Jerry Brown visits UCI

Jerry Brown was the state’s youngest governor in 110 years when he took office.

If he wins the job again, he would be the oldest governor in California history.

Brown, 71, the current state attorney general, spoke Thursday at UC Irvine about education, the criminal justice system and the need for additional water infrastructure statewide.

A mixed crowd of hundreds of Brown supporters and UCI students lined up as much as an hour early for the chance to see the man critics call Moonbeam.

Brown is expected to announce a gubernatorial bid soon. He was 35 when he was elected governor of California in 1974.

Brown was this year’s Peltason speaker, for an annual talk given by the Center for the Study of Democracy. Previous speakers have included Sen. Ted Kennedy and former Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Local leader and former Ambassador George Argyros extended a personal invitation to Brown to speak at UCI.

Brown has a diverse background, including a stint as mayor of Oakland and as a Jesuit seminary student. He also worked with Mother Theresa in India.

The former governor said his background makes him a unique candidate.

“I find knowing something about the decline of the Roman Empire and the perils of the Greek democracy and some of the mistakes they made are very helpful in framing the issues we have today,” Brown said. “There are not a lot of new problems. There are new technologies, new languages, but the collision of people and interests are very much something that we’ve dealt with.”

Brown spoke of the need for the two major political parties to extend an olive branch and work toward a common purpose.

Brown said today’s teachers are forced to use a cookbook approach, following specific recipes to teach kids due to extensive state and federal standards; he said he would give more funding to education and lessen the stringency of standards and standardized tests. He also hopes to improve career-related education options for high schoolers who have no desire to go to college.

At the same time, he said, prison costs have increased dramatically, but prisoners aren’t any more rehabilitated by the time they leave jail.

At the conclusion of his speech, Brown was presented with a plush ceremonial anteater, the school’s mascot.

He said it’s too early to make a final decision about whether he will run, but jokingly added that maybe a stint on “Dancing with the Stars” would increase his votes.