Jerry Brown is still alive, so this is not his obituary. I know Jerry, but not well and we have a dozen close friends in common.
I simply wanted to point to two great political acts on Jerry's part, done early in his political career, that are worthy of appreciation. Great appreciation.
The first
was Jerry's act as governor to appoint Ed Roberts as Director of
Rehabilitation for the State of California. When Ed took office the
budget was 10% for the disabled who needed full-time care givers, 10%
for the deaf and 80% for the blind.
Ed talked personally to the leaders of the deaf and blind communities and got their agreement to reverse the budget priorities. With the support of the deaf and blind communities Ed changed the budget to 80% for the disabled who needed full time care and 20% for the deaf and blind.
Jerry's
second wonderful act as governor was to invite in to his office all the
leading anti-whaling activists in the country, most of whom were in
California for a conference. The anti-whaling movement was in the
throes of becoming virulently anti-Japanese and was growing rapidly
with an underlying racist tone.
Governor Jerry Brown had read an article I had written for the CoEvolution Quarterly providing evidence of the important contribution of the Japanese to the anti-whaling movement and to the growing unfounded racists antagonism toward the Japanese.
Jerry made my case to the anti-whaling activists, added his own insight and political weight, and effectively derailed the racists direction of the movement.