Registers in San Francisco to Be Eligible : Jerry Brown May Seek State Party Post

Former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. last week switched his registration address from Los Angeles to San Francisco to be eligible to seek the state Democratic Party chairmanship next year, he said Monday.

Brown said in an interview he re-registered last Tuesday, the deadline for registering to vote in the Nov. 8 election. Under party rules, the next state party chairman, to be elected at a convention in February, must be a resident of Northern California.

“It’s premature (to announce) a campaign for state chair, but I’m certainly taking the necessary steps to make that possible,” said Brown, who added he will act after the election.

Emerging from his six-year self-exile from politics, Brown has told reporters in recent months that he wanted to return to public life but had not settled on a forum, although he did say he was considering the state party chairmanship.

The two-term former governor, who ran twice for President and once for U.S. Senate, told United Press International Monday in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles law office that he believes that he would win election by a majority of the state convention’s roughly 2,800 delegates if he runs.

“I don’t have any doubt about it,” Brown said.

However, other influential Democrats have suggested that the maverick Brown still carries the baggage of his politically unorthodox tenure in the governor’s office, when he antagonized, snubbed or baffled key members of his own party.

The current state party chairman, Los Angeles lawyer Peter Kelly, who cannot run again under party rules, said he had no “on-the-record feelings” about a Brown candidacy for a four-year term.

Opposition for Brown

By tradition, the next in succession would be the state party vice chairman, Steve Westly of Menlo Park.

“We welcome him into the race and we’ll see how it shakes out,” Westly, an investment banker, said of Brown. Although he said Brown has “good credentials,” Westly added: “I believe for the specific task for running the party, doing the grass-roots work, the organizational work, raising the money, my team is better.”

Brown acknowledged that his candidacy would face some opposition, but he said he would draw the support of constituencies--blacks, Latinos, women, gays and others--whose members he appointed in record numbers during his eight years as governor.

“In politics . . . when you do things, you create division,” Brown said. “But I don’t see that as anything serious. I’m sure there’s going to be people who for whatever reason are going to be less enthusiastic (about a Brown candidacy) and some downright against it.

“But the vast majority of people, I think, are looking for a strong leader to help the Democratic Party, and from what I pick up there’s a great deal of enthusiasm.”

Susan Jetton, press secretary for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco, said the Speaker would abandon his own thoughts of seeking the state party post to support the former governor.

In the wake of voter approval of campaign financing reform measures in June, Jetton said, Willie Brown has wanted as state party chairman “somebody who understood politics and understood the need for turning the party into a full-time operation.”

The former governor, who has rented an apartment in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco, said he would continue working with the Los Angeles law firm of Reavis & McGrath.