[6][7] In 1955, Brown entered Santa Clara University for a year and left to attend Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit novice house in Los Gatos, intent on becoming a Catholic priest.

[18] For his personal life, Brown refused many of the privileges and perks of the office, forgoing the newly constructed 20,000 square-foot governor's residence in the suburb of Carmichael and instead renting a $275-per-month apartment at 1228 N Street, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento.

[25] In 1975, Brown obtained the repeal of the "depletion allowance", a tax break for the state's oil industry, despite the efforts of lobbyist Joseph C. Shell, a former intraparty rival to Nixon.

He added, “There is something a little strange about saying ‘Let's bring in 500,000 more people’ when we can't take care of the 1 million (Californians) out of work.”[27][28] Brown strongly opposed the death penalty and vetoed it as governor, which the legislature overrode in 1977.

One of these appointments, Rose Bird as the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, was voted out in 1987 after a strong campaign financed by business interests upset by her "pro-labor" and "pro-free speech" rulings.

[32][33] Brown was both in favor of a Balanced Budget Amendment and opposed to Proposition 13, the latter of which would decrease property taxes and greatly reduce revenue to cities and counties.

Brown appointed the first openly gay judge in the United States when he named Stephen Lachs to serve on the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1979.

Fleets of helicopters sprayed malathion at night, and the California National Guard set up highway checkpoints and collected many tons of local fruit; in the final stage of the campaign, entomologists released millions of sterile male medflies in an attempt to disrupt the insects' reproductive cycle.

In 1979, an out-of-state columnist, Mike Royko, at the Chicago Sun-Times, picked up on the nickname from Brown's girlfriend at the time, Linda Ronstadt, who was quoted in a 1978 Rolling Stone magazine interview humorously calling him "Moonbeam".

These included United Farm Workers of America founder Cesar Chavez, Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard, labor leader Jack Henning, and Charles Manatt, then-Chairman of the California State Democratic Party.

[53] In 1978, San Francisco punk band the Dead Kennedys' first single, "California über alles", from the album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, was released; it was performed from the perspective of then-governor Brown painting a picture of a hippie-fascist state, satirizing what they considered his mandating of liberal ideas in a fascist manner, commenting on what lyricist Jello Biafra saw as the corrosive nature of power.

On the subject of the 1979 energy crisis, Brown decried the "Faustian bargain" that he claimed Carter had entered into with the oil industry, and declared that he would greatly increase federal funding of research into solar power.

Although he had polled well there throughout the primary season, an attempt to film a live speech in Madison, the state's capital, into a special effects-filled, 30-minute commercial (produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola) was disastrous.

[62] Although Brown greatly expanded the party's donor base and enlarged its coffers, with a focus on grassroots organizing and get out the vote drives, he was criticized for not spending enough money on TV ads, which was felt to have contributed to Democratic losses in several close races in 1990, such as Dianne Feinstein's attempt to become the first female governor of California.

Nevertheless, it was endorsed by The New York Times, The New Republic, and Forbes, and its raising of taxes on corporations and elimination of various loopholes that tended to favor the very wealthy proved popular with voters.

[citation needed] Jesse Walker wrote in The American Conservative that he "seemed to be the most left-wing and right-wing man in the field ... [calling] for term limits, a flat tax, reforming social security, and the abolition of the Department of Education".

[66] Despite poor showings in the Iowa caucus (1.6%) and the New Hampshire primary (8%), Brown won narrow victories in Maine, Colorado, Nevada, and Vermont, but he continued to be considered a small threat for much of the campaign.

Brown did not win the nomination, but was able to boast of one accomplishment: at the following month's Democratic National Convention, he received the votes of 596 delegates on the first ballot, more than any other candidate but Clinton.

[70] In November 1998, Oakland's electorate voted by a landslide margin of 3 to 1 in support of Measure X, which would shift the city government to the strong mayor model for a period of six years.

[70] The downtown district was losing retailers, restaurateurs and residential developers, and Brown sought to attract thousands of new residents with disposable income to revitalize the area.

[76] Brown continued his predecessor Elihu Harris's public policy of supporting downtown housing development in the area defined as the Central Business District in Oakland's 1998 General Plan.

[70] Brown's largely successful first term as mayor of Oakland was documented in a one-hour KQED documentary, "The Celebrity and the City" (2001) that evaluated his record in dealing with his four stated goals: reducing crime, improving education, attracting 10,000 new residents to a resurgent downtown, and encouraging the arts.

Prosecutor Rod Pacheco, who supported Republican opponent Meg Whitman, said that it would be unfair to accuse Brown of using the execution for political gain as they never discussed the case.

That needs to continue, but that depends not only on Barack Obama and the Congress and the Federal Reserve, but also on [German chancellor Angela] Merkel, China, the European Union, and the self-organizing quality of the world economy.

[115] In July 2014, Brown traveled to Mexico to hold meetings with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and Central American leaders about the ongoing children's immigration crisis.

[119] A range of issues were debated, including recent legislation for a ban on plastic bags at grocery stores that Brown promised to sign and Kashkari thought unimportant.

[120] Brown said that if he were elected to a fourth and final term, he would continue transferring power to local authorities, particularly over education and criminal justice policy, and would resist fellow Democrats' "gold rush for new programs and spending".

During the sign off he took the unusual step of adding a personal message indicating his dilemma regarding the consideration of the ethical issues involved and stating that he felt unable to deny the right of choice to others.

[125] Legislative accomplishments in Brown's final term include passing California Sanctuary Law SB 54, which prevents police from complying with most requests by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold illegal immigrants for deportation; California Senate Bill 32, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, extending the state's cap and trade system (which had originally been outlined by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) to achieve this goal; and passing the Road Repair and Accountability Act.

[60] His programs, usually featuring invited guests, generally explored alternative views on a wide range of social and political issues, from education and health care to spirituality and the death penalty.