There are many articles about California Gov. Jerry Brown, these days, because he governs a large Democrat state and is acting very differently than the similar over-extended debtor states of New York and Illinois.
Jerry Brown is different. He has raised taxes and is cutting the budget, for real, in order to have some surplus revenue. This is not the way 999 out of 1000 Democrats behave.
I constantly disagree with Jerry but there are three things that permanently endear him to me.
In his first term in office, he appointed Ed Roberts to head the disability agency replacing the former deaf and blind agency. He did this on the suggestion of my friend Robert Gnaizda. Ed Roberts is the man who single-handedly created the modern global disability movement. More important than Gandhi or M.L. King Jr.
He also did me a personal favor, we were friends at the time, by acting on an article that I wrote about the racism of the anti-whaling movement . He effectively killed the American anti-whaling movement.
In his current term as governor he has done something no Democrat to my knowledge in American history has done, he abolished an entire agency. He abolished the California Redevelopment Agency which had 412 offices and thousands of employees.
Jerry Brown is very unusual. At age 75 he does daily exercise in a room off of his office. He controls a completely Democratic legislature and yet he's not letting them become the spend and spend insane Democrats that one usually expects in elective office.
He is quiet, curious and honest. Three characteristics that are as rare as you can imagine in politics.