Jerry Brown Makes Time's Top 100

Guess who wrote the fawning blurb for CA Governor Jerry Brown’s inclusion in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people?

The answer: Gray Davis, the former governor of California and once Brown’s chief of staff. 

Davis gushed: “Things are looking up in California. Governor Jerry Brown has eliminated a $26 billion deficit, getting legislators to make painful cuts and persuading voters to increase their taxes.”

Davis continued by crediting Brown’s supposed thriftiness to his Jesuit seminarian training: “I recall his refusal, in 1975, to replace the old carpet he inherited from Governor Reagan. When it became threadbare, with a sizable hole, he still refused to repair it – believing if he lived modestly others might too and would save the state money.”

Brown didn’t exactly take a vow of poverty; it was reported in 2011 that California’s Fair Political Practices Commission revealed Brown and his wife Anne had real estate and stock holdings that were possibly worth millions of dollars, including stock in Jack in the Box, of which Anne was a former board member, and medical office software business Health Fusion Inc. The Browns also had investments in two real estate businesses: 4395 Piedmont and Madison Park Holdings Inc. The investments were reputedly worth up to $1 million apiece. They also owned a home in the Oakland Hills.