Outgoing Gov. Brown ready for his next act

WILLIAMS - It’s time to add another name to the farewell tour circuit in this year of Elton John, Joan Baez, Paul Simon and Ozzy Osbourne: Jerry Brown, the governor of California.

There was the invitation-only reception for 2,000 guests at a Sacramento basketball arena; the appearance on “Meet the Press” this past Sunday to talk about President Donald Trump and offer dark warnings about global warming; the sold-out Sacramento Press Club forum and the interviews with the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee and many others. On a recent Saturday alone, as Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, shivered in front of a fire in their new home at the family ranch here in Williams, there were five separate interview and photography sessions.

Not that anyone should consider this any kind of long goodbye for Brown, whose successor will be sworn in Monday.

“No, we’ve got a lot to do,” Brown said. “I’ve been doing pardons. We have regulations we have been putting out. Appointments. So there’s a lot - the activity has continued apace.”

Brown, who served as California’s 34th governor and its 39th, has long counseled against overexposure. But he is someone who enjoys the limelight as much as the next politician - and understands as well as anyone that his window is closing. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor, is moving into the governor’s office in the Capitol next week, and Brown is riding a wave of attention that will disappear as surely as his state trooper escort.

Brown is making the most of it. He is using his remaining days to offer warnings about the future of California and the planet and lessons learned from a half-century in public life, and to talk about a legacy of fiscal restraint - he arrived eight years ago to a $26 billion deficit, and is leaving a $14 billion surplus - and opposition to Trump.

He also delivered some not-so-veiled admonitions for his successor about a recession that he suggested had already started and a looming assertion of power by interest groups and newly liberated Democratic lawmakers enjoying near historic margins in the Legislature.

“The Democratic constituencies want more money and more laws,” Brown said. “I take a different view. We have too many damn laws. The coercive power of the state should be invoked sparingly. They tell me almost all of the bills that I have vetoed have been reintroduced.”

Does he expect Newsom to approach the job in a similarly prescriptive way? “You know what a governor is on an engine?” Brown said. “The governor prevents the engine from getting out of control. Well, that is what the governor has to do in state government.”

Newsom, in interviews, has pledged to increase spending on early childhood education and a few other programs, but nonetheless said he would continue the fiscal practices followed by the departing governor.

This is not a moment of transition only for Brown; it is one for California, as well.

The Brown family has been an integral part of political life here since Pat Brown, Jerry Brown’s father, was elected governor in 1958.

Jerry Brown has served as governor twice, as mayor of Oakland, as state Democratic Party chairman and as attorney general. His sister, Kathleen, served as state treasurer.

But Brown, 80, who married for the first time in 2005, never had children.

There is no one left to carry the family legacy.

He is stepping down because of term limits; he said in an interview he probably would not have run again even if there were no term limit statute, if only because history has not looked kindly on governors of big states who seek third terms.

“What will I not miss?” Brown said, parrying a question with a question as he spoke at a luncheon. “I like it all. I like fundraising. I like sparring with the press. I like attacking my opponents. I like being attacked. I like the whole thing. People in this business like attention, and you get a lot of attention as governor.”

A few days later at the ranch, Brown said he did not know whether he would attend Newsom’s inauguration. “These are vulgar details,” he said. “I have a whole staff in charge of details. I’m more about the large, larger questions that are affecting our times.” (Short answer from one of those staff members: Of course he is).

Brown declined in an interview to offer Newsom advice - that, he said, would be unseemly - though he arched his eyebrows when asked if Newsom had sought his counsel during this two-month transition.

“No one has ever asked me for advice,” he said. “No one. Ever. I am one of the most knowledgeable people in American politics, and no one has ever asked. Not even local candidates. They don’t do that. Politicians are surrounded by consultants and staff.”

Brown suggested that Newsom and lawmakers should be cautious about spending, noting a history of governors opening up the state checkbook in what had appeared to be flush times but in fact were the early days of an economic downturn.

“Because the more money you have, the better you feel,” Brown said. “The better you feel, the more you spend. But at that very moment, you should have stopped.”

Regrets? He has some.

“I’m just sorry I wasn’t married for the first time, that we didn’t move into the governor’s mansion, that I didn’t wait to run for president until the appropriate time,” Brown said, referring to the first time he ran for governor. “But things worked out perfectly.”

It’s difficult to imagine this go-go-go governor - who flits from meeting to telephone call to interview to some book that has caught his interest - slowing down and actually retiring in his ranch about 100 miles north of San Francisco, where there is barely another house in sight.

Standing on top of a hill on his 2,514-acre property, after a bone-jarring, nerve-rattling drive in an off-road vehicle up a steep dirt road (“Noooo!” Gust Brown yelled as her husband turned the vehicle toward the hill), the governor rejected the notion he would have nothing to fill his time in the years ahead.

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“There is going to be a stream of visitors. Presidential candidates. Legislators. Executives. Artists. Theologians.”

Brown was joking, but he does have $16 million in a personal political action committee that he is taking with him as he leaves office.

“And I can support or oppose candidates with unlimited expenditures,” the governor said at his farewell bash at the Golden 1 Center, to an audience that included many elected officials. “Please be nice to me. Take my calls. Show me some respect.”

He is planning to turn his attention to working on global warming and nuclear disarmament. “I’ve got a few acts left,” he said, scoffing at the idea that he is “walking into the sunset, just disappearing over the horizon.”

Brown and Gust Brown have built a 2,700-square-foot home on the family ranch. They have bought a hybrid car - “It’s complicated now,” he said, referring to the intricacies of choosing a vehicle - and installed solar panels.

After many years in state government, a more domestic life awaits.

“Who started the fire?” Gust Brown asked as she walked into the living room.

“I did - with a little help from the CHP,” Brown responded, referring to the California Highway Patrol.

“You don’t have the heat on?” Gust Brown asked with a shiver. “Why don’t you have the heat on?”

“We don’t need heat,” the soon-to-be ex-governor responded. Brown offered that he had built an impressive fire.

“Good job, honey,” Gust Brown said. “You are becoming a farmer.”