Still more on Jerry Brown's Budget

January 10 news conference

At his news conference on Wednesday in which Governor Jerry Brown unveiled his proposed state budget for 2018-19, a reporter asked him a question related to the end of his fourth term as governor. (Brown will be termed out in the midst of fiscal year 2018-19.) Essentially, the question asked about whether there were some things he wished he had done during his gubernatorial career and referred to the "L-word," i.e., "legacy."

Gov. Pat Brown receives the Master Plan from
UC president Clark Kerr

Brown peculiarly answered that governors don't leave legacies and cited past governors (Frank Merriam - elected 1938), Goodwin "Goodie" Knight - lieutenant governor who became governor when Gov. Earl Warren went to the U.S. Supreme Court), and George Deukmejian (elected 1982) as examples of non-legacy governors.

He didn't mention Governor Pat Brown, Jerry's dad," who is remembered for the State Water Project, a big expansion of the freeway system (transportation), and - important as far as higher ed is concerned - the Master Plan for Higher Education, and the major expansion of the three segments, UC, CSU, and community colleges, that followed. Pat Brown surely had a legacy. Indeed, there is even a movie about it:



Jerry Brown's proposed water project - the Delta Fix/twin tunnel project - has so far gone nowhere. His transportation/high speed rail is under construction in central California, but it lacks major funding to connect to the Bay Area and to southern California and may never be completed. And in higher ed, there is nothing that compares to the Master Plan. Despite the record of his dad, this is what Jerry Brown said on Wednesday: