Jerry Brown

California Gov. Jerry Brown has done a lot to finally balance his state's budget, but his greatest challenge still lies ahead ("Jerry Brown: A survivor at the top of his game," Feb. 3). In 1978, during Mr. Brown's first term as governor, he helped pass Proposition 13, a property tax cap that has mostly benefited large corporations at the expense of California's once elite education system. Since the passage of Proposition 13, California schools have gone from the best in the country to 49th in education spending.

California Gov. Jerry Brown has done a lot to finally balance his state's budget, but his greatest challenge still lies ahead ("Jerry Brown: A survivor at the top of his game," Feb. 3). In 1978, during Mr. Brown's first term as governor, he helped pass Proposition 13, a property tax cap that has mostly benefited large corporations at the expense of California's once elite education system. Since the passage of Proposition 13, California schools have gone from the best in the country to 49th in education spending.

The folks who converted Ronald Reagan to supply-side economics have now turned another former California governor, Jerry Brown, into a flat-tax zealot. Whether the flat tax will prove as potent as supply-side economics in achieving presidential ambition is yet to be established. But Mr. Brown already has the satisfaction of having become a candidate to be reckoned with while Sen. Tom Harkin, the fellow who equated his idea with the "Flat Earth Society," is out of the race.Actually, the idea of taxing all income with one all-inclusive rate and eliminating labyrinthine loopholes has been around for a long time.

It's said in politics that timing is everything, that success depends on picking the right time to make one's move. When Barack Obama decided in early 2007 to launch a presidential bid as a freshman U.S. senator at age 45, the naysayers wondered why he was in such a hurry. He proved them wrong. Three decades earlier, another young political comet named Jerry Brown, freshman governor of California at age 38, similarly had reached for the presidency in 1976. However, despite a late-surging campaign, he lost.

It's said in politics that timing is everything, that success depends on picking the right time to make one's move. When Barack Obama decided in early 2007 to launch a presidential bid as a freshman U.S. senator at age 45, the naysayers wondered why he was in such a hurry. He proved them wrong. Three decades earlier, another young political comet named Jerry Brown, freshman governor of California at age 38, similarly had reached for the presidency in 1976. However, despite a late-surging campaign, he lost.

FORMER California Gov. Jerry Brown placed a surprisingly strong second in Michigan, by moving into the vacuum on the Democratic Party left. He played to the beleaguered United Auto Workers union, and embraced other populist outsiders such as Ralph Nader and Jesse Jackson. But his flat tax proposal is preposterous and cynical.Take a close look at what Mr. Brown has called the "silver-bullet solution for the 1990s." That slogan alone should be a tip-off; there are no silver-bullet solutions.

Ron Brown says Jerry Brown is a destructive force in the party. Anthony Lewis of the New York Times is mad at him because he's a spoiler. My own assistant, Peter Keating, is mad at me because I'm soft on Jerry at a time when Peter feels folks should unite around the Democratic nominee -- and he thinks Bill Clinton is that nominee.He's almost certainly right on that last point. Because Democratic primaries are based on proportional representation, rather than Republican winner-take-all rules, Governor Clinton picks up delegates every Tuesday, win or lose.

OVER COFFEE last week, Jerry Brown was musing about the possibility of his running for president.His thoughts about a campaign theme were intriguing. Politics has become a corrupt, big-money game that has made millions of Americans cynical.It's no longer a question of what a candidate has to say, but how many millions can he raise from special-interest groups. And how those millions are spent by the hired media wizards who create the slick commercials, buzzwords and sound bites.The ordinary person feels powerless and left out because he truly is powerless and left out. And that's why they don't vote.

WASHINGTON -- Casting himself as a crusader for political reform, former Gov. Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. dropped out of the 1992 California Senate race yesterday and into the 1992 Democratic presidential picture.Mr. Brown, who filed papers yesterday in Washington forming an exploratory campaign committee, said that if he ran, his goal would be to liberate American democracy from the domination of corrupt politicians in both parties and their campaign consultants."What an irony that the spirit of democracy is bursting out all over the world, while in America democratic choice narrows and is rendered almost illusory," wrote the 53-year-old Californian, who says he's been inspired by the "anti-political politics" of President Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia.

New York --The Democrats are doing an admirable job this year of pretending to be normal humans who can be entrusted with the U.S. Government.In previous conventions, the Democrats have had an unfortunate tendency to come off as a collection of random lunar modules, raving into the TV cameras about issues like vegetable rights. But this year they're wearing suits and adopting moderate positions and appearing to be responsible mainstream middle Americans right up until the TV coverage ends.

General Assembly leaders introduced legislation yesterday that would move up Maryland's presidential primary and try to transform it into a competitive, attention-grabbing contest. The measure, requested by Gov. Martin O'Malley, would move both parties' 2008 primaries to Feb. 12 from March 4 to coincide with Virginia's. Maryland Democratic leaders also are asking the District of Columbia to align its primary and build a regional stage for candidates. "We're not going to see any candidates in our state unless we move up the date," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, who supports the proposal.

Maggie L. Brown, a retired restaurant cook and accomplished needleworker, died in her sleep June 3 at Sinai Hospital. Mrs. Brown died two weeks and two days after celebrating her 102nd birthday, family members said. She was born Maggie Lena Kellam and raised in Accomac, Va., where she graduated from public schools. As a young woman, she began her career cooking at a hotel in Whispering Pines, Va., and moved to Baltimore in 1935. She briefly worked in several restaurants before taking a job as second cook at the House of Welsh, the historic Guilford Avenue restaurant established in 1900.

On December 8, 2005 SHIRLEY R. (nee Feinberg) beloved wife of the late Sidney Brown; beloved sister-in-law of Leonard Brown, Ruth Brown, and Shirley B. Brown; loving aunt of Linda Chandler, Bob Brown, and Jerry Brown. Services at SOL LEVINSON & BROS. INC., 8900 Reisterstown Road at Mt. Wilson Lane on Sunday, December 11 at 2 p.m. Interment Bnai Israel Congregation Cemetery, 3701 Southern Avenue. Please omit flowers.

News and notes as California's gubernatorial recall election campaign lurches into high gear. Today: Samplings from the online world. Yes, your worst fears have been realized: Someone has written "The Recall Song." Yes, it's getting air-time. Yes, it's horrifyingly bad. Desperately bored individuals can hear the song, sung to the tune of "American Pie," by visiting a pro-recall Web site - www.recallgraydavis.com. Sample lyrics (with apologies to the great Don McLean): A long, long time ago ... I can still remember ... The days of Governor Jerry Brown ... We thought things couldn't get much worse, Moonbeam and his medfly curse, But now Jerry Brown isn't looking all that bad. Is there someone out there who can save us?

WASHINGTON -- Some Republican politicos are grumbling because President Bush has gone back on his own word about the need to return to normal amid the war on terrorism. Their beef is that he reneged on his promise to attend a million-dollar fund-raising dinner in his honor for the benefit of the Republican Governors Association, and told Vice President Dick Cheney to go in his place. Showing up for the swank affair certainly would have been business as usual for the leader of his party.

OAKLAND, Calif. - The phrase "back to school" has acquired new meaning here. It's time to grab the ballpoints, the highlighters and the 450-page binder of reading materials and head to the mayor's house for a little "Medieval Philosophical Latin: Part 1." Call it Jerry 101. Mayor Jerry Brown, former presidential candidate, former governor and former Jesuit seminarian, has invited the citizens of this city on the move to participate in the Oakland Table, a casual intellectual exchange over six weeks - a sort of Ivory Tower in a loft - in which two dozen scholars, headlined by the historian and philosopher Ivan Illich, have been brought in to ponder the city, citizenship and the deep meaning of it all. Part salon, part graduate-school seminar, it might be the Northern California equivalent of the Algonquin Round Table, frequented by Dorothy Parker, in 1920s New York, except that instead of whiskey and cigarettes there are tai chi and yoga classes in an adjoining room.

WASHINGTON -- While Ross Perot loosens his fat bankroll for costly television "infomercials" designed to build a massive self-sustaining political organization, another maverick of the 1992 presidential campaign -- Jerry Brown -- is regrouping with his own smaller organization, without significant financial resources.Perot's "United We Stand America," using an 800 telephone number, is said already to have a million members at $15 a head. Brown says his "We the People" organization has about 2,000 signed up in what will be, at the outset anyway, essentially a localized effort.

LOS ANGELES -- When the California Legislature recently advanced the date of the state's 1996 presidential primary from June to March, the chief beneficiary was widely seen to be President Clinton.In 1992, candidate Bill Clinton won the Golden State handily and his approval rating here has been higher than in most other states. He has returned here often and has appeared to take a special interest in lifting California out of the depths of its recession, to the point of naming Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown to oversee federal efforts to enhance its economic recovery.

Suppose they gave a presidential primary and nobody cared? That is the problem facing Maryland as it approaches its vote March 7 -- so-called Super Tuesday, when 10 other states have primaries. With its proximity to the nation's capital, its highly educated populace full of important opinion-makers, and its reputation for giving hope to quixotic campaigns with surprise victories -- from George Wallace to Jerry Brown to Paul E. Tsongas -- one might think that Maryland would be a sought-after prize.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- When it comes to wielding political power in California politics, San Francisco's Mayor Willie Brown and Oakland's Mayor Jerry Brown are the masters.Their experience spans decades -- Jerry Brown is a former governor and Willie Brown was the wily Svengali of the state Assembly. They schmooze in the same political circles and they know precisely what buttons to push, what phone calls to make to get what they want.So when the two Browns voiced opposition earlier this year to a state agency's proposal to build an elaborate new San Francisco Bay Bridge and demolish the existing one that was damaged in a 1989 earthquake, everyone stopped to listen.