Responding to the recent interest in Governor Jerry Brown's papers at the USC Libraries, an L.A. Times article this past weekend highlighted the issue of providing access to California gubernatorial records. According to state law, former governors can control access for 50 years or until their death. In recent months, journalists and researchers have been exploring records related to Proposition 13, the Medfly infestation, and other key events during Brown's tenure.
Michael Rothfield writes, "The hundreds of white cardboard boxes holding letters, tapes and other tidbits from Jerry Brown's stint as governor have dwelled, nearly untouched for two decades, inside a storage facility at USC. Now, Brown's campaign to get his old job back has sparked a surge of interest in these disintegrating archival documents that normally excite only historical researchers. And it has highlighted a law in California that gives former governors power over who peruses their papers for at least half a century."
Like recent pieces in the Sacramento Bee and the NBC Bay Area Prop Zero blog, Rothfield evokes the historical riches to be found in Brown's archive and the insights his papers offer into key developments during the 1970s and early 80s:
Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a former Times reporter, has examined the boxes at USC's Doheny Library. He found notes from Brown to scientists and economists asking questions about subjects such as the tax revolt that led to the passage of Proposition 13, and issues such as alternative energy. There was little personal information except short notes offering comfort to the sick and to relatives of people who had died.