Pat Brown

Who is to blame for California's failure to maintain its physical plant over the last two decades? In part, it is the federal government, which has amassed such an enormous budget deficit that it has been forced to reduce construction grants to the states for roads, sewers, airports, higher education facilities and many other building programs. California political leaders share the blame, especially recent governors.

A student of history and practitioner of hyperbole, Republican firebrand Tom McClintock is fond of quoting Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" when describing the current state of California. Once-gleaming roads and aqueducts lie in ruins. Once-proud universities deteriorate from neglect. The slide, the Northridge assemblyman said, came after California's last visionary governor left Sacramento.

A quarter century after being ousted from office by Ronald Reagan, former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown returned to the Capitol on Monday to be praised by another Republican governor as a "great leader" who "helped build California" and wasn't afraid of a fight. "Some politicians pass through office ducking fights and avoiding controversy. That was never Gov. Brown's way," Gov. Pete Wilson told a joint session of the Legislature.

For Gov. Jerry Brown, his updated California water plan - the peripheral pipes - is not just bold policy, it's deeply personal. It's not merely about his legacy, it's about his family's. What his dad - the legendary builder Gov. Pat Brown - began more than half a century ago, the son now is adamantly committed to finishing. The septuagenarian governor referred to his family's role in California water development when a reporter asked him last week whether he was biting off too much heading into the November election.

The letter purportedly from Edmund G. (Pat) Brown may have been a forgery. Surely, the real Pat Brown wouldn't reopen a wound that must be painful to his son. Californians did not vote to politicize the Supreme Court and thus obtain judges who would support the death penalty. The vote was not so much against Rose Bird as it was against Jerry Brown, the one who politicized the Supreme Court by appointing judges he could count on to support his own political opposition to our state law. PHIL LANSDALE Corona del Mar

Bernice Layne Brown, widow of the late Gov. Pat Brown and the mother of former Gov. Jerry Brown, died Thursday at her Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles. The charming, gregarious veteran of more than a dozen family political campaigns was 93 and had been in ill health for several years. Her daughter, onetime gubernatorial candidate and former state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, and her son, now the mayor of Oakland, were with her when she died. So were several of her 10 grandchildren.

First came references to Jerry Brown. Then Pat Brown. Then Kathleen Brown. Then John F. Kennedy. By the time Saturday's forum had ended, the four white candidates for governor had clambered upon every iconic figure they could reach in their search for a way to appeal to their largely Latino audience.

One man in his time plays many parts Oh, how I know Shakespeare's line by heart I was Arnold the Avenger, till my debacle last November Now with speed that doth bewilder, I am Arnold, Master Builder! Channeling Pat Brown, I want to win renown, By constructing schools and highways all around the state With $68 billion down, I'll win votes from Town and Gown As Your Infrastructure Gov., I am Arnold and I'm Great!

Lucien C. Haas, an influential aide and speechwriter to Democratic politicians for more than 20 years, died in his sleep Tuesday at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 86. Haas was a spokesman for Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) for 13 years, an associate press secretary to Gov. Pat Brown and a speechwriter for his son, Gov. Jerry Brown.

There are instructive parallels between the circumstances in which Gov.-elect Jerry Brown finds himself and those that confronted his father, Pat Brown, when he first took office in 1958. Both were swept into office in epochal Democratic victories. Despite their party's national reversals, Californians have elected Democrats to fill every statewide office (assuming Kamala Harris holds her lead in the attorney general race) and to an overwhelming legislative majority. In 1958, Pat Brown carried all but four of the state's counties and helped propel Democrats into two-thirds of the Legislature's seats, giving them majorities in both chambers for the first time in 80 years.