They're still Brownies -- and back in power

hey called themselves "Brownies" - the starry-eyed young activists who in the 1970s made possible Jerry Brown's quixotic first two terms as governor.Tony Castro in the Daily News,

Many had worked hard getting him elected. Others worked even harder during his eight years in office. They all saw in Brown the California political dream and an inspiration that renewed youthful idealism dampened by Vietnam and Watergate.

"We were young. We were idealistic. And I think that in Jerry, we saw a chance to claim California for ourselves," says Irene Tovar, a Mission Hills political activist who served in the Brown administration as president of the State Personnel and the Public Employment Relations boards.