PD Editorial: As Jerry Brown exits, state once again is golden

On this, the final day of Jerry Brown's second stint as California governor, let's look back at the mess he inherited eight years ago.

In 2011, when Brown returned to Sacramento after almost three decades, the state was a symbol of government dysfunction - teetering on insolvency with crushing long-term debt and an immediate shortfall of more than $25 billion.

He leaves office with a projected budget surplus of $14.8 billion, backed up by a $14.5 billion reserve fund to cushion the state's finances in the next economic downturn.

Brown doesn't get all of the credit for California's dramatic turnaround.

The state's economy has grown steadily since the end of the Great Recession, surpassing Great Britain as the world's fifth-largest and generating billions in new tax revenue.

California voters did their part, too.

In November 2010, on the same ballot that brought Brown back to the capital, voters passed Proposition 25, allowing the Legislature to approve state budgets by a simple majority, ending a generation of missed deadlines and state government shutdowns, capped by the sad spectacle in 2009 when employees and vendors received IOUs instead of their checks.

Two years later, voters temporarily raised sales taxes and income taxes. The income tax increase, targeting the wealthiest Californians, remains in place.

Brown added a steady hand and seasoned leadership that had been missing from Sacramento.

He vetoed the first budget delivered by the Legislature in 2011, demanding deeper spending cuts and more honest accounting. He continued to keep a lid on spending throughout his third and fourth terms, paid down state debts and regularly reminded fellow Democrats that another economic downturn is inevitable.

Brown is famously reluctant to talk about his legacy. “I don't know what a legacy is,” he told reporters in 2017. “This is a media construct.”

Call it what you want, but Brown proved that California can, in fact, be governed. Along the way, he reshaped the state Supreme Court, appointing four of its seven justices; introduced a new funding mechanism for K-12 education that provides extra money for low-income student and English learners; and signed sentencing reforms that eased prison crowding and restored rehabilitation programs to reduce recidivism.

He has been a global leader on climate change, speaking at conferences in California and around the world, winning renewal of the state's cap-and-trade program and signing legislation mandating a 45 percent reduction in the use of oil by 2030 and committing the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. Since the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, Brown has become America's leading voice on climate change - and he plans to continue speaking out in retirement.

Climate change isn't Brown's only unfinished project. He enthusiastically adopted the high-speed rail plan approved by voters in 2008 but hasn't found the money to cover rising costs. Neither was he able to secure final approval or funding for his twin tunnels water project.

And despite his warnings about California's boom-and-bust tax system, he never proposed any significant changes. Neither did he follow up on his 2012 pension reform law, although he pressed an important, yet still undecided, state Supreme Court case on retirement benefits.

Now, as Brown settles into life at his ranch in Colusa County, the state's finances are sound, and a politician once ridiculed as “Governor Moonbeam” is justifiably described as the adult in the room. He will be a tough act to follow.

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