Claremont McKenna College students recently had the opportunity to converse with one of the California legislators they learn about in Government classes, the Honorable Willie L. Brown, Jr.
Before speaking at the Athenaeum on Oct. 30, Brown met with students at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government. Professor Ken Miller, director of the Rose Institute, introduced Brown as one of the “most extraordinary people in state and local government.”
As the longest-serving Speaker of the California State Assembly, and a former two-term mayor of San Francisco, Brown (who is 90 years old) regaled the CMC audience with colorful tales and lessons learned from his four decades at the center of California politics, government, and civic life.
“That was fun,” Miller said afterward.
Later, at the Athenaeum, as Major League Baseball’s final game of the World Series was being played, Professor Jack Pitney shared that when he told his “political junkie friends that I was going to get to meet Willie Brown, it was like telling baseball fans that I was meeting Babe Ruth.”
Throughout both appearances, Brown, a Democrat, shared with CMC students his approach to building coalitions that included Republicans—noting that while he served as the Speaker of the Assembly with multiple Republican governors, he briefly served with only one Democrat, Jerry Brown.
“My speakership was a prototype of what really ought to be the foundation for politics in this country,” he said. “We really ought to be about leaving out the nonsense of partisanship that adversely impacts some of the decisions that ought to be made for humankind.”
Vernon Grigg, executive director of the Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership, who shared moderator duties with Pitney, focused on Brown’s political and civic influence, and asked which Brown preferred, his leadership role in the state legislature, or as mayor of San Francisco, one of the most complex cities in the state.
While Brown said he enjoyed serving as mayor, he also relished being Speaker of the State Assembly in California, the fifth largest economy in the world. “I loved every second of it, because I had more authority than I ever dreamed I could ever have, and I got greater results than I could ever envision,” he said. “I’d still be speaker tonight without term limits.”
On the personal side, Brown was also asked whom he considered to be the most surprising friendship he made across the political aisle. “Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Brown replied. “He hosted my 70th birthday party, and we just had lunch last week.”
Brown’s visit to the Athenaeum was co-sponsored by the Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership.