Earl Warren

SIXTY YEARS AGO, California experienced a unique moment in its fractious political history. In the primary of the governor's race of 1946, Republican voters unsurprisingly picked incumbent Earl Warren to again represent the GOP in the November election. What was remarkable, however, was what the state's Democrats did: They nominated him too. That sealed the outcome, and Warren coasted to victory that fall.

Five Chiefs A Supreme Court Memoir John Paul Stevens Little Brown: 292 pp., $24.99 There is something about the dignity of the Supreme Court that apparently causes its justices to adjust its realities in their writings. Chief Justice Earl Warren, the first chief to write an autobiography (though he died before finishing it), insisted that there had never been any disagreement among his colleagues over Brown vs. Board of Education; that was quaint but false. Justice Stephen Breyer's most recent book held that the brethren "maintain good relations with one another" no matter how deep their differences; that too is a bit hard to believe.

Edgar Patterson, 89, former driver to Earl Warren who helped shape the justice's views on race relations. Patterson befriended Warren when the politician was California attorney general. After Warren was elected the state's governor, he tapped Patterson, a state police officer, to be his driver. Historians have attributed Warren's early interest in segregation to his talks with Patterson, who told him about Sacramento stores and restaurants that refused to serve blacks.

A. Alan Post, the longtime legislative analyst who watched over the budgets of California governors from Earl Warren to Jerry Brown, has died. He was 96. Post, who also was a well-regarded artist, died March 26 of natural causes at his home in Sacramento, said his son, David. During Post's years in Sacramento he saw the state go from "a veritable outpost of the continental United States to one of the largest and most important political entities in the world," he told The Times in 1977 as he approached retirement.

I have a letter from my old friend John Weaver, reminding me that Tuesday will be the centenary of Earl Warren's birth. It is not likely, in this moment of triumph for George Bush and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, that any celebration will be raised in memory of Justice Warren. Weaver is the author of "Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era," a definitive biography of a man I consider the man of the century.

James Cleveland Warren, a Northern California vintner and son of Earl Warren, a governor of California before becoming chief justice of the United States, died Monday of cancer. He was 71 when he died at his ranch in St. Helena, according to a spokesman for Morrison Funeral Chapel.

There is no one way to govern California, nor is there one type of governor. Ronald Reagan was ideologically forceful but softened his politics with charm and pragmatism. Pat Brown was a builder, popular for much of his tenure with Republicans as well as Democrats. George Deukmejian proved that it was possible to be elected twice without a hint of charisma.

There could scarcely have been two more different men in public life than Earl Warren and Adam Clayton Powell Jr., yet both had a profound effect on civil rights legislation in the 20th Century.

ON my office wall hangs a faded leaflet I picked up on a Dallas street the day John F. Kennedy was shot. It shows two police-booking-style photos of the president, beneath which blares the line "Wanted for Treason" and the accusations that he aided "Communist inspired racial riots" and "illegally invaded a sovereign state" when he sent U.S. troops to quell a riot that greeted a black student's entrance to the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Re "Justice with empathy," Opinion, May 24 Missing from the list of personal influences that may have led to Chief Justice Earl Warren's "liberal" (or, more accurately, "liberating") judicial temperament was, perhaps, the most important pillar of any institution's sound and mature judgment: the ability to learn from one's mistakes. As California's attorney general in early 1942, Warren strongly supported the illegal internment of the state's Japanese Americans, a racially motivated, morally bankrupt, fear-mongering assault on the American concept of justice if ever there was one. Later, his regret for his part in supporting such an abuse of power arguably had a huge influence on his judicial character and his precedent-setting leadership in the protection of civil liberties as chief justice.

Is empathy a desirable quality in a Supreme Court justice? President Obama has said he's searching for it in his nominee to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter, but as a qualification for a jurist, it gives conservatives the willies and can produce mixed results in our legal system. We expect judges to resist empathy and instead impose the law evenhandedly.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the first California governor to face a difficult budget. Earl Warren, Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson also confronted deficits and had to make tough political choices. The following articles, commissioned by California Forward, a bipartisan group that seeks reform of the state budget process, show how they balanced the books. -- It is both difficult and easy to imagine how Gov.

SIXTY YEARS AGO, California experienced a unique moment in its fractious political history. In the primary of the governor's race of 1946, Republican voters unsurprisingly picked incumbent Earl Warren to again represent the GOP in the November election. What was remarkable, however, was what the state's Democrats did: They nominated him too. That sealed the outcome, and Warren coasted to victory that fall.

ON my office wall hangs a faded leaflet I picked up on a Dallas street the day John F. Kennedy was shot. It shows two police-booking-style photos of the president, beneath which blares the line "Wanted for Treason" and the accusations that he aided "Communist inspired racial riots" and "illegally invaded a sovereign state" when he sent U.S. troops to quell a riot that greeted a black student's entrance to the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Re "Roberts Gains Respect, if Not Converts," Sept. 16 What is the Constitution? Is it a "living Constitution" (Earl Warren) or a "dead Constitution" (Justice Antonin Scalia)? Is it a "flexible Constitution" (FDR)? Thomas Jefferson felt that the Constitution ought to be changed every generation. In my own view, as a political scientist, I go along with Roosevelt's definition: It is a flexible document that can be "stretched" to fit existing conditions. From John G. Roberts Jr.'s testimony, I gather he will be neither Warren nor William H. Rehnquist but his own man who will judge cases as he sees them without prejudice.

John Balzar (Commentary, July 31) points to some of California's problems. But one should not be overly nostalgic for the past. To be sure, we had some great, far-sighted leaders, such as California Govs. Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren and Pat Brown. But California's urban and fiscal problems of today are legacies of an earlier, lobbyist-dominated leadership that was apathetic to our inevitable population explosion and that failed to deal with predictable deficiencies, such as transportation, education and other social ills.

Re "Roberts Gains Respect, if Not Converts," Sept. 16 What is the Constitution? Is it a "living Constitution" (Earl Warren) or a "dead Constitution" (Justice Antonin Scalia)? Is it a "flexible Constitution" (FDR)? Thomas Jefferson felt that the Constitution ought to be changed every generation. In my own view, as a political scientist, I go along with Roosevelt's definition: It is a flexible document that can be "stretched" to fit existing conditions. From John G. Roberts Jr.'s testimony, I gather he will be neither Warren nor William H. Rehnquist but his own man who will judge cases as he sees them without prejudice.

Re "Gonzales' Fatal Flaw," editorial, July 8 While I don't necessarily disagree with your objections to Alberto Gonzales as a Supreme Court justice, your reasoning reminds me of the case of a former chief justice of some repute, Earl Warren, who might also fail your test for his involvement as California's attorney general during the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans in World War II. Some might argue his subsequent service on the high...

Sacramento It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time: Honor a great California governor with a small monument -- one that could bring a smile to the most jaded politician or apolitical tourist. But the idea has been quietly dropped, the victim of an unhealed wound. Earl Warren was not just a great governor. He was California's most popular governor, the only one elected three times.