Chapter Twenty-Five—
Hometown Son

Willie Brown is like a cat. Ever notice a cat? They never jump any higher than they can reach.
Willie L. Brown Jr.
Speaker of the California State Assembly
1981–1995

With his tuxedo glistening in the blazing spotlight, Willie Brown bounced onto a stage in April 1993 in the ornate ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel, the grandiose citadel of San Francisco's old-money establishment.^[1] It was his fifty-ninth birthday party, and he was enjoying every minute of it. The budget stalemate was behind him, he was still the Speaker of the Assembly, and he still had a touch for the spectacle unmatched by anyone in American politics. He was also in need of campaign funds. His guests paid $10,000 a table to be there with him. California's most powerful politician began introducing his after-dinner entertainment, and his guests definitely would not be disappointed. On Brown's cue Ray Charles took the stage, backed by the Oakland Symphony Orchestra.

Sitting at table 55 that evening was the mayor of San Francisco, Frank Jordan. Nearby, Brown's nightlife buddy, Herb Caen, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist, celebrated his seventy-seventh birthday over a cake given to him moments earlier by Brown. At another table John Burton cracked jokes as Brown introduced him as "my oldest friend." Mounting a run for governor, state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi worked his way from table to table shaking hands. "All right, John, that's enough," a slightly peeved Brown ordered. Finally, the crowd settled back as Ray Charles sang "America the Beautiful."

Willie Brown was at his pinnacle that night, arguably the most powerful politician in California, and he was enjoying every minute of it. He had no rival in the Legislature, and he had bested the Republican governor during the protracted budget fight the previous summer. In fact, Pete Wilson had never been more unpopular in his entire career and Brown enjoyed the afterglow that came with the victory. Still, he and Pete Wilson were chastened by that experience, and Brown was not inclined to gloat. The two needed to make peace, each for his own reasons.

Wilson's reelection chances appeared doomed, and he needed a few solid legislative achievements if he were to have any hope of reelection. None were possible without help from Willie Brown. Old Sacramento hands, including Steve Merksamer, began privately counseling Wilson on how to make peace with Brown. It was really no more difficult for Wilson than for earlier governors. Wilson needed to share credit with Brown and show him respect. "I think that one of the major mistakes of the Wilson administration for the first years of their term was to basically go to war with Willie," said Merksamer. "I think it severely hurt Governor Wilson's legislative program and hurt his ability to govern for the first few years."^[2]

Brown also had his motivations for making peace with Wilson. The stalemate had been a huge political gamble, and Brown was loath to repeat it. Besides, the budget stalemate had been a giant distraction for Brown. He could play only a peripheral role in presidential politics in 1992. Watching from the sidelines, Brown initially predicted Bill Clinton was going nowhere. But when Brown met the governor of Arkansas, the two hit it off splendidly. Clinton had several Californians serving as key members of his campaign, including Mickey Kantor, a well-connected lawyer from Los Angeles, and Dee Dee Myers, the young former press secretary to Dianne Feinstein. One of Brown's key allies, Democratic Assemblyman Richard Katz, was helping Clinton round up support in Hollywood. Clinton's groundwork paid off when Brown agreed to introduce him at a May 1992 fund-raiser in San Francisco at the St. Francis Hotel. That evening Clinton quipped that he had "met the real Slick Willie." The line brought down the house, and no one appreciated it more than Willie Brown.

Once Clinton was in the White House, he and Brown continued to build a warm relationship.^[3] Brown's chief of staff, Michael Galizio, was in almost daily contact with the White House on California issues. As far as the Clinton White House was concerned, Willie Brown was the de facto governor of California. When Brown took his annual trip to Washington, D.C., in March 1993, he was greeted like a visiting head of state.^[4] Clinton continued to tease Brown about not supporting him early enough in 1992. When he saw Brown in the Oval Office, the president quipped, "By the way, Will, have you endorsed me yet?"^[5]

Although the President of the United States paid Willie Brown the utmost respect and attention, by 1993 and 1994 it was becoming clear that Brown's days as California Assembly Speaker were drawing to a close. Efforts by Democrats had failed to overturn term limits in the courts, and Brown was suddenly facing the prospect of his tenure in the Assembly ending in 1996 at the latest. Term limits would finally achieve what no governor and no Republican Assembly leader could do—removing Willie Brown from Sacramento. Brown wanted to end with a flourish, and he also wanted to show that he was more of a state leader than Wilson.

Brown ushered in 1993 by staging an elaborate "economic summit" at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Sitting at a console, Brown acted as moderator for three days of monotonous lectures by economists, business owners, and the public on the state of the California economy. The summit was fashioned after an earlier made-for-television event hosted by Clinton, but the Los Angeles version had all the Willie Brown trappings. Brown surrounded himself in the darkened auditorium with big television screens, and his staff escorted reporters in and out as if it were a United Nations summit of world leaders. Governor Wilson did himself a favor by showing up and taking the event seriously. The legislation that came out of the summit included Wilson's proposals to revamp the cumbersome workers compensation system by limiting stress claims and making it tougher for injured employees to prove that their job led to their injury.^[6] Brown personally authored AB 1300 to crack down on worker compensation fraud.

Wilson followed with a "crime summit," and Brown followed that with an "education summit." The former enemies seemed to be finally working hand in glove. Brown and Wilson began appearing together in front of business groups giving pep talks on the California economy. The insults of the previous summer were put aside. Brown and Wilson continued to cooperate on business legislation and a host of other issues into 1994. Most stunning of all, Brown began to publicly criticize state treasurer Kathleen Brown, who was maneuvering to become Wilson's Democratic reelection opponent.

Kathleen Brown's pedigree was impeccable. She was a member of the closest thing California had to a political family dynasty as the daughter of former Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown and the sister of former Governor Jerry Brown. But Kathleen Brown was short on much political experience of her own. Before her election as state treasurer, her only previous electoral experience had been in serving on the Los Angeles Unified School District board. She resigned to follow her husband to New York, but they divorced. She remarried and went to law school there before returning to Los Angeles

for a job at O'Melveny and Myers, a politically well-connected law firm whose partners included Warren Christopher, Clinton's secretary of state.

Kathleen Brown soon bored of practicing law, and she ran for state treasurer in 1990. Unruh had built the office from a sleepy post in state government to a powerful position with influence not just in government but also on Wall Street. When Unruh died in 1987, Governor Deukmejian nominated Long Beach Congressman Dan Lungren as his replacement. But Lungren was rejected by the state Senate because it was thought he wanted the job as a springboard for higher office. He was replaced by Thomas Hayes, a talented but politically inexperienced bureaucrat who had been the state's auditor general. Hayes was acceptable to the Legislature, for he held no threat of running for higher office. He turned out to be a plodding campaigner, and no match for Kathleen Brown and the aura of her family in the 1990 election.

Willie Brown, however, considered Kathleen Brown a lightweight. She had not earned her office but had relied on her family name and connections. She had not even finished a single term as treasurer before she was off running for governor. As a campaigner, kathleen Brown was lackluster. As an officeholder, she seemed out of her depth; she did not appreciate the potential power of her job. She spouted platitudes about balancing the budget rather than taking part in meaningful negotiations. She got off on tangents, talking about the state's bonded indebtedness. She seemed all gimmick; flow charts interested her more than the nitty-gritty of deals. In short, Kathleen Brown was not a player; she was no Jesse Unruh. Willie Brown just could not take her seriously.

As Kathleen Brown began her campaign against Wilson, Willie Brown started to criticize her. "She's got to humanize herself," Brown told reporters one day on the Assembly floor, "because everything she says is me-too-ish."^[7] Willie Brown also predicted in February that Wilson would win reelection even though his poll ratings were low. "He has to play it the way he's playing it and that's not making any mistakes," he said.

His remarks went off like a bomb in the Kathleen Brown campaign. Within a week she went to Willie Brown's office, handed him a slip of paper with her phone number, and asked him to call her with any further advice.^[8] But throughout the campaign Willie Brown continued to throw barbs at her. He was further disgusted when she hired as her chief political consultant Clint Reilly of San Francisco, whom Brown detested. Reilly had once urged Feinstein to condemn Willie Brown's ethics during her 1990 gubernatorial campaign.^[9] But Feinstein refused, and after many other disagreements, Reilly quit Feinstein's campaign. Willie Brown liked Reilly no better now that he was working for Kathleen Brown.^[10]

In the view of some in the Capitol, Willie Brown was attacking Kathleen Brown because he could not stand the prospect of a Democrat becoming

governor and upstaging him in his own party. But he had worked hard for Feinstein in 1990; he very much wanted a Democrat to help him build a legacy of achievements rather than one of just stymieing Republican governors. But Willie Brown just could not generate any enthusiasm for Kathleen Brown.

Willie Brown had nowhere to go in the 1994 gubernatorial election. He could not abide Kathleen Brown's Democratic primary opponents, John Garamendi and Tom Hayden. In truth, Willie Brown believed he was better than all three Democrats and the sitting Republican governor. Alice Huffman began floating Willie Brown's name as a potential nominee for governor. But few in the Capitol took it seriously, mostly because he did not take it seriously. He was left standing on the sidelines sniping at the gubernatorial candidates.

Kathleen Brown struggled throughout her campaign, the ground gradually slipping out from under her. She began her campaign comfortably ahead of Wilson in the polls. But he ruthlessly exploited fears over crime and immigration, driving wedges between her and the voters. She was against the death penalty; he supported it. He favored a "three strikes, you're out" mandatory life sentencing law for career felons; she sounded wishy-washy. Most critically, Wilson supported Proposition 187, a ballot measure to cut off welfare and educational services to illegal immigrants. Wilson practiced the politics of resentment, and he struck a chord in the white suburbs.

As her campaign sank, Kathleen Brown tried to cultivate Willie Brown as well as she could, but as often as not she found herself on the defensive. "I have a very good working relationship with the Speaker," she said, not very convincingly.^[11]

Willie Brown finally muzzled himself about Kathleen Brown, but not for long. A few months later he arrived one day for lunch at Biba, a first-class Italian restaurant in Sacramento, and Kathleen Brown was eating lunch at a nearby table. Willie Brown ignored her and joined his own guests. When Kathleen approached his table, he stood and the two exchanged greetings and a hug. Then Willie Brown sat back down, muttering to his luncheon companions, "She hasn't changed. She seems just as insincere."^[12]

Throughout 1994 the biggest guessing game in the Capitol was what Brown would do next. He flirted for a time with running for state Democratic Party chairman, but the job was ill suited for him. Party activists were much too insistent on ideological purity, and the party chairman had little real power.

Brown's associates said his greatest ambition was to be elected a United States senator. But two Democrats, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, won both of California's seats in the 1992 election that also brought Clinton into the White House. Boxer won a full six-year term, filling the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Alan Cranston. Feinstein won the remaining two years of the term vacated by Pete Wilson when he was elected governor. She would need to stand for election again in 1994.

Brown's friends said he was both pleased and downhearted because of their election.^[13] He had two Democratic friends from the Bay Area in the Senate, and that was good. But it also confirmed his opinion that California would never elect a black man to a major statewide office. He believed he was more qualified than either Boxer or Feinstein, but he also realized there was no chance that California would ever elect him to the Senate. In any case, with two Democrats holding the Senate seats, what he thought did not matter; it was out of the question for Brown to run against either.

The Sacramento Bee' s Rick Kushman that year wrote a lengthy two-part article headlined, "What Does Willie Brown Want?"^[14] But there was no answer, not yet. "One thing I've never done, I've never planned my next move my whole life," he told Kushman. "I went to law school by accident, I got elected by accident, I went to the particular college I went by accident. The one time I planned to be the Speaker, I failed. I got the speakership by circumstances far beyond my control. In many cases, I've maintained it in circumstances beyond my control."

Brown tried his hand as a television talk show host on KCRA, then an NBC affiliate in Sacramento. He came to the studio every morning for the Willie Brown Show , while his state driver waited outside. The show sank under weak ratings. The program was neither fish nor fowl: not quite serious enough to be a McNeil-Lehrer News Hour , but too political and issue oriented for the flash and trash of morning entertainment TV. His showmanship did not translate well to the small screen.

Brown turned sixty years old in March 1994, and his friends threw a series of lavish birthday parties for him, concluding with an elegant dinner hosted by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. Brown's health was still excellent; he was thin, he drank only an occasional glass of wine, and he could still outpace people half his age. His one major problem was his eyesight; a hereditary disease was gradually whittling away at it. Brown's eyes had difficulty adjusting between light and dark, and it made reading difficult for him.^[15] His secretaries typed memos to him using huge type; it became known around his office as "Speaker Type." He usually wore dark rose-colored glasses in the office to ease the strain on his eyes. When Brown presided over Assembly sessions, he needed at least two sergeants-at-arms, one standing at each side, to point out to him who was seeking recognition. Brown still drove his fast cars, but his night driving was curtailed and a state driver increasingly drove him places. His prognosis was not good; his older sister, Lovia, was already blind from the same disease.

While Willie Brown pondered his political future, 1994 began shaping up as one of the worst in the century for the Democrats. Newt Gingrich and his conservative "Contract with America" propelled the Republicans toward control of both houses of Congress. In California a previously obscure millionaire turned congressman, Michael Huffington, sank $29 million of his

own money into a campaign to try to win Feinstein's Senate seat. Flooding the airwaves with attack ads against her, Huffington nearly defeated Feinstein.

Brown and his staff believed they were in relatively good shape in Assembly races leading into the final weeks of the election campaign. But complicating all the calculations were two ballot propositions: The "three strikes, you're out" sentencing law was on the ballot although it had already been enacted into law. The second, Proposition 187, which proposed to cut off state money to illegal immigrants, was catching steam as the cornerstone to Wilson's reelection drive. Both measures had a visceral appeal, and both promised to bring out white reactionaries, conservatives, and older voters. Compounding Brown's problems further, Brown needed to defend thirteen open Democratic seats, with fully eleven of them highly competitive. Asked how big a problem he had, Brown replied, "Major. Major—major, major, major."^[16]

A week before the election Kathleen Brown seemed obviously doomed, having squandered her huge lead and falling far behind Wilson in the polls. Willie Inc. went into full throttle to save the Democratic majority in the Assembly. On the Friday before the election, Brown's pollsters believed he would lose three seats but still preserve a 44-36 majority. Polling data remained unchanged going into the final weekend before the election.

But four days before the election, the Republicans mobilized a huge telephone bank to contact voters. Brown's polling data went crazy on the weekend before the November election.^[17] Suddenly Democrats all over the state were in trouble. Willie Brown's vaunted election machine tried to do what it had always done, fielding hundreds of legislative staffers into the precincts to get out the vote.

Brown was up against not only a national tide but also the most talented and disciplined Republican leader he had yet faced. Jim Brulte was only in his second term, but he was already a seasoned political veteran when his Republican colleagues promoted him to Assembly Republican leader in 1992. He had worked in his first campaign when he was ten years old. As an adult he had gone to work for U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa and was then an advance man for George Bush. Brulte returned to his roots in the Ontario Valley suburbs, east of Los Angeles, to serve as chief of staff to Assemblyman Charles Bader, and eventually succeeded him in the seat. Brulte stood an imposing six feet, four inches in height and weighed 240 pounds. He was single, and his entire life was politics. He directed the Republican effort brilliantly by putting his resources where they could do the most good and ruthlessly avoiding races that were not winnable.

On election day Brown remained in Sacramento, at the center of his election operation. That had always been his practice, but this time his presence took on new meaning. He passed the evening in his corner office in the state Capitol, surrounded by antiques and old oil paintings, talking on the telephone with all his Assembly members scattered throughout the

state. It was the logical place for him to be. It was almost as if each election just might be the last for Brown and he needed to savor the grandeur of his office until the last. In politics, no one is ever sure. Meanwhile, Democrats assembled in the ornate ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel to await the election returns that they believed would keep them in power. But it was not going to be like every election night; things went radically wrong.

That night Assemblywoman Jackie Speier stood in the Fairmont ballroom as the increasingly grim election results rolled over the Democrats. She repeatedly talked with Brown over a small, handheld cellular phone. "We aren't seeing the kind of turmoil we're seeing in the rest of the country," she said optimistically, flipping the phone closed after yet another conversation with Brown.^[18]

But the Democrats lost eight Assembly seats, some lost by margins of only a few hundred votes in Democratic districts. The Republicans won a majority of forty-one seats to the Democrats' thirty-nine. For the first time in a quarter-century, the Republicans were poised to take over the Assembly and elect their own Speaker. "Talk about being dealt a bad hand—the Lord had it in for Willie Brown," said Brown soon after the election.^[19]

On the day following the November election, as the Republicans ordered champagne and planned their victory party, the Democrats met privately. Brown offered to resign. There was talk of electing Phillip Isenberg as Speaker, but he told his colleagues that he was not who they needed. If they were going to war, they needed a wartime Speaker. And, Isenberg told them, there was no one better at political trench warfare than Willie Brown. The caucus then turned again to Brown, who told them, "I don't believe in terrorism but I'm very good at it."^[20]

That afternoon, reporters jammed into the Speaker's small cloakroom for a late-afternoon press conference.^[21] One door in the room opened directly onto the Assembly floor, and the door opposite opened into the Speaker's private office. The room was the same used by lobbyists during the "napkin deal" and in countless other legislative agreements over the years. The reporters who could not fit at the huge table in the center of the room leaned against the antiques and lined the walls. It was raining outside, and many inside the room were wet; the room began to feel like a steam sauna. Nearly everyone inside believed they were about to witness the final act in Willie Brown's remarkable legislative career: his resignation as Speaker. Even his staff looked forlorn, as if waiting for the final curtain.

They were wrong.

Characteristically late to his own show, Brown strode into the room shortly after 4 P.M. He was in a fighting mood. No, he would not resign. The game was far from over. He declared that he would "continue to operate the house" until someone else got forty-one votes to be elected Speaker. He conceded that he did not have forty-one votes at that moment, but, reports to the contrary, "I don't think anybody else has forty-one votes." The reporters

left amazed, wondering what Brown knew that they did not. In fact, the posturing was in a vacuum. Neither side was sure of the outcome because absentee ballots remained to be counted in a handful of close Assembly elections.

Republican leader Jim Brulte believed that Brown was bluffing. As absentee ballots were finally counted, the Republicans emerged with a clear forty-one-vote majority. Brulte then held a press conference boasting that he would be the next Speaker. "I look forward, when all the votes are counted, to leading a 41- or 42-member-strong Republican majority," he declared.^[22] The Republicans began arguing over how to divide up the spoils of their victory. Hard-right conservatives, including Larry Bowler, a former Sacramento County sheriff's deputy, and Curt Pringle, an Orange County ideologue, advocated a "scorched earth" policy against Democrats; after so many years of humiliation at the hands of Willie Brown, they wanted not just to rule but to deliver retribution.

The Republican leaders, however, soon demonstrated that they did not know how to count to forty-one.

As Brulte continued to predict his ascension to Speaker, Brown assured his members that the Republican leader was "puffing."^[23] An audacious plan began to evolve to deny the Republicans the speakership for the remainder of the two-year session. The Democratic strategy involved a series of tactical retreats. No political inch would be conceded until the last minute. In Brown's view, the mere fact that the Republicans held a paper majority of forty-one did not mean the Democrats should give up or make it easier for them to seize power. Brown resolved to hold the speakership for as long as possible and, when that was no longer tenable, to find a friendly Republican who could hold it for him. It was an anybody-but-Brulte strategy. Brulte was by far the smartest, most talented Republican in the house, the first to end Brown's majority. Keeping the tools of power away from him was of overriding importance to Brown and the Democrats. Brulte's campaign skills were so formidable that the Democrats feared that with one more term he could consolidate his Republican majority for the remainder of the decade. He could damage Democrats severely if he became Speaker. "He would have made it impossible for Democrats," said Brown, paying Brulte the ultimate compliment by working so hard to keep him from becoming Speaker.^[24] The Democrats resolved to keep the job out of his hands and give it to a weak Republican.

As long as the rules gave the Democrats rough equality with the Republican majority, the Republicans could never get control of the house. The brazen strategy was fraught with risk because it could fail spectacularly. But in Brown's view the gamble was worth taking. The overarching goal was to keep the Republicans off balance until 1996, when the Democrats could attempt to retake the majority. Underlying the politics was a policy goal: the Democrats wanted to keep the hard-right conservatives from dismantling the health, welfare, environmental, and labor protection laws that the Democrats had been building up for more than two decades. The new Republicans were

decidedly anti-abortion rights and antiwelfare and had a long list of laws they wanted to repeal starting with the California Environmental Quality Act, the cornerstone of the environmental movement in California. Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" was not going to extend into California if Willie Brown's Democrats could help it.

"Incidentally, I think that's best for the institution, too," Brown explained in the midst of the battle. "I think if the state Assembly gets the kook title attached to it, it wouldn't be good, certainly after [my] fifteen years. Have you seen some of the crap they introduced?"^[25]

The Assembly chambers were jammed to overflowing on December 5, 1994. Folding chairs were brought onto the floor, and every gallery seat in the back and in the balconies was filled. It was a special day, the start of a new session; the day when new and old members were sworn into office. In keeping with tradition, the Assembly members brought their families; the proud wives, husbands, parents, partners, and children sat on the Assembly floor with the members and shared in the moment. But there was something about this particular day that was larger than life. The speakership of Willie Brown was about to come to an end after fourteen years of continuous rule, and the new majority was about to take over. The vote would be short and painless, Brulte's press secretary, Phillip Perry, predicted, and the Republicans would then immediately retire to a champagne celebration in the rotunda of the Capitol.

The corks stayed in the bottles that day.

For the previous month Brown and Brulte had been talking almost nonstop to Assembly members. Some of the Democrats were wavering, particularly Dominic Cortese of San Jose. Brown felt especially frustrated because all the new Republicans were under instructions not to talk with him. But Brown still had his reservoir of favors with veteran Republicans. Moments before the vote, Brown told Cortese he wanted to show him something. Brown and Cortese slipped into one of the offices near the Assembly floor. When Cortese came in, he found Republican Paul Horcher, who told him he would vote for Brown.^[26] Seeing Horcher was enough for Cortese to stick with the rest of the Democrats.

Horcher had been the odd man out in the Republican caucus for the past four years. He had given Pete Wilson the critical fifty-fourth vote to raise taxes in the 1991-92 budget, and he had been treated ever since like an outcast. Brown, however, had given him the vice chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee as a reward. Brulte had wanted to give the coveted slot to Stockton Assemblyman Dean Andal, who was possibly the stingiest man in the Republican caucus. When Brulte insisted Horcher move aside

for Andal, Horcher refused, and Brown said that in any case he would never give the vice chair to any Republican who refused to vote for the budget. Horcher then suffered slights large and small from the Republican caucus. The Republican leaders made him the pariah of the caucus. But on that cold morning in December 1994, Horcher was about to exact his revenge. He told Cortese he was about to bolt the Republican party and vote for Willie Brown.

When the roll call for Speaker got under way, and the members began casting oral votes, Horcher quietly slipped into the chambers. When it was his turn, he slammed his fist on his desk and shouted "Brown!"

Republicans were in shock. They sat at their desks with their families, unsure what to do next. Many of the new Republicans did not realize what had happened, and confused murmuring filled the room.

Willie Brown sat beaming at his Assembly desk with his son, Michael, at his side. A picture of father and son was published on the front page of the Los Angeles Times the next day.^[27]

With the Assembly deadlocked at 40-40, the Republicans could not elect Brulte as Speaker. No one, in fact, was Speaker at that moment. The Democrats had one more trick to preserve Brown's speakership. Republican Assemblyman Richard Mountjoy had been reelected to his Assembly seat but also elected to the Senate in a concurrent special election in November. Mountjoy refused to vacate his Assembly seat until after the Speaker election. He was determined to hang around long enough to vote for a Republican Speaker. The Democrats challenged his claim to hold two legislative seats at the same time. If Mountjoy could be disqualified from voting in the Assembly, then Brown would have a 40-39 majority. Then, using as precedent the 1988 legislative counsel opinion that enabled him to be reelected Speaker after the death of Curtis Tucker, Brown intended to have himself elected Speaker with forty votes. The maneuver would not have been pretty; it was legislative politics at its rawest. But it would have been over quickly, and the bad press and editorials that would surely have followed would have blown over within a week or two.

The plan almost succeeded. Under the rules, the Assembly clerk presided on the day of the Speaker election. Chief Clerk Dotson Wilson had once worked for Willie Brown; his rulings should have been a sure bet for the Democrats. But, amazingly, Dotson Wilson ruled against the Democratic challenge to Mountjoy. Under intense pressure, the befuddled clerk threw the question up for a vote of the full house. Brown could not get forty-one votes to sustain his position, and the Assembly remained deadlocked. Despite that setback, the Democrats were elated at the draw. On a day when hundreds of congressional staffers in Washington were getting their walking papers, Brown had protected Democratic staff in Sacramento and remained in control of the Assembly. At the very least, the Republicans would have to share power with them despite the election results. "If [Richard] Gephardt had done for the Democrats in Washington what Willie Brown is doing for

the Democrats here, they'd be naming buildings after him," said Democratic Assemblyman Richard Katz, one of Brown's top lieutenants.^[28]

That night a dejected Brulte returned to his office trailed by a handful of reporters.^[29] Brulte invited them inside, and there they found Senate Republican leader Ken Maddy sitting in a chair watching the U.S. House of Representatives on C-SPAN. "Five for five," Maddy declared, explaining how the new Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, had just won his fifth rule change that day. Gingrich was rolling up votes by the minute while his counterparts in Sacramento looked on with envy, having been bested by Willie Brown that day.

Within hours Horcher announced he had left the Republican Party and was now an independent. The Republicans were hugely embarrassed by the turn of events, and they vowed to get even with Horcher. What had been a majority of forty-one after the November election had turned into a debacle for Republicans; they began eating their own by mounting a recall against Horcher. Brown accused the Republicans of letting their "Gingrich envy" get the best of them.

However, Willie Brown still had not won. The refusal of Chief Clerk Dotson Wilson to allow the Democrats to oust Republican Richard Mountjoy meant that the speakership fight would drag on for months. There would be no quick, clean solution. Brown was indeed furious at Dotson Wilson, who had been almost a son to him.^[30] Wilson had been Brown's aide since the 1970s, and Brown had been particularly proud to make him the first black chief clerk in Assembly history. Exhausted by his ordeal on December 5, Wilson was hospitalized the next day. Under the rules, the senior Assembly member presided in the absence of the clerk, and the senior member was Willie Brown.

With Brown presiding on December 6, the Republicans refused to return to the Assembly floor. Afraid that Brown had still more parliamentary tricks, and conceding that he was smarter than they, the Republicans fled the Capitol to deny a quorum on the floor. They holed up across the street at the Hyatt for several days in a spectacle that highlighted their impotence. Brown toyed with asking the highway patrol to arrest them and bring them to the Capitol, but he rejected the idea as too melodramatic. "I know I got 'em. They're just scrambling," he said.^[31]

The Republicans could not stay away from the Capitol for long without looking more foolish than they already did, nor could Democrats hold the house with a 40-40 tie forever. Brown continued to search for Republicans who would cooperate with the Democrats. The odds of finding one or two were on his side, and that was all he needed. "In this business you can't start out with the idea that your goal is going to be realized. You've got to have multiple choices. And if this doesn't work, and this one doesn't, one of your goals will work," said Brown.^[32] He kept his options open, he looked

for openings. He was even willing to give up the speakership as long as the Democrats kept effective control of the house.

The Republicans, however, were intent on owning the title "Speaker." They accused Brown of trying to keep the job out of vanity, failing to appreciate that his underlying goal was to deny them the power to pass laws and control the machinery of the Assembly. Brulte continued to hunt for Democrats, but the Republican accusations only made it harder. "He doesn't understand that no Democrat will leave Willie Brown, not for anything," said Brown. "Why would any Democrat leave Willie Brown? I've never offended any of them. I've defended them full-time. I've always been willing to make the personal sacrifice. So no Democrat is gonna leave Willie Brown no matter what their personal views are. If I say it's a bad idea, it's a bad idea."^[33] As the fight wore on, Brown repeatedly demonstrated he was telling the truth.

Republican Assemblyman Bernie Richter, a former Democrat representing Chico, came close to making a deal with the Democrats to elect himself Speaker. Brown even convinced the black caucus to support him, although Richter was a strong supporter of proposals to repeal affirmative action. But Richter declared that he would not consummate the deal without support from at least one other Republican. Two appeared to be in Richter's corner, but they peeled off at the last minute.^[34] The move to elect Richter fizzled.

Finally, on January 23, the Republicans returned to the floor, and Brown presided as the senior member and quickly recognized a motion to oust Mountjoy from the Assembly. Under the rules, Mountjoy could not vote on his own qualifications, so the motion to oust him passed 40-39. Minutes later, Brown was reelected Speaker, 40-39.

Brulte accused Brown of using "brutal and corrupt" procedural moves. Other Republicans, part of the far-right contingent in his caucus that counseled war and tolerated no contact with Willie Brown whatsoever, went further. Republican Larry Bowler, an ex-cop who still packed a gun even in the Capitol, called it the "Willie Brown junta" and accused him of turning California's government into a Third World country. "It's an illegal seizure of power," Bowler declared, itching to march down the hall and arrest Willie Brown. "The man is an enemy. He's evil and he's dangerous."^[35] Bowler was so paranoid about Brown that he confessed to snipping the wires from microphones in the Assembly Rules Committee room where Republicans routinely met; he said he feared Brown was bugging the room.

Brulte's fatal flaw was in counting on every Republican to vote for him. He had no margin for a single member bolting the caucus. He had taken Horcher for granted. Brulte made other mistakes as well. By prohibiting his new members from talking with Brown, he kept them in line but foreclosed the possibility of a deal. He let the most strident members of his caucus, like Bowler, set the tone; Brulte was unwilling to jettison them to attract wavering Democrats. The Republicans ended up talking only with themselves, and so

they were oblivious to the reality that they did not have enough votes to elect Brulte Speaker.

By contrast, Brown encouraged his Democrats to talk with Brulte, advising them to press him for clear details on the shape of a possible deal. Brown trusted that his Democrats would not like what they heard. Furthermore, every offer Brulte made to a Democrat immediately got back to Brown, and so Brown had better intelligence than his Republican rival. Brulte believed he was negotiating in secret, that the Democrats would surely never tell the Speaker that they had talked with him. But the Democrats compared notes and found contradictions. Jackie Speier, for example, talked with Brulte, and she then reported back to Brown that she was not satisfied with what she heard. Brulte told Brown that some of the Democrats were talking with him, hinting that he had them in the bag. Brown did not let on that he already knew who was talking to Brulte, giving Brulte a false sense of confidence.

For the time being, Willie Brown remained Speaker and in control of the Assembly. But with the Assembly evenly split, reality dictated some kind of a power sharing arrangement. Brown announced he would split the committee chairmanships between the two parties, and he soon did so. He gave Brulte a new office directly upstairs from his own, once occupied by Michael Galizio, Brown's chief of staff. Following the election, it had been remodeled with $100,000 worth of antiques and oil paintings, and it was designated for the minority leader. Brown had figured he might have to occupy it himself. But Brown was still Speaker and Brulte was still minority leader. To Brulte's embarrassment, however, when he moved into the remodeled office a front-page story in The Sacramento Bee made him look, perhaps unfairly, like a grubby, perk-addicted politician.

The Republicans mounted their recall of Horcher, and counted the days until they could oust Brown in June. They continued to boast of how much punishment they would mete out to Democrats once they seized control. But they had no alternative plans. Meanwhile, little got done in the Assembly. The sessions were usually short and dominated by bickering and petty parliamentary squabbles. "Let's get on to the business of the day, which I believe is eating lunch," John Burton proclaimed one day during a particularly useless floor session.^[36]

Republicans succeeded in recalling Horcher in June, and again predicted they would have forty-one votes to elect Brulte as Speaker. Again, the Democrats had a backup plan: a Republican willing to be elected Speaker with their help. Their candidate was Assemblywoman Doris Allen of Orange County, who was by then the senior Republican in her caucus but was treated as if she were a newcomer. By anointing her as his successor, Brown again proved himself the master gambler in the Capitol.

Doris Allen was not easy to get along with. She wore her grudges on her sleeve and had a long memory for every slight. Her Republican colleagues did

not consider her very bright, and they were condescending toward her. She was incensed at Republican leaders for not backing her in a special election for a state Senate seat; they instead supported Ross Johnson. Brown appointed her chairwoman of the Assembly Health Committee, but Republican leaders put roadblocks in the paths of twenty-one of her health care bills and tried routing them to the Assembly Insurance Committee, chaired by Republican Assemblyman David Knowles.^[37]

In early May Allen announced she would not support Brulte for Speaker. Soon after, she announced she would stand for Speaker. Allen made a deal with the Democrats in return for their votes giving them control over half of the Assembly budget and preserving the balance of power on committees. The time had come for the Democrats to move to their next defensive line. Willie Brown announced he would step aside as Speaker as soon as someone got forty votes. The Republicans should have seen it for the clear signal that it was, but they did not understand that Willie Brown had again got the better of them by finding a friendly replacement.

Allen was elected Speaker on June 5, 1995, with the votes of thirty-nine Democrats. The only Republican vote she got was her own. The Willie Brown speakership was officially over, but it did not seem that way. He got a new title, "Speaker Emeritus," and was still clearly calling the shots in the Assembly. By stepping aside as Speaker and letting Allen take over, he prevented the Republican caucus from naming its own Speaker and writing its own rules. In effect, Willie Brown was still controlling the shots.

"Isn't that incredible?" Brown quipped after the vote. "And it's not affirmative action, not affirmative action at all. No assistance, no preference. The old white boys got taken fair and square."^[38]

The day after Allen became Speaker, Brown was asked what would happen if the Republicans refused to recognize Allen and mounted a recall against her as they had against Horcher. "It would be the best thing they could do for me, personally, and the best thing they could do for Democrats generally. It would keep the Republican caucus unstable and in disarray," he said.^[39]

That is precisely what the Republicans proceeded to do. They accused Allen of being Brown's puppet and immediately mounted a recall against her.

To become Speaker, Allen had agreed to a new set of rules under which she shared power with Brown, including control over the all-important Rules Committee. She moved into Brown's old office, but he got the ornate office directly upstairs in the same corner of the Capitol, and Brulte was kicked out. Adding to the insult, Allen assigned Brulte to Horcher's old office.^[40]

More importantly, under the new arrangement Brown controlled the Democratic caucus budget while Allen controlled the Republican budget. That meant that Brulte controlled nothing. He had been better off with Brown as Speaker; Allen immediately began firing Brulte's staff. Brulte, who was planning to run for the state Senate in 1996 anyway, eventually resigned as Republican leader, and was replaced by Orange County Assemblyman

Curt Pringle, a sharp-tongued, highly partisan Republican. Pringle was the chief advocate of following a "scorched earth" policy against Democrats if his party ever got power. The Democrats had succeeded in one of their goals: they had removed the threat of Brulte ever becoming Assembly Speaker.

But few in the Capitol took Allen seriously. The Republicans treated her with open contempt, and even Brown had a tough time concealing how much he was manipulating her. A display of that occurred when Allen's mother had a stroke in July. She rushed to her mother's bedside instead of attending her first meeting as a member of the University of California Board of Regents. She therefore missed an enormously controversial vote to abolish racial- and gender-based affirmative action programs in hiring and admissions. When Brown, standing in a hallway during the marathon meeting, was asked how he had arranged Allen's absence, he could not resist quipping, "I've got to make that stroke last another six hours."^[41] Brown's jesting was in poor taste, but it also illustrated clearly who was really controlling the Assembly.

Allen's tenure as Assembly Speaker was as short as it was stormy. Two days before the end of the session in September, she lashed out at her Republican detractors, accusing them of having "short penises." She staged a press conference to advance her own ideas on how to bail out bankrupt Orange County, her home turf, but she showed scant knowledge of the issue and gave a pitiful performance. Finally Allen resigned as Speaker, and she was still recalled by the voters in her district. She was replaced as Speaker by the only Republican who had come to her side, Brian Setencich of Fresno, who had been in office for less than a year. The election of her successor was a replay of her election as Speaker, with Willie Brown calling the shots. Setencich, thirty-three years old, was elected with Democratic votes; the only Republican votes for him were his own and Allen's. Setencich, a former professional basketball player, was so unassuming and mild-mannered that he was called "the Forest Gump of the Central Valley." He seemed immune from a Republican recall.^[42] He represented a district with a Democratic registration edge; if the Republicans tried to recall him, they would likely end up having him replaced with a Democrat.

Willie Brown and his Democratic caucus had succeeded for a solid year at keeping the Republican leaders from controlling the Assembly. His experience and intelligence overwhelmed his Republican opponents in 1995, keeping them constantly off guard and in chaos. But Brown was also looking for a way to exit from the Assembly while keeping his power intact.

For the previous two or three years he had, in fact, been contemplating what to do next. The one thing he appeared not to be considering was retirement. Maxine Waters had urged him to leave the Assembly and set up a foundation. She said he could become a "West Coast Jesse Jackson."^[43] The problem with that idea was that there was no inherent political power in running a foundation, and there was no reason why the media should pay him any attention if he did. Jesse Jackson had his National Rainbow Coalition

and a nonvoting U.S. Senate seat; he had the attention of the media largely because he had run for president. Willie Brown had real political power to protect. He had long since crossed the line to pragmaticism, and in the view of African American intellectual Cornel West, it would have been almost impossible for Brown to recross the line to become a "prophetic leader."^[44] Brown was not Jesse Jackson. Brown was used to pulling the levers of government; his power was not anchored on oratorical skill and the ability to mobilize masses of people. Brown had built a career extending well beyond a black constituency and into the halls of authority dominated by whites.

"He's unable to really throw the stones from the outside in the same way that some exemplary prophetic leaders have," West observed during a visit to Sacramento, where he grew up, even as Brown contemplated his dilemma. "That's true for any protest candidates or prophetic figures from the outside moving to the inside."

Although Brown could not become a Jesse Jackson, that did not mean he could not play in national politics. He just had to play it differently than Jackson. Brown chose a conventional route with his own unconventional twists. Brown always threw spectacular parties at Democratic presidential nominating conventions. He networked incessantly with the rich and powerful. Many of the Californians closest to President Clinton, like Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and trade representative Mickey Kantor, were Willie Brown's friends long before they met Bill Clinton. Brown's network extended everywhere in politics. He was a major fund raiser not just for California Democrats but also for Jackson and New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Brown did his best to raise money in 1993 for the ill-fated reelection campaign of New York Mayor David Dinkins. He was on a first-name basis with Texas Governor Ann Richards. Brown made his annual trips to Washington, D.C., where he was received with limousines and congressional receptions. But all his flourish and frenzy in those circles led Brown's career nowhere.

Alice Huffman's solution for Brown—running for governor in 1994—was perhaps the most enticing for him. He authorized her to form an exploratory committee, and she printed a few hundred campaign buttons. The idea that he might run for governor won worldwide attention, but it was quickly dismissed as improbable. The conservative British magazine The Economist dedicated one of its "Lexington" columns to Brown in 1993, lauding him for his skill at wielding power but puncturing his prospects for statewide office:

And there is the rub. The gubernatorial trial balloon may well fall back in the Speaker's face because, quite simply, there is not enough air in it. That leaves Mr. Brown, like many an ageing master-courtier before him, still stuck without a strategy for a graceful exit; and, more important, without the legacy that his long period in power deserves.^[45]

Brown's frustration was really an old one in his career. He had always been a realist, and he learned his lessons from predecessors who had tried and

miserably failed in their stabs at running for governor. If Brown harbored ambitions of running for statewide, or even national office, he suppressed them during his tenure as Speaker. The example of Jesse Unruh humiliating himself at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1970 was still too recent. Assembly Speakers did not fare well in statewide elections. Bob Moretti's run for governor in 1974 was a spectacular flop. Leo McCarthy broke the mold, but not really. McCarthy was elected to the virtually meaningless position of lieutenant governor, but went no further in politics after that. His two attempts at the U.S. Senate failed badly. The skills that it took to be Assembly Speaker were not the skills for a successful statewide campaign in California, with its heavy emphasis on media image and unthreatening blandness. To serve as Assembly Speaker required taking the heat for deals with unsavory lobbyists and boorish legislators.

Then there was the problem of being black. California was changing, but in 1994 African Americans still composed less than 8 percent of the population, and roughly 6 percent of the voters.^[46] Blacks had great success in winning city council, legislative, and congressional seats, but had met with only limited success in statewide elections. Mervyn Dymally served a single term as lieutenant governor but was brought down by a neophyte, Mike Curb. Most heart-wrenching of all, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who remained popular in his own city until his last term, twice failed to be elected governor. Bradley had come painfully close in 1982 against George Deukmejian, but he was blown out in a landslide in a rematch four years later. If the bland, operaloving Bradley could not win the governorship, what chance did the flamboyant, controversial Assembly Speaker stand? And if running for statewide office was foreclosed, running for national office was out of the question.

Brown once made a timeless reflection about himself in the mid-1980s that still applied to his quandary of the mid-1990s: "Willie Brown is like a cat. Ever notice a cat? They never jump any higher than they can reach. You've never seen a cat fall off or try to jump up on a table and not make it. You've never seen it grab a curtain and not be able to climb. I know my limits. I know my liabilities electorally speaking, and I live within those limits. My ego is satisfied and I'm comfortable. I don't need to prove I'm the baddest dude on the block by going out and seeking every elected office."^[47]

As it became clear that he could not remain as Speaker much longer, Brown settled on running for mayor of San Francisco. Brown had once taught the incumbent mayor, Frank Jordan, his favorite bar game, "liar's dice." The stakes then were a glass of wine. Now Brown decided to bet against Jordan for bigger stakes: the city. Jordan, the former police chief under Feinstein, was vulnerable. His poll ratings were low, and he was seen as something of a hapless bumbler. Brown had flirted with the idea of running for mayor years earlier, but had discarded it after the assassination of George Moscone.

At first the job did not appeal to him. His brother, James Walton, the assistant city manager of Tacoma, explained to him the realities of running

a city and it held no allure for Willie Brown. "Street lights, dog-doo and parking meters are not my cup of tea," he remarked in the fall of 1994 with a cute comment that came back to haunt him a year later.^[48]

His buddy, Herb Caen, reported in June 1995, that Brown had a tough time making up his mind. Caen rarely gave a whole column to a single subject, but now he devoted an entire one to Willie Brown.^[49] Caen said that Brown was initially put off by the job. Friends, like Rudy Nothenberg, had told him that the city was a disaster and could not be governed. But Brown was now serious about the job and had made up his mind "finally and irrevocably" to run. Caen devoted much of the column to what amounted to a lengthy endorsement of his friend, but he did not explain what changed Brown's mind.

By May 1995 the idea of becoming mayor appealed to Brown on several levels. For one, he could win. It would keep him in politics, providing him with the stage he craved. In his view there was a huge need in the 1990s for a spokesman for urban America. No sitting mayor, much less a black mayor, was performing such a duty.

On a deeper level, becoming mayor could prove something about his years as Speaker of the California Assembly. It could show that he had executive ability, that he stood for something besides raising campaign money and seeking longevity in power. "I would tell you this," he explained over lunch on the June day after stepping down as Speaker. "The mayorship is going to give me an opportunity to vindicate every doubt that's ever been associated with my skills and my ability, whether on the ethical side, or whether on the substantive side, or whether on the management side. I'm going to do it with a vengeance."^[50]

Brown opened his campaign for mayor on June 3, 1995, with an elaborately staged rally at Peace Plaza in the Japan Trade Center in the heart of San Francisco. With the United States and San Francisco flags as his backdrop, surrounded by dozens of his friends, Brown declared his candidacy. Those standing on the stage with him were part of his history: John Burton, Art Torres, and the Reverend Cecil Williams, who led his Glide Memorial Church choir in gospel songs.

"Willie Brown is coming home! Willie Brown is coming home to San Francisco!" Williams proclaimed.

Brown told the gathering that he wanted to be mayor to prove that he was not just a wheeling-dealing politician from Sacramento, but was still true to the ideals that had propelled him into politics in the first place. "I still have a soul," he declared. His speech was heavily laced with his own personal history. He spoke about his arrival in San Francisco in 1951 and what the city looked like then. "It had a magic about it," he said.

Brown recalled for the crowd that the site where he declared his candidacy for mayor was where he had kicked off his Assembly campaign in 1964. But few there realized that the place had a far deeper significance for Willie

Brown. That morning, under a stunning blue sky, 750 people gathered where his uncle Itsie Collins's gambling casino had once stood a half-century earlier, before it was paved over for a shopping mall. They stood on the very spot where Willie Brown found refuge from the segregation of his youth.

In the summer of 1993—forty-two years after boarding a train westward—Willie Brown returned to Texas for a reunion of Mineola Colored High School graduates.^[51] He had not been back for a decade, and then only for a brief visit. But his sisters in Texas persuaded him to return for the reunion. They wanted to show him things had changed.

Quite unexpectedly, it became an extraordinary day of healing for Willie Brown and his hometown. To his astonishment, when Brown arrived in Mineola he was greeted by the mayor, the city council, the chamber of commerce, a judge, a Texas state legislator, and about one hundred townsfolk. They gave him a key to the city, the first given to anyone, and surrounded him asking for his autograph.

Mineola had changed since Brown left in 1951. The town was trying to reinvent itself—and its past—as a tourist center with Victorian-style bed-and-breakfasts. The fact that Brown—an African American man—was honored at all was evidence of the change. Newcomers little aware of Mineola's legacy of segregation were anxious to acknowledge Brown when they heard he would be visiting. Honoring Brown became a hot political issue in Mineola, pitting newcomers against old-timers. The event's symbolic importance to the small town was enormous, and his visit was the main topic of coffee shop conversation for weeks. The newcomers won, and the city council declared it "Willie Brown Day."

"Oh Lord," Brown declared when he stepped out of a car and saw the throng awaiting him.

"Mr. Speaker," said Sam Curry, a local radio station owner who played master of ceremonies, "Mineola welcomes you back home."

Visibly moved, Brown told the gathering, "We were separate and distinct when we lived here. Thank you for letting this Mineola feel so good."

The site of the ceremony was outside the Beckham Hotel, the place where a murder so long ago had helped spur Willie Brown on his journey to California. When Brown was young, blacks could enter only through the kitchen door. But the Beckham had new owners, and they hosted a reception for Brown and his family following the ceremony. "I ain't never been in the Beckham Hotel," Brown declared as he and his half-brother, James, took delight in walking through the front door.

Racial integration did not come to Mineola schools until long after Willie Brown left, nor did it come easily. Mineola at first resisted and then tried

half-measures. In 1966 the Mineola school district proposed sending eighty black students to a previously all-white school while a new school was being built to serve whites and blacks.^[52] The one thing the school district was not about to do was send white students to the black school, a tacit acknowledgment of the wretchedness of the black school. The school district also refused to send white teachers to the black school. Federal civil rights enforcers, however, threatened to cut off federal funds to the school district unless it fully integrated. Mineola enlisted the help of U.S. Senator John Tower of Texas, who wrote furious letters to his fellow Texan, President Lyndon Johnson, pleading with him to stop federal civil rights enforcers. But Johnson did not intervene, the district had no choice, and the original Mineola Colored High School was torn down in 1966. The scrubby woods of East Texas began reclaiming the school yard at the colored school.

The trains that had once brought Minnie Collins from Dallas every week had made their last stop in Mineola years ago. Local boosters had been trying to get Amtrak to stop in Mineola in the hope that it would help tourism. But with no political clout, Mineola found that its pleas fell on deaf ears. The boosters pressed Willie Brown that day about Amtrak, and in his enthusiasm Brown promised he would lobby whoever needed to be lobbied. Brown promised his hometown he would get it an Amtrak stop, and scarcely a person there that day did not believe him.

That afternoon, after the reception at the Beckham Hotel, blacks and whites joined each other to honor one of their own at a barbecue on the site of the old Mineola Colored High School, on the black side of town. Tom Beesley, the white editor and general manager of the Mineola Monitor , stood among them enjoying the barbecued ribs and reflected that the events of that day were far more important than simply honoring one man. The day represented the first time the white power structure had honored any African American man. On another level, it marked the first time in a long time that whites and blacks had worked together on a common project. "The barrier was lowered here today," said Beesley. "The neatest thing that happened here today is people were saying 'We.'"

Willie Brown enjoyed every minute of it. He posed for pictures with the "I.E. Boys"—Cookie, Bootie, and Jackie. Everyone that day called him "Brookie" and wanted to shake his hand or squeeze his arm. The old pea-packing plant even had a sign up welcoming him home. That evening Brown donned a sharp suit and gave an after-dinner speech to what seemed like half the town jammed into Mineola's conference center. Then he returned to California, back to a state that did not quite love him, but an adopted home that remained fascinated by him, and back to a life story very much unfinished. But in Mineola on that muggy Texas night, Willie Brown was, at last, the hometown son who had made good.