 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." Newcomers were arriving at 500,000 a year, and there was no time to be lost in responding to the needs they created. He set up a Fair Employment Practices Commission that helped African Americans break through the informal barriers that it kept them out of white collar positions. Numerous other reforms were passed, largely thanks to cooperation with 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 ambitious 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 a major increase in the profits taxes paid by banks and corporations, a tax on cigarettes, beer, and betting, as well as a highly controversial severance tax on oil and natural gas. A few compromises were made but Brown got his money for expansion, while also getting the reputation as a high tax politician.


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 Hiram Warren Johnson (September 2, 1866August 6, 1945) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 23rd governor of California from 1911 to 1917. Johnson achieved national prominence in the early 20th century. He was elected in 191 ...
. The
post–World War II economic expansion The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 recession. The ...
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 The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public wate ...
, 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 The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...
, 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 The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento ...
runoff, redirecting the seabound water through the
San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...
, 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 ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
users worrying about
saltwater intrusion Saltwater intrusion is the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers, which can lead to groundwater quality degradation, including drinking water sources, and other consequences. Saltwater intrusion can naturally occur in coastal aquifers, ...
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 The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a regional wholesaler and the largest supplier of treated water in the United States. The name is usually shortened to "Met," "Metropolitan," or "MWD." It is a cooperative of fourteen cit ...
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.


Political reforms

The first year of Brown's administration saw the abolition of the cross-filing system which had enabled candidates to file with multiple political parties at once while running for office. The 1964 Supreme Court decision of '' Reynolds v. Sims'' declared unconstitutional California's "federal plan," which had allocated the apportionment of state senators through county lines, as opposed to population-based districts. Now, while San Francisco County had one state senator, Los Angeles County received thirteen; this massive shift in the legislature's composition led Brown, along with Assembly Speaker
Jesse M. Unruh Jesse Marvin Unruh (, ; September 30, 1922 – August 4, 1987), also known as Big Daddy Unruh, was an American politician who served as speaker of the California State Assembly and as the California State Treasurer. Early life and education Born ...
, to change the way California government operated. In 1962, the Constitutional Revision Commission, which operated until 1974, was established, proposing changes to the state's 1879 constitution, decreasing length and complexity by nearly fifty percent through ballot propositions recommended by the commission, of which seventy-five percent were approved by voters. Such reforms as the removal of the 120-day limit on legislative sessions, increasing legislator's salaries, and reduced the percentage of signatures required to place propositions on the ballot. Governor Brown insisted on Unruh's reforms which abolished various government agencies, and consolidated others.


Education

Californians were energized by the need to catch up with the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, 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 The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 was developed by a survey team appointed by the Regents of the University of California and the California State Board of Education during the administration of Governor Pat Brown. UC Preside ...
in 1960. This new system defined the roles of the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
, the
California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...
, 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.


Re-election of 1962 against Richard Nixon

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's being supported statewide. Brown was a supporter of Senator
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
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 his nomination. Brown's opponent in 1962 was former
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. Having narrowly lost the Presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960, Nixon was not interested in the governorship of his native California other than as a path to the White House. Unfamiliar with California politics and matters, Nixon resorted to accusing Brown of 'softness' against communism, which was not a successful platform. In the November 1962 election, Brown was reelected governor, with a four-point margin of victory, while Nixon famously held his "last press conference", although he would eventually go on to become president in 1969.


Second term as governor, 1963–1967

The legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, which provided that
landlord A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, t ...
s 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 The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...
'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.


Watts riots

On August 11, 1965, the Watts riots erupted in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, lasting for a week. On the evening of the same day, Marquette Frye was pulled over on suspicion of driving while under the influence; a field sobriety test was administered, he was arrested, and the police officer called for the impounding of his vehicle. When his mother, Rena Price, was brought to the scene by his brother, a scuffle began, and soon crowds built, snowballing the incident into full-blown riots. 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.


Capital punishment

During both terms in office, Brown commuted 23
death sentences Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, signing the first commutation on his second day in office. One of his more notable commutations was the death sentence of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, whose execution in the
gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History ...
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 Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
. Walker was later paroled after the California Supreme Court held that Governor Brown 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. While governor, Brown's attitude toward the death penalty was often ambivalent, if not arbitrary. An ardent supporter of gun control, he was more inclined to let convicts go to the gas chamber if they had killed with guns than with other weapons. He later admitted that he had denied clemency in one death penalty case principally because the legislator who represented the district in which the murder occurred held a swing vote on farmworker legislation supported by Brown, and had told Brown that his district "would go up in smoke" if the governor commuted the man's sentence. In contrast, Governor Brown approved 36 executions, including the highly controversial cases of Caryl Chessman in 1960 and Elizabeth Duncan; she was the last female put to death before a national moratorium was instituted. Though he had supported the death penalty while serving as district attorney, as attorney general, and when first elected governor,Brown, Edmund (Pat) with Adler, Dick, ''Public Justice, Private Mercy: A Governor's Education on Death Row'', New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, , (1989) he later became an opponent of it. During the Chessman case, Brown proposed that the death penalty be abolished, but the proposal failed. His
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
successor, Ronald Reagan, was a firm death penalty supporter and oversaw the last execution in California in 1967, prior to the US Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional in '' Furman v. Georgia''
1972
.


Campaign for third term

Brown's decision to seek a third term as governor, violating an earlier promise not to do so, hurt his popularity. His sagging popularity was evidenced by a tough battle in the Democratic primary, normally not a concern for an incumbent.
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
Mayor
Sam Yorty Samuel William Yorty (October 1, 1909 – June 5, 1998) was an American radio host, attorney, and politician from Los Angeles, California. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives and the California State Assembly, ...
received nearly forty percent of the primary vote while Brown only received fifty-two, a very low number for an incumbent in a primary election. 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 Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
and
William Knowland William Fife Knowland (June 26, 1908 – February 23, 1974) was an American politician and newspaper publisher. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from California from 1945 to 1959. He was Senate Majority Le ...
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 George Christopher (born George Christopheles; December 8, 1907 – September 14, 2000) was a Greek-American politician who served as the 34th mayor of San Francisco from 1956 to 1964. He is the most recent Republican to be elected mayor of San ...
, 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 reminded a group of school children that an actor (i.e.,
John Wilkes Booth John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth ...
) had killed
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
—a crude
character assassination "Character Assassination" is a four-issue Spider-Man story arc written by Marc Guggenheim with art by John Romita, Jr. and published by Marvel Comics. The arc appears in ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' #584-#588. An interlude, "The Spartacus Gambit" ...
based on Reagan's work as an actor. The comparison of Reagan to Booth did not go over well, furthering the decline of Brown's campaign. On election day, Reagan was ahead in the polls and favored to win a relatively close election. Brown lost the 1966 election to Ronald Reagan in his second consecutive race against a future
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
. Reagan won in a landslide; his nearly 1 million vote plurality surprised even his staunchest supporters. Reagan's victory against an incumbent was a dramatic upheaval. His majority of nearly fifty-eight percent nearly matched that of Brown's own victory in 1958, and Reagan garnered some 990,000 new votes from the larger electorate.


Legacy

Although he left office defeated, Brown's time in office is one which has fared well. Brown was a relatively popular Democrat in what was, at the time, a Republican-leaning state. After his reelection victory over Richard Nixon in 1962, he was strongly considered for Lyndon Johnson's running mate in the 1964 presidential election, a position that eventually went to Hubert Humphrey. However, Brown's popularity began to sag amidst the civil disorders of the Watts riots and the early anti–Vietnam War demonstrations at U.C. Berkeley. His monumental infrastructure projects, building aqueducts, canals, and pump stations, established new fertile lands in the Central Valley; the Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct was named after him. During his term, four new
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
campuses were built, as well as seven new
California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...
campuses, making the Master Plan's higher education system the largest in the world. During the
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's contin ...
President Richard Nixon considered appointing Brown as
special counsel In the United States, a special counsel (formerly called special prosecutor or independent counsel) is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute, a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exi ...
, but the choice was rejected by Attorney General
Elliot Richardson Elliot Lee Richardson (July 20, 1920December 31, 1999) was an American lawyer and public servant who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. As U.S. Attorney General, he was a prominent figure in the Watergat ...
. While no person elected Governor of California has been denied a second term since Earl Warren defeated
Culbert Olson Culbert Levy Olson (November 7, 1876 – April 13, 1962) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democratic Party member, Olson was involved in Utah and California politics and was elected as the 29th governor of California from 1939 to 1943 ...
in
1942 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in w ...
, 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.


Personal life

Brown's wife, Bernice Layne, was a fellow student at Lowell High School, but it was not until the completion of his law degree, and her teaching credential, that they began a courtship. Following his loss in the Assembly election, he and Bernice eloped in 1929. They would have four children, who were all born in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
: * Barbara Layne Brown (born July 13, 1931) * Cynthia Arden Brown (born October 19, 1933 – died March 29, 2015) * 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? ''What's My Line?'' is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelis ...
'' Brown died at age 90 in Beverly Hills and is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.


Presidential and vice presidential candidate

Unlike his son
Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of ...
, Pat himself never seriously ran for
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
, but was frequently California's "
favorite son Favorite son (or favorite daughter) is a political term. * At the quadrennial American national political party conventions, a state delegation sometimes nominates a candidate from the state, or less often from the state's region, who is not a ...
." During the 1952 Democratic primaries, Brown placed distant second to Estes Kefauver in total votes (65.04% to 9.97%), 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 The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seeking re-ele ...
Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
, whose nomination was assured. Brown also briefly sought the vice presidential nomination at the
1956 Democratic National Convention The 1956 Democratic National Convention nominated former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for president and Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee for vice president. It was held in the International Amphitheatre on the South Side of Chic ...
, winning one vote.


Electoral history


See also

*
Membership discrimination in California social clubs Membership discrimination in California social clubs has been based on sex, race, religion, political views and social standing. In the late 1980s, a successful effort was made in many of the clubs to open up membership first to racial or religio ...


References


Further reading

* Anderson, Totton J. “The 1958 Election in California.” ''Western Political Quarterly'' 12#1 (1959), pp. 276–300
online
* Anderson, Totton J., and Eugene C. Lee. “The 1962 Election in California.” ''Western Political Quarterly,'' 16#2 (1963), pp. 396–420
online
* Anderson, Totton J., and Eugene C. Lee. "The 1966 election in California." ''Western Political Quarterly'' 20.2_part2 (1967): 535–554
online
* Anderson, Totton J. "Extremism in California Politics: The Brown-Knowland and Brown-Nixon Campaigns Compared." ''Political Research Quarterly'' 16.2 (1963): 371+. * Becker, Jules, and Douglas A. Fuchs. "How two major California dailies covered Reagan vs. Brown." ''Journalism Quarterly'' 44.4 (1967): 645–653. * Brilliant, Mark. ''The color of America has changed: How racial diversity shaped civil rights reform in California, 1941-1978'' (Oxford University Press, 2010). * Brown, Edmund G., ''Reagan and Reality: The Two Californias''. (NY, 1970.) * Pawel, Miriam. (2018). ''The Browns of California : the family dynasty that transformed a state and shaped a nation''. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. * Rapoport, R. ''California Dreaming: The Political Odyssey of Pat & Jerry Brown''. Berkeley: Nolo Press (1982) . *
summary
* Rarick, Ethan. "The Brown Dynasty." in ''Modern American Political Dynasties: A Study of Power, Family, and Political Influence'' ed by Kathleen Gronnerud and Scott J. Spitzer. (2018): 211–30. * Rice, Richard B. (2012). ''The Elusive Eden: A New History of California''. New York: McGraw-Hill. . * Rogin, Michael Paul, John L. Shover. ''Political Change in California: Critical Elections and Social Movements, 1890-1966'' (Greenwood, 1970). * Rorabaugh, William J. ''Berkeley at War, the 1960s'' (Oxford University Press, 1989).. * Schuparra, Kurt. ''Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement, 1945-1966'' (M.E. Sharpe, 1998).


External links


Edmund G. "Pat" Brown letters, 1975-1993. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room



California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown
documentary film

* Pat Brown's FBI files, hosted at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
: *
General file
*
FBI investigation of Brown commissioned by the
Atomic Energy Commission * , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Pat 1905 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American politicians American people of German descent American people of Irish descent Brown family (California) Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery (Colma, California) California Attorneys General California Democrats California Republicans Democratic Party governors of California District attorneys in California Governors of California Lawyers from San Francisco Politicians from San Francisco San Francisco Law School alumni Candidates in the 1952 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1956 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1960 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1964 United States presidential election 1956 United States vice-presidential candidates Lowell High School (San Francisco) alumni