Jerry Brown Quits as Party Chairman : Politics: Ex-governor announces resignation as head of the state’s Democrats to run for U.S. Senate in ’92.

Former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., all but proclaiming that he will run for the U.S. Senate in 1992, announced his resignation Monday as chairman of the California Democratic Party.

The departure, which will take effect at the party’s convention in March, was prompted by Brown’s plan to establish an exploratory finance committee for the Senate race soon.

Brown said he felt that running for office while serving as state party chairman was untenable because, as chairman, he is supposed to support all Democrats.

While he did not formally announce his candidacy, Brown, 52, left little to the imagination. Asked in an interview whether there was any doubt he would run, he replied: “The degree of doubt is very low.”

The former two-term governor said he is specifically aiming at the seat now held by Democrat Alan Cranston, who announced last year he would not seek a fifth term. But Brown would not rule out a move toward the job now held by appointee John Seymour, a Republican who replaced Pete Wilson when Wilson won the governorship.

While Cranston’s seat carries a six-year term, the Seymour seat, because of the mid-term appointment, is up for election in 1992 and again in 1994. After that, it resumes a normal six-year election rotation.

The unprecedented circumstance of two senate seats open in the same political year has set off a scramble by California’s most prominent politicians, each trying to gauge which seat is best for them.

Brown’s departure from the state party chairmanship also unleashed a fight for that position. Chief among the candidates are the party’s controller, San Francisco lawyer and environmental consultant Mitch Fine, 35, and Phil Angelides, 37, a Sacramento developer who was a major fund raiser for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign and for Dianne Feinstein’s campaign for governor in 1990.

Brown sought the party chairmanship two years ago at the end of a voter-imposed sabbatical from politics that began with his defeat in the 1982 U.S. Senate race by Republican Pete Wilson. The role, made prominent by Brown’s celebrity, was meant to serve as a resurrection for the one-time political superstar whose image had fallen on hard times.

But his chairmanship instead proved controversial, ending with bickering over whether the party’s late and under-funded get-out-the-vote effort cost Feinstein the election. Brown did not mention the squabble in his resignation letter, instead claiming credit for increasing the number of donors and playing a strong role in assisting winning Democrats.

While the matchups remain fluid, several politicians have signaled their intention to enter what are expected to be two grueling 1992 Senate campaigns.

In a move that seemed designed to preempt the Democratic field, Feinstein announced in mid-January that she plans to run for the seat now held by Seymour. So far, the strategy seems to have worked because no other Democrat has announced plans to run for that seat.

Expected to join Brown in the Democratic campaign for the six-year term are Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and Rep. Mel Levine of Los Angeles, neither of whom has formally announced plans. Rep. Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento has declared he will run for Cranston’s seat.

Democratic Rep. Barbara Boxer of Marin County has said she is running for the Senate, but has not determined which seat. Another possible candidate for either seat is state Controller Gray Davis.

On the Republican side, former Rep. Ed Zschau--who nearly defeated Cranston in 1986--is considered a potential contender for his seat in 1992, but has not declared his candidacy.

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and his fellow Orange County Republican, Robert Dornan of Garden Grove, also have said they are considering the Senate. But neither has announced a preference for one seat or the other.

The races for the Senate are expected to be limited not by political ambition but by the requirement that all the candidates raise millions of dollars to finance their efforts. Brown said he will try to get around the financial imperatives by mounting an old-fashioned grass-roots campaign.

“My intention is to get out among the grass roots and to involve tens of thousands of people in a real people-to-people campaign,” he said.