CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / GOVERNOR : Brown Vows to Freeze College Fees if Elected : Democratic candidate tells students she will follow the pro-education platform pioneered by her father when he was governor. Wilson camp dismisses her promises as empty rhetoric.

Invoking the higher education legacy of her father, Democrat Kathleen Brown accused Republican Gov. Pete Wilson Monday of balancing the state budget on the backs of California’s college and university students and their families.

If elected governor Nov. 8, Brown vowed, she will freeze higher education tuition and fees at their present levels.

Speaking to about 500 students on the campus of San Diego State University, Brown said: “My pledge to you as your governor is to make higher education a priority, because I know that you can’t earn if you can’t learn.”

As she moved toward an exit after her speech, Brown spotted a crudely lettered cardboard sign proclaiming: “Hey Pete: When I graduate and you lose, let’s go job hunting together.”

Brown stopped in front of the sign holder, 21-year-old Alex Yates of San Diego, and beamed. Arms at her side, she thrust both thumbs up in a victory salute and proclaimed, “Yes!”

Tuition and fees were raised several times throughout the California higher education system during the budget crises that have plagued the Wilson Administration since 1991. Brown put the overall boost at 130%. Students in the crowd said tuition in the CSU system now is $931 a semester.

“You and your families have been the hardest hit by four years of Pete Wilson’s mismanagement of our budget and budget fiascoes, in particular the balancing of our state budget on the backs of higher education,” Brown said during a news conference with student reporters after the rally.

Wilson spokesman Dan Schnur later responded that as state treasurer, Brown had abandoned a plan launched by her GOP predecessor to allow middle-class parents to save for their children’s education costs by buying a form of state bond.

“Kathleen Brown can make all the promises in the world,” Schnur said. “But if you’re a parent trying to put money aside for your children’s education, you’ve already been burned once by her. You’re not going to do it a second time.”

Brown opened her speech by recalling the election of her father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., in 1958, and suggesting that most of the students probably weren’t old enough to remember that event, 36 years ago.

As she tried to tell the story, a half-dozen protesters standing in back of the crowd interrupted repeatedly. The Brown crowd countered by chanting, “No Re-Pete.”

Then Brown said, “You know, that’s what’s wrong with Pete Wilson. When we want to debate Pete Wilson, he sends his Wilsonettes. But he’s afraid to come here.”

However, some students who stood near the protesters said they opposed both Brown and Wilson.

As enough quiet returned for Brown to finish her story, she said her father carried 55 of the state’s 58 counties in 1958--all but San Diego, Orange and Santa Cruz. He asked wife Bernice how he could win every county when he ran for reelection in 1962. She replied, “Educate them.”

“So guess what Pat Brown did?” daughter Kathleen Brown asked. “He built a university in San Diego County. He built a university in Orange County. And he built a university in Santa Cruz County.”

The Brown fans cheered.

But she left off the punch line that Pat Brown always used when he regaled crowds with the same yarn: In 1962, he lost San Diego, Orange and Santa Cruz counties anyway.

One of Pat Brown’s legacies has been the expansion of California’s higher education system. He also attempted to keep UC Berkeley tuition-free to California students, but his association with the university also helped bring about the end of his political career.

When Brown sought a third term in 1966, Ronald Reagan attacked him and UC President Clark Kerr for failing to control student radicals, particularly at UC Berkeley. What was extolled on campus as academic freedom was vilified by Brown foes as arrogance and excess.

After Reagan took office in 1967, tuition was imposed at UC for the first time and Kerr resigned under pressure from Reagan and his allies on the Board of Regents.

Political Scorecard

42 days to go before Californians go to the polls.

THE GOVERNOR’S RACE

* What Happened Monday: Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation spawned by the O. J. Simpson murder case that makes it illegal for witnesses and jurors in criminal cases to sell their stories until after the trial. State Treasurer Kathleen Brown attended a rally at San Diego State University and said she would freeze tuition levels.

* What’s Ahead: Today, Brown plans to speak about California’s fiscal crisis to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Wilson continues to sign legislation in Sacramento.

THE SENATE RACE

* What Happened Monday: Sen. Dianne Feinstein attended two fund-raisers in New York City. Rep. Mike Huffington visited Crescent City, Eureka and Redding and talked about the economic impact of the Endangered Species Act and federal timber policy.

* What’s Ahead: Feinstein will be in Washington today fighting to get her desert protection legislation through the Senate. Her campaign will hold a news conference in San Francisco to denounce “Huffington’s latest lies and distortions.” Arianna Huffington will tour a child-care facility in Duarte and then speak to the South Pasadena Women’s Club.

NOTABLE QUOTE

“I could have done what every politician in California has done. I could have changed my position (on the death penalty) like Dianne Feinstein did and Barbara Boxer did and Leo McCarthy did and Mel Levine did and Willie Brown did. Every single one of them changed their position to run for higher office. I couldn’t do that the way I was raised. I was raised to believe that politics was also about principle and not just politics.”

--Kathleen Brown in the Sept. 10 issue of the National Journal. (On Monday, she said she regretted naming Feinstein, who changed her views in 1973 long before seeking higher office. Assembly Speaker Willie Brown has never run for higher office.)

FACE TO FACE

As California’s gubernatorial and Senate candidates continue to snipe over debate dates, the combatants in the attorney general’s race have shown no reluctance to meet face to face. Dan Lungren, the Republican incumbent, and Democrat challenger Tom Umberg have agreed to joust on at least 10 occasions before Election Day. The first is Thursday on TV in Sacramento.