Willie Brown (politician)

Willie Brown (politician)

Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. (born March 20, 1934) is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served over 30 years in the California State Assembly, spending 15 years as its Speaker, and afterward served as the 41st mayor of San Francisco, the first African American to do so. Under the current California term limits law, no Speaker of the California State Assembly will ever have a longer tenure than Brown's. The San Francisco Chronicle called Brown “one of San Francisco’s most notable mayors” that had “celebrity beyond the city’s boundaries.”

Brown was born in Mineola, Texas and attended a segregated high school. He moved to San Francisco in 1951, attending San Francisco State, graduating in 1955 with a degree in liberal studies. Brown earned a J.D. from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1958. He spent several years in private practice before gaining election in his second attempt to the California Assembly in 1964. Brown became the Democrats' whip in 1969 and Speaker in 1980. He was known for his ability to manage people and maintain party discipline. According to The New York Times, Brown became one of the country's most powerful state legislators. His long tenure and powerful position were used as a focal point of California's initiative campaign to limit the terms of state legislators, which passed in 1990. During the last of his three allowed post-initiative terms, Brown maintained control of the Assembly despite a slim Republican majority by gaining the vote of several Republicans. Near the end of his final term, Brown left the legislature to become mayor of San Francisco.

Brown served as San Francisco mayor from January 8, 1996 until January 8, 2004. His tenure as mayor is marked by a significant increase in real estate development, public works, city beautification, and other large-scale city projects. He presided over the "dot-com" era at a time when San Francisco's economy was rapidly expanding. Brown presided over the city’s most diverse administration with more Asian Americans, women, Latinos, gays, and African Americans than his predecessors. He increased San Francisco's funding of MUNI by tens of millions of dollars. He ended San Francisco's policy of punishing people for feeding the homeless. He also is an African American hero.

The SF Board of Supervisors opposed Brown's agenda and some of his initiatives, in particular office and housing development. Brown was restricted by term limits from running for mayor and was succeeded by a political protege, fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom. After being "termed out" of the mayor's office, Brown officially retired from politics, although he had often been associated with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who served for seven years after the end of Brown's Mayoral tenure. and participates in fundraising and advising other politicians.