Kathleen Brown Quits for Full-Time Treasurer Race

Kathleen Brown is resigning her job as a Los Angeles public works commissioner to devote full time to her campaign for the office of state treasurer.

Brown, whose family is as close to a political dynasty as exists in California, said she wants to spend the next few months traveling through some of the state’s smaller counties as well as refining her 1990 campaign strategy.

“One of the things that I think modern campaigns lack is the ability to touch people and to listen to people and to find out what it is that they see as the priorities in Sacramento,” Brown said in an interview. She informed fellow commissioners Friday that she will resign effective July 1.

Appointed by Bradley

Brown, the daughter of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Sr. and sister of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., was appointed to the Los Angeles Public Works Commission in October, 1987, by Mayor Tom Bradley. He will select a successor to the $65,333-a-year position.

A Democrat, Kathleen Brown has campaigned part time through the first half of 1989. Her goals have been two: To accumulate as much cash as Republican incumbent Thomas W. Hayes and to prove herself so formidable that no other Democrat enters the primary election.

So far, she seems successful in scaring off any major Democratic opponent in next year’s primary. As for fund raising, the official accounting does not occur until the end of this month. But supporters said they believe she will be close to having the same amount as Hayes.

To some it may appear early in the political season for a candidate to plunge full time into a campaign for an election. After all, the primary is a year away and the general election five months further off.

But Brown advisers said she has no choice, given the new voter-approved campaign finance rules. These rules permit contributors to give a maximum of $1,000 in each of three established cycles before the election, assuring that candidates spend the largest share of their time raising money.

‘Political Fact of Life’

“This may not be desirable, but it’s a political fact of life,” said Steven M. Glazer, a campaign consultant to Brown.

Brown said she particularly looks forward to revisiting the pleasant memories of family politics in the more remote locales of California.

“These are places where I went as a child with my father or where I went when I campaigned for my brother,” she said. “It seems everywhere I go there are people there to tell me they were touched by some positive activity of my father’s or my brother’s administration.”