Jerry Brown’s in the middle of an interesting news cycle. First, the transcripts of secretly recorded conversations were released under California’s sunshine regulations. And well, That’s Our Jerry!

George Skelton went through and picked out some gems from the transcripts of the interviews.

* Responding to the snide digs of Republican gubernatorial contender Steve Poizner about his being a career politician: “A certain amount of wisdom and maturity is needed in this toxic, partisan environment that the state has become. It’s funny that he would think that ignor- ance has now become a virtue.”

*** *** ***

* Being Jerry the Jerk as Goldmacher interviews him about raising millions from special interests for his pet project, two charter schools he founded as Oakland mayor: “This is the Lord’s work. . . . You have kind of a picky little thing here. . . . That’s the luxury you have! I can tell you’re a nice middle-class kid, you’re not in the ghetto. Do you know they have murders in the state? . . . This is life and death!”  (LA Times)

On the latter quote, I wonder if Brown would react the same way if somebody else had asked the question.  Say somebody like Skelton. While I don’t denigrate his experience, it is also a little bit troubling that Brown lambasts Goldmacher for nothing other than the fact that he is young and/or white.

Also in today’s news cycle, Brown has an interview with Legal Newsline, a conservative website that is curiously anti-lawyer.  In the interview, Brown questions the value of regulation.

“The whole framework of law is crucial for the operations of business enterprises,” Brown said. “But when over prescriptive, it creates a huge and growing amount of overhead and it does seem that we’re reaching the point of counter-productivity.”

As progressives, we must be careful about how we discuss these topics.  While there might be some areas where regulations are outdated and need to be reformed, but when we discuss “regulation” generally, it is clearly a net benefit. And I think this is what Jerry Brown is getting at. When you attack regulation, you attack the requirement that doctors are licensed. When you attack regulation generally, you imply that business should hold the advantage over consumers.  It may not be said, but regulation enables consumers to deal fairly with business. It blocks bait and switch and other swarthy business “techniques.”

So, I’ll choose to highlight the first part of that quote, while Legal Newsline chose the latter part.

The whole framework of law is crucial for the operations of business enterprises.