Acting Gov. Jerry Brown called to duty

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State Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown got the chance today to do something he hasn’t done in more than 27 years -- put his signature on an official declaration from the California governor’s office.

Brown signed a document creating an official state of emergency in five counties, including Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside, as storms continue to batter the state.

As attorney general, Brown is fifth in California’s line of gubernatorial succession. But the lieutenant governor’s post is vacant, both the Senate president pro tem and Assembly speaker are with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger en route back from Washington, D.C. Secretary of State Debra Bowen is out of the state on a personal matter.

And so the job fell to Brown, the man who held the office from 1975-1983, and will ask voters to give him his old job back, full-time, come November.

[Updated at 5:36 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said Brown was governor from 1974-1982.]

Consider today a warm-up?

-- Anthony York in Sacramento