Willie Brown: State’s man

For a rip-roaring four decades, first under the big gorgeous dome of the Capitol in Sacramento and then under the not-so-big- but-still-gorgeous dome of San Francisco’s City Hall, California has had a first-name relationship with Willie Brown. The once-upon-a-time shoeshine boy from a segregated Texas town who became one of the state’s most adroit politicians has been known by other handles too: the Ayatollah of the Assembly, where he spent some 30 years, half of them as speaker, and The Mayor, for his eight years as San Francisco’s chief exec. His canny politics have made friends and foes and left no one indifferent to the sharp-dressed man who likes to refer to himself in the third person.

How is life after elected office?

Fantastic! I run an institute that’s training people who want to go into local politics.

Are they “Willie Brown fellows”?

I wouldn’t burden them with that.

What do you miss most from your political life?

I miss being able to answer with power [on] what I consider to be the right answer to a problem. I miss it. I really miss it.

You spent so much time in state government, but was your true calling being mayor?

No, government is government. You have to put in the same energy, the same effort.

I know some people have watched the mess in Sacramento and thought, gee, it would be different without term limits, if Willie Brown were still there.

I can tell you, it would be dramatically different. Term limits robbed the state of the opportunity for people serving in public office to get to know each other. It is quite different to be looking at someone you know well, someone whose house you’ve visited and whose service you have respected. You get to know people, so when they make their arguments, you pay attention and you sometimes follow their leadership. That’s been taken away by term limits

So things change when you know the other guy as a human being, not just someone casting a vote?

Not somebody who just got elected and [is] instantly looking for the next electoral opportunity.

I read that if you were still speaker, you’d pass the governor’s draconian budget and present it to him, just to call his bluff.

[Laughs] What I said to the governor in just a hallway exchange was, “You better be glad I’m not here, because I’d have my members send you the document you sent to us, which is not implementable.” It’s clearly designed for refinement. You give him his original document, and he’ll jump off the bridge.

You and the governor are both larger-than-life guys. How do you get along?

We have been friends for more than 20 years. I am a fan [since] long before he entered the world of politics. On occasion I will give him more than hallway advice.

Why are his poll numbers now worse than his recalled predecessor, Gray Davis?

I think it’s because he doesn’t have anybody to work with. If you know that a person is only going to be there for a year and a half as speaker, you never get to know that individual; the two of you [never] get to work out the issues and the problems. [And] there is no real political party that walks and talks with the governor because he didn’t come in from a political party. He was dropped in from on high with the recall.

People thought that would be an advantage.

People are out to lunch when it comes to the issues that surround a good political opportunity and good public policymaking opportunity. There was no reason in the world to recall Davis. But that’s what you get in a democracy. People have the right to do things that are not necessarily good.

We’re mired in the two-thirds vote thresholds, an initiative process that makes it easy to amend the Constitution, money woes — where’s the reverse gear to get us out?

My guess is we’re going to continue down this road because I don’t see the body politic becoming any more informed in their voting choices. The initiative process — where you can put anything on the ballot and then test it for constitutional purposes, like Proposition 187 — that all just creates chaos. You get limitations imposed upon resources for government by things like Proposition 13, and you rob flexibility by the two-thirds vote. You’ve got an incredible array of obstacles in front of people trying to make good public policy. And then you don’t have politicians who understand that every time they say “Let’s cut taxes,” you better simultaneously say, “Unless you’re doing it from a surplus, what will you eliminate to finance the tax cuts?”

Why didn’t you run for governor?

Because I always wanted to be speaker. I’m a rare breed. I don’t think it’s necessary to satisfy my ego by moving up. I really loved being speaker; I loved helping to manage solutions for more than 30 years [in the Legislature]. I knew the system and I knew my skills were ideally matched, and was satisfied with the results of my efforts, period.

Is there a difference between Northern and Southern California politics?

I think Northern California politics generally are more land-based — you’ve got farmers north of the Tehachapis; you’ve got folk who look at trees as [being] as important as people; you’ve got those who look at the wetlands and waterways. Most of those people are up north. [In the south], you’ve got the newcomers showing their wares, those who live by the automobile, who are in trade and commerce. You’ve got the artistic world centered in Southern California; you’ve got the technological world and the research world in Northern California. Each of those components breeds different kinds of politicians and politics, in what they advocate and how they advocate it. It reflects more often than not Northern Californians voting on what you would call the blue side and Southern Californians on what you would call the red side.

Before you became mayor, you were quoted speaking almost disdainfully about pothole politics. That changed, didn’t it?

Services are delivered at the local level, period, not at the federal level, not at the state level. And the pothole’s symbolic of it. Whether it’s a mini-park in what was a dense concrete jungle; whether it’s the research park that you partner up with the state and the University of California. You know you’re going to cut the ribbon. You don’t get any of that satisfaction at the federal or state level.

You’ve always seemed like the James Bond character who escapes in the last reel, leaving your enemies confounded and frustrated.

[Laughs] That was just absolutely wonderful; it created a myth. Does he have a mojo? Does he have a root lady? How did he do it? What they did not know is that I always tried to base every decision on what I thought was in the public’s interest, never just Willie’s interest. If you do that, you are going to survive; you are going to prosper.

There were always rumors about you and the FBI — did you ever look at your FBI file?

I never did. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it’s a file; I think it’s probably a series of file cabinets. Maybe even a room.

Why would there be so much?

It comes from the misunderstandings and misperceptions and mistakes [by] my critics. They never will get it right! They are looking in the wrong place.

Is there a place to look?

Yes. Look to what I’m attempting to do — is it in the public interest? If you start with that, then you can measure me appropriately and you will pretty soon stop taking notes.

There’s a lot of public anger that both parties align themselves with moneyed interests against regular people, just to stay in power. You’ve worked with the tobacco industry, the insurance industry.

The public’s interest is not necessarily inconsistent with what might be good for AT&T or Wells Fargo or the trial lawyers or the doctors. Or what might be good for Common Cause or the Sierra Club. Or tobacco. If [a politician] operates with that [in mind], then you’re not going to be consistently doing Standard Oil’s bidding or the teachers’ bidding; you’re going to be consistently doing the public’s bidding, and when it’s in the public interest, everybody benefits. The dialogue should not be what the teachers need; the dialogue ought to be, what will get us the best public schools? And if it happens to benefit the teachers, it benefits ‘em. Don’t apologize for that, but don’t let the teachers’ interests supersede what’s in the public’s interest.

What’s the solution to campaign finance reform?

Require every [candidate] to report every penny they receive and how they spent [it] and who it came from, and then let us, we the public, draw any conclusion we wish. No limit, but absolutely a requirement that you report every nickel. If somebody took $90 million from EBay, we would all instantly conclude that there’s no way that person isn’t a wholly-owned subsidiary of EBay. Self-restraint with contributions would become the order of the day.

What about self-financed candidates?

I think the public rejects self-financed candidates more than they do candidates who have taken contributions. One of the greatest problems Meg Whitman has is that we all know she’s trying to buy it. It’s not for sale.

Why have people made a big deal out of your very snazzy wardrobe?

Because I made such a big deal out of it! All my life I have believed that you must be presentable. I’ve always had trouble trying to figure out how to look decent in casual clothes. I can’t get the colors right; I can’t get the right shoes; I can’t get the right fabric. I know exactly what I’m doing when I wear a suit. Put corduroy on? I don’t think so.

Do you do Twitter or Facebook?

None of the above. I don’t think you can convey a complete message electronically. [And] you can’t find me on Facebook, you can’t find me on any of those places. You can Google me and get the garbage, but you don’t get me.

You and your wife were married in 1958 but have lived separately for more than 30 years. A cheeky question — did you celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary in separate restaurants?

[Laughs hugely] Ask my wife!

patt.morrison@latimes.com.

This interview was edited and excerpted from a longer taped transcript. An archive of Morrison’s interviews is online at latimes.com/pattasks.