CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: TREASURER : Kathleen Brown’s Victory Revives a California Dynasty

Democrat Kathleen Brown, reviving a California political dynasty, won the election for state treasurer, defeating the appointed incumbent, Republican Thomas W. Hayes, unofficial returns showed Wednesday.

By winning, the treasurer-elect continued a family saga in public life that began in the 1950s when her father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, was elected first as state attorney general and later as governor. Her brother, Edmund G. Brown Jr., was elected secretary of state and then governor, in 1974, replacing the man who succeeded his father, Ronald Reagan.

But, as Kathleen Brown frequently said during the campaign, being a Brown in California was a liability as well as an asset.

To win, the self-described “financial Brown” said she had to fight off a last-minute television ad by Hayes hoping to capitalize on her brother’s unpopularity by asking: “Remember Jerry Brown?”

But a huge edge in campaign funds, two decades of her own experience in California politics and the lessons learned in a political family were enough to carry Brown through.

“The voters of California judged me on my own. . . . The fact that I was Jerry’s sister or Pat’s daughter was something very much of interest to the press, less to the people,” Brown told reporters Wednesday.

Hayes, a political novice and former state auditor general, has served as treasurer since January, 1989, appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian to fill the unexpired term of the late Jesse M. Unruh. He said Wednesday he will “work hard to make sure that we have a smooth transition to the new Administration.”

Hayes had never run for an office and was neither a registered Republican nor Democrat when he was appointed. During the campaign, he borrowed heavily from Deukmejian’s brain trust and imported national campaign expert Roger Ailes, who was responsible for President Bush’s political ads, to do his television campaign.

A Los Angeles Time Poll of 6,960 voters leaving polling places Tuesday indicated that Brown and Hayes were about even among Southern California voters but that the San Francisco-born Brown won among Northern California voters 54% to 39%. Gender also played a factor, the poll indicated, with Hayes holding a 47% to 46% edge among male voters but Brown winning among women 54% to 40%. The poll showed that Brown did appreciably better among young, minority and liberal voters, while Hayes’ strength was among white, conservative voters.

Brown has served as an elected member of the Los Angeles Board of Education and on the city Board of Public Works, which she left in June, 1989, to run for treasurer.