RGA Website Exposes Jerry Brown’s Record, Demands Release of Papers

www.WhatsBrownDone.com Petition Calls for Brown to Release Records Sealed Until 2038

 

We want a more complete answer to the question,

‘What has Jerry Brown done to you?’”

– Tim Murtaugh, Republican Governors Association

 

With the passing of Sunshine Week last week, an annual promotion of open government by the American Society of News Editors, the Republican Governors Association expressed its disappointment in Democratic candidate for governor Jerry Brown by launching the website www.WhatsBrownDone.com, accompanied by online advertisements.  Having hoped that Brown would use Sunshine Week as a reason to finally release the official papers from his two terms as governor three decades ago, the RGA now asks the question, “What has Jerry Brown done to you?”  While exposing his poor decisions on taxes, jobs and government spending, www.WhatsBrownDone.com also offers a petition for voters to sign to pressure Brown to release the documents from his time as governor from 1975 to 1983 so that voters might see what else he did while in office.  Unless Brown releases them, the documents will be hidden until 2038 under a law specifically altered to apply to his papers. 

“From hiking taxes and driving out jobs to mismanaging the budget, the portions of Jerry Brown’s record we know about are a disaster,” said Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for the Republican Governors Association.  “But he is also hiding documents that would show us what else he did as governor.  We want a more complete answer to the question, ‘What has Jerry Brown done to you?’  How can he possibly run for governor while hiding the records from his previous two terms from the voters?”
 

“In the spirit of Sunshine Week, it would have been only right for Jerry Brown to release his records as governor before he asks Californians to elect him again,” Murtaugh said.  “He didn’t, so now we’re asking voters to appeal to him to do what’s right.”

While governor of California, Brown imposed, proposed or supported raising taxes by $7 billion, including a massive increase in the sales tax and a hefty boost to the locally-imposed tax on gas. As mayor of Oakland, he asked for increases on property, parking, hotel rooms, garbage collection, utilities, phone bills, cable television and burglar alarms. Even while raising taxes as governor, he squandered a $4 billion budget surplus to leave the state $1 billion in the red.  
 
Brown’s record of economic development is no better.  Hundreds of thousands of Californians lost their jobs while he was governor, with the unemployment rate nearly doubling from 6.5-percent to 11-percent.  727,062 people were unemployed in January 1979, while 1,358,798 were jobless by December 1982.
 
An online petition calls on Brown to release his gubernatorial documents so citizens can examine his entire record, since he has hidden behind California’s Public Records law, which contains a clause apparently designed for him.  The online petition allows residents to urge Brown to disclose whatever it is that he is keeping secret.
 
In 1988 Brown’s records were sealed for 50 years and are currently “under lock and key” at the University of Southern California (NBC Bay Area, January 22, 2010).  Following a years-long battle between Brown and California’s Secretary of State over the issue of ownership of the papers, the state legislature approved an amendment to the Public Records law that exempted governors who served between 1974 and 1988 (Contra Costa Times, January 21, 2010).  Curiously, Brown’s two terms occupy most of that time span, which has caused some to call it “The Jerry Brown Law.”  Brown can voluntarily waive the restriction.