Governor Brown Can Do It, With Your Help

I met Governor Brown in the 1970s, around the time he banned the short-handled hoe, the tool that crippled California farm workers by forcing them to toil long hours stooped in the field. During this period in California history, we witnessed Governor Brown, In the words of the California Teachers Association, serve California's residents through the "creation of 1.9 Million jobs, cleaner air quality in the state, creation of the California Conservation Corp, and oh yes, balance the state budget and manage to create a surplus doing it." While discussing with a Los Angeles busines woman the possibility of the State eliminating services because it lacks money, she reminded me the Governor must not only work with the Legislature and oversee the administration of state departments, but must do so with a consciousness of the human factor, the lives of the millions of Californians who are fighting to do the best they can to provide homes, food and clothing for their families, and once in a while have a few dollars to go to the movies, a ball game or afford gas to visit grandparents or brothers and sisters. A curtain of pessimism threatens to fall across the State; California does not have the money so the state cannot pay to educate our children or provide police and fire protection. If California does not have money obtained through taxation, it cannot provide services we need. You cannot spend money you don't have. California could continue to pay its bills by borrowing, leaving the debt to our children and grandchildren. Unlike the federal government, California cannot print money. However, given his history, Governor Brown will overcome the doom and gloom of the pessimists, and with the people's help, enable Californians to continue the life we experienced when Jerry Brown was governor during the 1970's and 80's.

In the 1970's, over vociferous opposition, Governor Brown showed a commitment to improve the lives of all people; he encouraged development of car pool lanes, recycling of trash, protection of the air we breathe, and enabled more than 100,000 unemployed youth escape the desperate city streets and develop their strengths working with the Conservation Corps to protect and improve our environment. Through his honesty and straight-forward approach Governor Brown solved problems through novel and untried ventures; he incurred union criticism when he limited pay increases to government employees; he overcame a seemingly insurmountable labor problem when, after a summer of turmoil in California fields, the arrest of thousands and the killing of several farm workers, he brought together unions and the agribusiness industry and obtained peace in the fields through enactment of a law enabling farm workers to join together and negotiate with their employers, a law that existed nowhere else in the United States, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

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