HONORARY MEMBER

Mayor Willie L. Brown

Willie L. Brown, Jr. is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served over thirty years in the California State Assembly, spending fifteen years as its Speaker, and afterward served as mayor of San Francisco, the first African American to do so. Under current California term limit law, no Speaker of the California State Assembly will ever have a longer tenure than Brown's record 15 years. The San Francisco Chronicle called Brown “one of San Francisco’s most notable mayors” that had “celebrity beyond the city’s boundaries.”

Brown was born in Mineola, Texas and attended a segregated high school. He moved to San Francisco in 1951, attending San Francisco State, graduating in 1955 with a degree in political science. Brown earned a J.D. from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1958. He spent several years in private practice before gaining election in his second attempt to the California Assembly in 1964. Brown became the Democrats' whip in 1969 and Speaker in 1980. He was known for his ability to manage people and maintain party discipline. According to The New York Times, Brown became one of the country's most powerful state legislators. Brown maintained control of the majority Republican Assembly in 1994 and 1995 by gaining the vote of several Republicans.

Brown served as San Francisco mayor from January 8, 1996 until January 8, 2004. His tenure as mayor is marked by a significant increase in real estate development, public works, city beautification, and other large-scale city projects. He presided over the "dot-com" era at a time when San Francisco's economy was rapidly expanding. Brown presided over the city’s most diverse administration with more Asian Americans, women, Latinos, gays, and African Americans than his predecessors.  He increased San Francisco's funding of MUNI by tens of millions of dollars. He ended San Francisco's policy of punishing people for feeding the homeless.

Largely as a reaction against Brown, San Franciscans approved "district elections" to choose its Board of Supervisors by neighborhood rather than in an at-large vote. The Board opposed Brown's agenda and rolled back some of his initiatives, in particular office and housing development. Brown was restricted by term limits from running for mayor and was succeeded by a political protege, fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom. After being "termed out" of the mayor's office, Brown officially retired from politics, although he is often associated with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and participates in fundraising and advising other politicians.


This information was taken from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Brown_(politician)