A Conversation with Willie Brown
Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)
By Bill Jackson
Willie Brown served as the 58th Speaker of the California Assembly from 1980 to 1995 and as the 41st Mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004. Briones Society co-founder Bill Jackson interviewed him on March 4, 2023. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
Bill Jackson: Mayor Willie Brown, thank you for taking time to meet with us here at John's Grill. I appreciate your time. What have you been up to recently?
Willie Brown: A little bit of everything. I have probably engaged myself more than I should in the world of politics – almost as much as when I was an elected official. It means I have to keep up with everything and everybody. I’ve been having a good time doing it.
Bill Jackson: What do you care most about these days in your political involvements?
Willie Brown: I care about whether or not we can increase the number of people who are genuinely committed to the idea of trying to make decisions on the basis of whether or not something is right or wrong – rather than should X win or should Y win, with X and Y being those who seek public office.
Bill Jackson: Thank you. I’m from the Briones Society, which is a group of Republicans trying to build up the party here in San Francisco. I’m interested in your early experiences with Republicans in the state and how Republicans and Democrats were different in the sixties, seventies, and eighties compared to now. When you were first elected speaker in 1980, you were elected with more Republican than Democratic votes. Is that correct?
Willie Brown: That is correct. There were 80 members of the House [editor’s note: Assembly] and in the past, the House had been dividing itself by caucuses, Republicans and Democrats. In many cases, they would go into a caucus, which was a private event. They would decide among themselves who their candidate would be, and then they would go out on the floor and cast votes accordingly for their candidate. It was never an election of a member of the House. It was a caucus nominee.
I always thought that was an incorrect thing to do because the House as a whole should elect who it considers to be the best member to be the speaker. I think Congress should do the same. I had made this point year in and year out and then finally, on my second try for the speakership, I decided that I would go talk to my friends on the Republican side of the aisle and my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. And of the 80 members of the House at that time, 32 were Republicans and 48 were Democrats. I got 23 of the 48 Democrats and 28 of the 32 Republicans. So for the first time in the history of California, 51 members of the House voted for a speaker – a member speaker, not a caucus speaker.
Bill Jackson: What were the Republicans like, the ones who supported you? How were they the same or different from the Democrats who supported you?
Willie Brown: They were members who were interested in the House and they did not put their political persuasion or their political party first. They believed the most talented people should rise and serve the whole House. That's what this collection of members cared about.
If you’re asking me about their political persuasions, I think among Republicans it was probably the most conservative collection of Republicans with whom I had ever served and among the Democrats, I think it was probably the most liberal collection of Democrats with whom I’d ever served.
Bill Jackson: But you brought them together.
Willie Brown: Wait a minute. I don't think you should just describe it as together. I think I convinced them that the House is best served if the House elects its own leader, not caucus nominees. We should not limit ourselves to caucus nominees.
Around this time, Democratic caucus nominees were trying to get rid of then-speaker Leo McCarthy, a fellow San Franciscan who had defeated me in 1974 for the speakership in the caucus process. They were trying to replace Leo with Howard Berman out of Los Angeles, out of Beverly Hills. And for almost a whole year, they were constantly making motions to vacate the chair, spending more time trying to push a political agenda rather than a House agenda.
Berman had more Democratic votes than McCarthy, but Berman couldn't get to 41. Leo McCarthy had the Republicans standing on the sideline watching the fight between these two Democrats and that had eliminated literally any party preference among many members. Liberal, conservative, progressive – none of these labels had much application because people realized they needed to care about the House rather than the individual parties.
Bill Jackson: I recently read your autobiography, Basic Brown. I was fascinated to learn about the Black Republicans in San Francisco in the 1960s – for example, Bunny Simon.
Willie Brown: Joseph Simon was his real name. We called him Bunny Simon. His son Timothy Simon, is a good friend of mine. He was a Republican, but no longer. I think he left the Republican world when the Trump-ites and the crazies started doing what they were doing. He’s now an independent, but he served in the administration of my good friend, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at my recommendation in part. He went on to become a member of the California Public Utilities Commission and now may very well be one of the most informed African-Americans in the country on energy policy. There were several other black people who were Republicans here in San Francisco and they were just as militant on the civil rights issues, just as militant on the effort to see that Lyndon Johnson did what he needed to do on the Voting Rights Act.
Bill Jackson: I was also fascinated by your story of Bill Bagley, also a Republican.
Willie Brown: William Bagley was a member of the California State Assembly. We called him Bill Bagley. He was from Marin County and he was probably one of the best ever members of the House. He ultimately became, I think, the founding chairman in the Nixon Administration of one of the regulatory agencies that went on to become very important to the economy of America. Bill Bagley was an aggressive human rights advocate. He had with great pride membership in every organization that I was a member of that addressed the issue of equality.
Bill Jackson: So what would you say would have been the policy or ideological differences between you and Bill Bagley back in those days?
Willie Brown: There were almost none, except I think Bill Bagley had grown up as a Republican and had proceeded through his college career as a Republican and gotten himself elected as a Republican appealing to his constituency. But I don’t think it was the kind of appeal that said that everybody who isn’t a Republican should be banished from the Earth. There was not that kind of a Republican.
Bill Jackson: What shifted in American politics and culture such that now many Republicans would say that Democrats are evil and want to destroy the country and many in the Democratic Party would say that Republicans are evil and want to destroy the country? How did we go from where we were then to where we are now?
Willie Brown: Well, I’m not sure that I could, in fact, accurately state how we got to where we are now. But I go back beyond 1964. Let's go back to when Earl Warren, our Republican chief justice, wrote the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education which reversed the theory that had come forward from 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, when “separate” was canonized as the way in which America should be.
The Brown decision was obviously a correction in our democratic principles. Earl Warren got a nine to zip vote for that decision with Republicans in control of the Supreme Court. And so, suddenly, we were in a position where people like Rosa Parks could do what she did and not fear being killed and others were free to implement the Supreme Court’s edict. That effort was being made in the public sector, in the private sector, and in educational institutions.
This spun out the Bill Bagleys of the world. Even President Nixon would have to be considered relatively unique by today’s standards because he commissioned George Schultz, a cabinet member of his, to solve the problem of fairness for people wanting to do contracts with government. People wanted government positions so they could improve democracy. George Shultz and President Nixon set those standards, something the Democrats had not done, literally not done.
And then, I got to tell you, what Goldwater did and what Goldwater said, I think that's the point at which the John Birch Society began to get legs. And I think that’s the point at which Democrats reacted.
Bill Jackson: I also read also with interest your writing about Ronald Reagan and your efforts to get him to sign the bill decriminalizing gay sex in California. I wonder if you could tell us something that maybe many people don't know about Ronald Reagan.
Willie Brown: Well, first of all, it was Jerry Brown who signed that bill.
Bill Jackson: Oh, it was.
Willie Brown: It was Jerry Brown. What Reagan did, though, is sign the bill that allowed for abortions to be considered legal in California. It changed how we deal with women's health issues. That was the start of it. And so you see how the world was so dramatically different.
But the John Birch Society was doing their work. And on the Democratic side, we were trying to do something about including the gender issue, particularly on gays and lesbians. And we only had gays and lesbians by identification at the time. The combination of all those things began to create reactions that still evidence themselves today, where people have just totally flipped out as they react to differences of views on issues.
And it’s something that I still can’t get my hands around. You can disagree with me, but if your point of view does not prevail in the body politic, you should not resort to other means by which to force your views to be accepted. Likewise, I should not force my views to be imposed if they do not prevail in democratic decision-making. That just makes no sense at all in a democracy. But I think that all started post Brown v. Board of Education.
Bill Jackson: When you first got involved in San Francisco politics, there were a fair number of Republicans around. When you were first elected to the Assembly, the mayor was a Republican – George Christopher, right?
Willie Brown: He was the mayor. He was a person holding party preference as a Republican and was not considered an enemy by Democrats. And at that time, a person holding party preference as a Democrat in San Francisco was not considered an enemy not to be tolerated. It wasn't that way at all.
Bill Jackson: I read a little bit about him and he called himself a progressive Republican.
Willie Brown: I think he probably did. And if I was trying to define him, I think the word progressive as we know it today would fit.
Bill Jackson: In the last 30 years, Democrats in San Francisco have faced very little competition from Republicans. It’s become a one-party town. Do you think the city would be better off if there were actually two functioning political parties here?
Willie Brown: Well, first and foremost, I don't think political parties should have much of a role in municipalities. We all live here. We live next door to each other. We go to work with each other. We go to church with each other. We should spend time worrying about potholes in the streets and garbage on the streets, about public safety and about decisions on operations of government – what they should or should not do and how quickly they should do it. Neither Democratic announcements about their great policies or Republican announcements about their great policies ought to interfere with that.
When I ran for Mayor of San Francisco, I went to the Republican County Central Committee and got their endorsement. And I got it because I was able, with my friendships developed with Republicans in Sacramento, to get people like Pete Wilson and others to say that Willie Brown should be the Mayor of San Francisco because he'd be the best mayor for your city. And so I don't think the absence of Republicans by party preference reflects anything other than the pure personality of the individuals seeking public office. I don’t frankly recall even Newsom running as a Democrat for mayor. Ed Lee didn't run as a Democrat for mayor. I didn't run as a Democrat for mayor. I ran as the best candidate for mayor.
Bill Jackson: You wrote in your book that you’ve been unusually popular with Republicans. Why?
Willie Brown: I think for the same reason that I was unusually popular with many Democrats. I was simply the best at doing the business.
Bill Jackson: I really enjoyed reading about Jesse Unruh in your book. You wrote that he believed in re-machining things, not just making deals. In what ways do you think we need to re-machine our political system today?
Willie Brown: We need to get to the point where we actually look for the best answer, period. Regardless of the Democratic National Committee's agenda or the Republican National Committee's agenda, we should look for the best answer. And that best answer usually comes when all of the brains are participating and helping to frame the answer.
Cities need to reflect this more aggressively than anybody else, because the application of pure government best occurs in municipalities. It does not occur at the state level. It's not occurring at the national level. Those great policy announcements need to be made, but the day-to-day implementation of the things that affect the lives of people occurs at the community level and municipalities are communities.
Bill Jackson: Right, but I think we could agree that not everything is going swimmingly in San Francisco right now. I read your views on term limits, campaign finance, and the ideal length of a mayoral term. How would you shift the way the system works to encourage the rising up of the best ideas and the best people?
Willie Brown: On my score, I’m doing what I can to elect people who will begin to utter a new standard by which people should hold office – rather than adhering simply to whatever comes from a political party. After all, how in the name of heaven are you going to get people to understand how important it is to prioritize what’s right versus what’s politically convenient?
Bill Jackson: Let’s talk about this question of “what’s right” for a minute. When in your career, and with what issues, have you felt that conservatives had a good argument?
Willie Brown: I think that I don’t even see the arguments from a conservative or liberal standpoint. I see the arguments as being the answers to the questions. Let other people characterize them as to whether or not that's a conservative win or a liberal win. I think it’s far more important that it be a win for democracy, period.
I don’t think when the late George Moscone went down at our behest to seek signatures attached to declarations of how black people in Mississippi were not able to vote – I don’t think that had anything to do with party politics. It had to do with whether or not people should be allowed and should be encouraged to vote.
Bill Jackson: I’m curious if there’s anything about Donald Trump that you admire.
Willie Brown: Donald Trump was a friend of mine and is a friend of mine, I guess I should say. And in all honesty, I actually had fun with Donald Trump. He would ask my advice and counsel. I don’t think he was a registered Republican when I first met him. I think he is a Republican because that happens to be the place where he might get elected. I also think that he wouldn’t hesitate if there was some other place he could land that might get him elected. He is about being elected and not about being philosophically accepted.
Bill Jackson: A lot of Democrats in this city thought he was a disaster and might cause the end of democracy as we know it. Did you feel that way?
Willie Brown: Well, I tell you, some of his crazy ideas – that wasn’t the Trump that I was familiar with on a personal basis. He didn't become infected with the Make America Great Again concept until he at some point decided that that might get him elected president. I don’t happen to think he believes in all that, personally. I think he is still pretty much what he has always been, and that is a guy looking for an opportunity to make it.
Bill Jackson: Let’s talk about public safety in San Francisco. Our violent crime is somewhat on par with other big cities, but our property crime is off the charts. If you were mayor today, what approaches would you take to dealing with public safety?
Willie Brown: I would be extremely aggressive at making sure that my army was fully engaged and my army was fully staffed and that my army had the full protection of the mayor’s office and I’d expect my army to be reflective of that kind of support and that kind of attitude. That’s the relationship I had with the police department.
I named the first Asian chief of police, like I named the first chief of the fire department who happened to be Black. And each of those two units had been sued by my friends and relatives and me because neither of them at the time wanted anybody black or anybody of any other color to be a part of them. I suspect that mentality still has a home in the minds of some of those people. But as the mayor, you can alter that instantly. And that’s exactly what I attempted to do, because my next step was to say that every board and every commission would be reflective of the demographics of this city. I was not concerned about whether I would be sued or criticized.
Some people say, well, you are moving towards a dictatorship. Well, you know, so what? You can criticize me if you wish, but if I have a five-member commission and there is a Black, an Asian, a gay, a lesbian, and a Latino on it, I’d say that I have done what you would not dare to do.
I backed the police department but I didn’t hesitate, if I thought they were wrong, to deal with them – just as I didn't hesitate with regards to the school district or with regards to any other part of the city. I am the CEO. That means I’m responsible for everything out there, including the Bike Coalition, which I confronted by virtue of their messing up my city every last Friday of every month in the evening.
As the mayor, you’ve got to be prepared to challenge every one of these things with a commitment to do what is right and what is intelligent and what is appropriate, and to have your personnel so enthused that you reduce the risk of losing. And so what if you lose?
Bill Jackson: It seems to me that today, amongst many in the political class, there’s fear about projecting as much power as you projected as mayor. Do you think that’s true?
Willie Brown: I think that many elected officials today are thinking about where they go next after the job they currently hold. I never had any fear of where I might or might not go next. I was just committed to the idea that I can get things done. If you are handed the power, you should use the power while you have it, period, and not worry about what comes next. Because, believe me, what comes next? The foundation of it all is how superior you are to your opponent. And you demonstrate that by your performance.
Bill Jackson: There have also been structural changes in San Francisco's government. In 2002, a charter amendment passed which limits the power of the mayor over the police.
Willie Brown: The 2002 charter amendment was just one of the things that a collection of folks holding public office in San Francisco have attempted to do. They hated the idea that, when I served as mayor, I did not tolerate the nonsense that this mayor has to engage in. It’s just awful. I would totally and completely ignore many of those so-called rules that were done by an uninformed collection of voters in San Francisco following the stupidity of the idea of limiting the mayor’s power. The mayor's powers should be enhanced, not limited.
Bill Jackson: I think that’s one reason Republicans like you: People in power ought to have the opportunity to use that power for the public good. They should be held accountable if they abuse their power, of course. But they shouldn’t be all tied up in knots.
Willie Brown: I think there are just as many Democrats who believe this as there are Republicans. Democracy works best when we debate and the majority vote decides at the end of the debate. What has occurred in San Francisco is things like ranked-choice voting. Who in the name of heaven ever heard of ranked-choice voting? That’s inconsistent with the democratic process. Period. Totally inconsistent.
Bill Jackson: You get weird outcomes.
Willie Brown: And whoever came up with the idea that the legislative branch of government should be participating in making choices about how the executive branch of government operates? In San Francisco, with these boards and commissions, currently this mayor can only name three of the five members. The legislative branch names two. That’s the work of people who want to do damage to this city. But they went further than that. The public is probably unaware that the mayor’s three have to be approved by the supervisors. Their two do not have to be approved by anybody. What kind of nonsense?
Bill Jackson: It’s nonsense.
Willie Brown: Totally and completely. I would refuse to seat their two were I mayor.
Bill Jackson: How can Republicans be relevant again in a city like San Francisco? We’re down to six percent of voter registration.
Willie Brown: You’re right down there with Black voters! We’re only five percent.
Bill Jackson: If the chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party came to you looking for advice about how to double the party from six percent to twelve percent, what would you say to them?
Willie Brown: I would tell them that they really ought to do a search for the best brains. Get the best set of brains.
Bill Jackson: Find really smart people who understand the issues.
Willie Brown: Absolutely. And convey the quality that you have. There are many Asian-American Republicans in San Francisco. I’d find them.
Bill Jackson: You talk in your book about the importance of having fun. What’s the status of that these days? Are politicians having fun?
Willie Brown: No. No. It’s a tragedy because the fear of being criticized for this phony standard of behavior has adversely impacted the ability of politicians to really be who they are.
Bill Jackson: That could be a clue to Republicans. What if Republicans made an informal pact that we’re going to have a lot of fun?
Willie Brown: I think that that would be a good thing. They might surprise themselves as to who shows up to laugh with them!
Bill Jackson: Final question: If the Republican National Convention were being held tonight instead of next year and you were addressing the Convention, what would you say?
Willie Brown: I would say to the national Republican Party: You really ought to be about discussing democracy and the necessity of all of us being committed to democracy. And you should not hesitate to call out those who clearly do not believe in democracy.
Bill Jackson: Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. It’s been a pleasure to chat about the past seventy years of political history in San Francisco and California.
