Brown Accepts the Torch on a Day Fit for Umbrellas : Statewide offices: She is sworn in as treasurer by her father, the former governor, in the rain. Lungren and other officials take their oaths indoors.

Kathleen Brown, one of the Democrats’ brightest rising stars, was sworn in as treasurer Monday by her father, former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., in a touching ceremony that drew on 40 years of California history.

On a rainy day in the capital, Brown, 45, was the only one of eight constitutional officers who chose to be sworn in during an outdoor ceremony. Gov. Pete Wilson, along with other newcomers, Atty. Gen. Daniel E. Lungren and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, stayed indoors--and dry.

About 250 supporters and family members clustered under umbrellas outside the Jesse M. Unruh Office Building, which houses the state treasury, to watch the elder Brown pass the political torch to his daughter.

Brown thus became the latest member of her family--the closest thing in California to a political dynasty--to hold state office.

Her brother, Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., served two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983. Her father and brother both began their state political careers in constitutional offices--the elder Brown as attorney general and his son as secretary of state. All are Democrats. Like them, Kathleen Brown is expected one day to be a candidate for governor.

Brown Sr., 85, was beaming after the ceremony. “I was very happy to see her take the oath of office,” said the former governor, whose first election victory as attorney general came in 1950.

Jerry Brown called it “a great day” and declared that his sister had “a bright future,” although he stopped short of predicting how far she would go.

Although her brother chose judges to administer his oaths, Kathleen Brown from the beginning wanted her father to swear her in. Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner named the elder Brown a deputy district attorney for a day so he could qualify as an officer of the court and legally administer the oath.

Brown, California’s 28th treasurer and only the second woman to hold the office, drew on the family legacy and put a populist spin on her plans as treasurer--the state’s banker and trust officer for billions of dollars in bonds and other investments.

“I will meet with people from Wall Street. (But) I want to assure you that it will be Main Street that I will continue to pay attention to,” she said.

After reminders that her father was instrumental in providing the push to build the State Water Project, Brown looked at the sky and said: “I figure the water and the rain today is indeed a good omen and a good sign. I say let it rain.”

In addition to her father, brother, mother, Bernice, and sisters Barbara and Cynthia, the new treasurer said 123 other Brown family members were in the capital for the swearing-in ceremony. Combined, they represented four generations.

Sprinkled throughout the crowd of supporters--which grew to 450 for a luncheon of pasta and cold chicken at a historic bank several blocks away--were political figures from two earlier Brown administrations. They included Dick Tuck, who helped her father campaign against Richard M. Nixon in the 1962 gubernatorial race, and Byron S. Georgiou and Llewelyn C. Werner, old hands during the Jerry Brown years.

Brown was but one of several potential gubernatorial candidates who figured in Monday’s swearing-in ceremonies.

Lungren, the newly elected attorney general and only Republican other than Pete Wilson to hold a statewide office, received his oath in the ornate California Supreme Court chamber after glowing tributes from Wilson and ex-Gov. George Deukmejian.

As the state’s top law enforcement official, Lungren repeated promises he made during the campaign to attack the problems of crime, drugs and gangs.

“The challenge is great for all of us to make a loving, caring society,” he said. “A loving, caring society, though tough enough to protect its citizens.”

Deukmejian praised the 44-year-old Lungren for bouncing back repeatedly from defeat, most recently in 1988, when the state Senate refused to confirm Deukmejian’s appointment of Lungren as state treasurer. Facing voters in his first run for state office, Lungren won by a scant 28,906 votes--prompting Deukmejian to dub him “Landslide Lungren.”

Wilson described Lungren as “someone who holds the same beliefs that I do--that a paramount right of Californians is to be safe in their homes and parks and places of work.”

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig was sworn in for a third term Monday afternoon in a short ceremony at the State Library and Courts Building.

Honig, who feuded openly with Deukmejian for eight years, said he looked forward to working with the new governor in a “partnership” to improve education and services for children.

Honig said that when he first took office, “education in this state was in dire need,” but things are much better now because of stronger courses, better assessment procedures, better textbooks, tougher high school graduation requirements and other reforms.

“The next stage in this reform effort,” he said, “will be more difficult--how to put all of these pieces together in a particular school in a particular (school) district.”

Among the goals are to reduce the high school dropout rate, increase the percentage of high school graduates who go to college and, for those who do not go to college, “to provide a better transition to work.”

Other constitutional officers sworn in Monday were veteran officeholders Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, starting a third term; Secretary of State March Fong Eu, beginning a fifth term, and Controller Gray Davis, starting a second.

McCarthy, 60, a former Assembly Speaker, took his oath in a Senate chamber packed with relatives, friends, supporters and legislators. The lawmakers included state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), whom McCarthy defeated in November.

In his address, McCarthy emphasized the need to care for children troubled by abuse, drug use, addicted parents and homelessness. He acknowledged the problems the state faces, including a massive budget deficit, but said: “We cannot simply say we cannot do anything and then sit back and do nothing.”

McCarthy said the start of the year provides “a very tough chemistry” in Sacramento and “it’s hard to be terribly upbeat” about solving problems.

Davis struck a similar theme during his inauguration, saying: “We are living in difficult economic times” and “voters expect even more of us.”

Noting that voters last November rejected 12 of 14 state bond issues and imposed term limits on state elected officials, Davis said: “The voters said do more with less.”

Times staff writers Paul Jacobs, Bill Stall and William Trombley contributed to this story.