Jerry Brown appears in these excerpts chiefly as a reference point in arguments about California governance rather than as a biographical subject. Guests and callers invoke him to illustrate tax policy, public-sector union power, high-speed rail, climate policy, and the mechanics of state constitutions. No excerpt offers an account of his career, his terms in office, or his own stated views at any length.
Taxation and Prop 30
In a discussion of how low-tax states raise revenue, Travis Brown contrasts states that rely on consumption taxes and severance royalties with California. He notes that state revenue growth has been better in states relying less on income taxes, and describes this as contrary to the direction Governor Jerry Brown supported with the passage of Prop 30 Where is Everyone Going? (2013). The excerpt ends mid-sentence shortly after this point, and the caller’s question about revenue sources in Texas and Florida is answered without further reference to Brown.
Prisons, Police, and Public-Sector Unions
Steve Greenhut returns to Brown twice in a single episode. On prison policy, he says that prison policy is driven by the prison guards unions and the politicians they help elect, and describes Brown as a status-quo politician defending entrenched bureaucracies and the unions California Dreamin’ – About Sane Government (2013). In the same episode’s discussion of public-sector union power, Greenhut says he wrote a piece for Bloomberg comparing Brown to George Wallace in the way he was defying the federal courts over prison releases, and says that on that issue and virtually every other, Brown defends the establishment and will not take on the prison guards union California Dreamin’ – About Sane Government (2013). The surrounding discussion of the Three Strikes Law, the 2011 Supreme Court ruling on prison conditions, Props 5 and 66, and solitary confinement is attributed to Bob Zadek and Greenhut, not to Brown.
High-Speed Rail
Judge Quentin Kopp, described by Bob Zadek as the sponsor and driving force behind California’s entry into high-speed rail through Proposition 1A in 2008, recounts Brown’s relationship to the project. Kopp says Brown was elected governor in November 2010, that contrary to popular impression he at least asked questions about the viability and progress of the project, that he had been a devotee of high-speed rail during his first eight years as governor in the 1970s to 1982, that he appointed his own people to vacancies as they occurred, and that he appointed his own successor to the chairmanship of the Authority. Kopp’s sentence breaks off at the point of calling Brown the most vocal champion of high-speed rail among public officials Let’s Talk About California’s “High-Speed” Rail (2018).
In a later episode, Mark Joffe describes the high-speed rail plan as unsustainable and irrational, and says that Gavin Newsom was stuck with something that came from two of his predecessors. Joffe says the program was originally approved under Governor Schwarzenegger and heavily pushed by Governor Brown, and that Newsom indefinitely postponed two of the most costly aspects of the train — a connection from Bakersfield under a mountain range to the Los Angeles Basin, and a connection from San Jose to the Central Valley — while a 165-mile segment connecting Bakersfield to Merced is built Not Enough Bricks (2019). The same episode cites a study by two UC Berkeley researchers finding that construction would generate 9.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and that it would take the high-speed rail 71 years to offset its own construction-related emissions at medium occupancy.
Climate Policy
Sterling Burnett, asked about policy in light of disagreement over climate science, says that at the federal level the present administration is rolling back policies of the previous administration, but that at the state level Jerry Brown and the California legislature are very pro-moving forward with climate legislation, restrictions on fossil fuels, carbon taxes, and restrictions on automobiles, and that other states are responding similarly How to Spot Tabloid Climate Science (2018). Burnett characterizes this as regressive climate action moving forward at the state level. Bob Zadek responds that voters will vote with their feet and that states adopting sensible policy will prosper.
Direct Democracy and the Lieutenant Governor
Jeffrey Sutton, discussing Who Decides?, uses a California story to illustrate the consequences of separately electing a governor and lieutenant governor. He says California has a provision that when the Governor is out of the state, all executive power in the Governor’s office goes to the Lieutenant Governor. Sutton says that in 1980 Jerry Brown was thinking of running for President and apparently left the state for a fundraiser in D.C., and that while he was gone the Lieutenant Governor decided to fill a vacancy on the California Supreme Court. Sutton says the California Supreme Court held that the Lieutenant Governor had this power, but that the Governor had authority to undo the appointment soon after he got back Who Decides? (2022). Sutton’s broader point is that state constitutions keep allowing more democracy, and he names Mississippi and California as two states whose constitutions have more in common with each other than either has with the national constitution.
Across episodes: no development
The excerpts touch on Jerry Brown in episodes from 2013, 2018, 2019, and 2022, but they do not show a developing argument about him: each treatment uses him for a different subject — taxes, prisons and unions, rail, climate, and state constitutional structure — and no guest responds to another’s characterization.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Brown’s party affiliation, the dates or number of his terms, any office he held other than governor, or his own words on any subject. They do not describe the contents of Prop 30 beyond its association with him, the outcome of the prison-release litigation beyond Greenhut’s characterization, or the current status of the high-speed rail project beyond the postponements Joffe describes. No excerpt offers a defense of Brown’s record or an assessment of him by anyone other than the guests quoted here.