The Leonard Lopate Show

Favorite Quote from Mr. Brown:

"Mr President you should be here in San Francisco; No snow & no Republicans" (more or less)...

1996 San Francisco, live phone call with Bill Clinton which

Me & my father, & lots of others San Franciscans witnessed.

I've been to Mineola, Texas. How funny to hear his story about that place. So true!

wait a minute - he's been married for 50 years? I used to live in Sacramento when he was Speaker and he was always seen with a young pretty white woman on his arm at the Capitol Grill....

According to Wikipedia, he and his wife got married in 1958, separated in 1976, but never divorced.

One of the most despicable examples of back room politics in CA was Willie Brown's 1997 "Napkin Deal." It barred product liability actions for tobacco and other "common" and inherently unsafe products, on the grounds that consumer use of those products is "knowing" and "voluntary." The bill was outlined with the help of lobbyists on a linen napkin at the watering hole Frank Fat's by Bill Lockyer and then-Speaker Brown. It took effect on Jan. 1, 1988, and remained in effect for exactly 10 years, until the Calif. legislature--shocked by revelations from secret documents that the companies knew far, far more than they let the public know, and actively strove to keep all negative information from the public--strips the industry's immunity away again from the legislation, effective Jan. 1, 1998.

Still, the bill to this day gives the industry immunity for the ten years the Napkin Bill was in effect.

Willie will never divorce, it would cause his finances to become public record in California.

"[Superdelegates] are the keepers of the faith," said former San Francisco, California, Mayor Willie Brown. "You have superdelegates because this is the Democratic Party. You don't want the bleed-over from the Green Party, the independents and others in deciding who your nominee will be."

This is the real problem. That the 'Priesthood of Power' in the backrooms of the Democratic Party think that THEY are the party rather than the people who vote. They see the party as a source of money and influence that they can use for their own gain - to hell with the people.