The Browns of California: the Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Author: By Miriam Pawel
• Citation: Vol. 32 No. 3
• Publication year: 2019

The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation

By Miriam Pawel

Reviewed by Marc Alexander

Marc Alexander is a mediator and a litigator at AlvaradoSmith APC. He authors California Mediation and Arbitration (www.calmediation.org) and is a co-contributor to California Attorney's Fees (www.calattorneysfees.com). He is a member of the California Litigation Editorial Board.

Miriam Pawel, an independent scholar, award-winning journalist, and author of books about Cesar Chavez and his union organizing crusades, has now written an excellent and leisurely family history of the Browns of California that also serves as a window on the political history of our state. No family has done more to serve and shape California than the Browns. Pat Brown served as Governor, Attorney General, and District Attorney of San Francisco; Jerry Brown served twice as Governor, as Attorney General, as Mayor of Oakland, as Chair of the California Democratic Party, and as Secretary of State; Pat's daughter, Kathleen Brown served as State Treasurer; Pat's brother, Harold Brown, served as Justice on the Court of Appeal; and, Pat's granddaughter Kathleen Kelly is a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco. If one theme unites this extraordinary family, it is a calling to civic service.

With one exception, the book is arranged chronologically. That exception is the opening chapter titled "The Mansion" - an interesting authorial choice for a beginning. The Mansion was the Governor's Mansion - a magnificent house at 16th and H Streets in Sacramento. The house is an avatar of the Brown dynasty, and symbolic of California's boom-and-bust cycle, as well as the state's and the family's ability to reinvent itself. Pat Brown and his wife occupied the Mansion, and his daughter Kathleen grew up in it. However, Nancy Reagan viewed it as a firetrap, and the Reagans chose to live in a classic estate instead. With his "small is beautiful" philosophy, Jerry Brown, in his first incarnation as Governor, opted to live in a spartan apartment. But in his second term, Jerry 2.0, as Pawel occasionally refers to him, chose to restore the Victorian mansion and to live in it. Thus, the Mansion serves not only as a symbol of the Brown family, but as a symbol of the return to power, as well as Jerry 2.0's recognition of family roots, tradition, and history. "I have a sense of the historic character of California," Jerry said in 2009. "My family came here as pioneers." Jerry's return...