Background
Jerry Brown was born Apr. 7, 1938, in San Francisco, son of Pat Brown, who became one of California's most popular politicians and a two-time governor (1959-1967). Jerry Brown spent three and one half years at a Jesuit seminary with ambitions to become a priest. But he could not bear the seminary's rigid rules, especially its rule of silence. So in 1960 he transferred to the University of California in Berkeley, and a year later he graduated. In 1964 he graduated from Yale Law School. He then practiced law in Los Angeles until 1969 and entered politics. Running as Pat Brown's son and leaning heavily on his political machine, Jerry Brown was elected to the Los Angeles junior college board in 1969 and was elected California's secretary of state in 1970. Jerry Brown made that humdrum office a beehive of activity, suing oil companies for illegal campaign contributions, acting against a notary public for misdating a presidential document, and enforcing election laws. In 1974 he was elected governor.
California never had such a chief executive. Instead of living in the opulent governor's mansion, he lived in a small apartment and slept on a mattress on the floor. He attended Zen sessions and dated rock singers. He recruited many of his appointees from public law firms and environmental protection organizations, appointed far more women and persons of minority races to high offices than any previous governor, and blocked construction of nuclear power plants. In 1978 Californians reelected Jerry Brown with 61 percent of the vote.
For a time it looked as if Jerry Brown might broaden his popularity to the nation at large. A late starter in the Democratic presidential race of 1976, he won five of the six primaries he entered. But in 1980 his try for the nomination never caught fire, and he soon dropped out of the race. In 1982 he was defeated in an attempt to win a U.S. Senate seat.
