Former Gov. Jerry Brown doesn’t often speak up about local issues these days. But something spurred him to break his silence this week — and it had nothing to do with Minneapolis.
Brown, 87, who lives on a ranch in Colusa County, is speaking out against a proposed San Francisco charter amendment that would bar anyone who has served two full terms as a supervisor or mayor from ever running for those offices again.
“I think a lifetime ban is a bad idea,” Brown said in a fiery phone interview with The Standard. “It’s a proposal that doesn’t deserve the dignity of the whole process of a charter amendment.”
Brown was first elected as California’s governor in 1975, serving two terms, and returned to office after winning two additional terms in the 2010s. The San Francisco proposal would not affect the governor’s office or state-level races.
Brown said it is rare for an elected official to serve, leave office, pursue other work, and then decide to run again. He argued that the proposal from Supervisor Bilal Mahmood stigmatizes people simply because they choose to serve, effectively declaring them “unworthy to ever submit yourself to the voters again.”
“That doesn’t seem like a normal charter amendment process,” he said. “It seems very odd.”
He emphasized that experience matters in governing.
“As somebody who’s done that — coming back to the governorship after many years — I brought a wealth of knowledge and experience that was very valuable,” Brown said. “To just throw that away for some ideological preference makes no sense to me.”
Brown also dismissed the proposal’s stated goal of boosting younger representation as “total nonsense,” saying San Francisco has openings for supervisors in every election cycle.
Brown was born in San Francisco and still cares about local issues and reads local news. “I’ve got a lot of family in San Francisco. I go to San Francisco a couple times a month, and of course, I know a lot of people that I grew up [with] there,” he said. His father, Pat Brown, served as San Francisco District Attorney and as Governor.
Mahmood’s proposal has a majority of the Board of Supervisors as cosponsors, making it likely to advance to the June ballot. The Rules Committee voted Monday to forward the measure to the full board, which is expected to vote on it next week.
District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood defends his proposal for a stricter term limit. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
At the Rules Committee hearing, Supervisor Shamann Walton proposed expanding the provision from just supervisors and mayor to include other major citywide elected offices, such as district attorney and city attorney. His effort failed to get two votes to progress to the full board.
In a statement, Mahmood defended the proposal.
“I respect the 50 years of service that Gov. Brown gave to the state of California,” the supervisor said. “But right now San Francisco needs new ideas and new leaders and that will come when we close the term-limit loophole.”
In recent history, only former Supervisor Aaron Peskin has left the board and returned, successfully winning reelection in 2015. Mahmood has denied that the proposal is intended to block Peskin from running again, but the former board president said he feels targeted — if not flattered by the attention.
“Of all of the important things going on,” Peskin said, “it’s embarrassing to watch these supervisors behave like vindictive, anti-democratic Republicans.”
Brown said if voters want to reelect Peskin, they should be able to do it.
“Who’s the board to say they can’t?” Brown said.