Dan Walters: Jerry Brown still thinks he can govern California

Jerry Brown evidently does not want to join the nascent movement to overhaul – perhaps radically – California's dysfunctional political structure.

"Contrary to those critics who fantasize that California is a failed state, I see unspent potential and incredible opportunity," Brown said last week in his State of the State address to the Legislature, chastising "dystopian journalists (who) write stories about the impending decline of our economy, our culture and our politics."

Implicitly, Brown is telling us that he and the Legislature can govern California effectively without making the structural changes that are often touted in books, op-ed articles and academic conferences, such as a unicameral Legislature, proportionate voting, or even a parliamentary system.

There's a certain irony to that posture. Brown burst into state politics four decades ago as a sharp critic of the Capitol's laggard, semi-corrupt ways and rode political reformism into the governorship in 1974. And demonstrably, the Capitol's performance has deteriorated markedly since.

Notwithstanding his disinterest in structural political change, Brown is embarking on a noteworthy, and even commendable, agenda of governmental change – which is not the same thing – using chronic budget woes as leverage.

Last year, faced with a Supreme Court order to reduce prison overcrowding, Brown persuaded the Legislature to adopt what he called "realignment," shifting low-level offenders who would otherwise go to prison into county jails and giving counties more operational authority over some health and welfare services – along with $6.3 billion to pay for it.

Realignment is still a work in progress. But this year, he wants to expand on the concept by overhauling school finances to simplify the thicket of state aid and concentrate more money on the neediest students, while empowering local schools to be more independent and reducing the amount of student testing.

Brown also proposes to reduce mandates on local governments, has a 12-point public pension reform plan, and wants to shrink the health-welfare safety net and reorganize and simplify the state's complex array of agencies.

None of this will be easy.

Boat clubs, to cite one tiny example, are already organizing opposition to folding the Department of Boating and Waterways and its boater-generated money into the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The school finance plan will be especially contentious because it would generate winners and losers, and the latter will balk.

In the macro sense, the fate of Brown's governmental reform agenda will tell us – and him, presumably – whether his defense of the political status quo and his disinterest in political structural reform are justified.

If it falters, he may change his tune.