Roses from the Ashes: Breakup and Rebirth in Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletics

The Speaker's Electoral Connection: Willie Brown and the California Assembly
Richard A. Clucas, 168pp, $12.95

     From the acrimonious battle over redistricting in the early 1980s to recent efforts to solve California's economic problems, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown has been in the center of the Golden State's major political and policy debates. Few politicians have played as dominant or controver­sial a role for as long as Brown, one of the nation's most powerful African-American politicians.

      Building on the theoretical ideas developed by Richard Fenno and David Mayhew, this book argues that the key to understanding legislative leadership and Brown's involvement in elections is in recognizing that legislative leaders are motivated primarily by the desire to maintain power. This desire has shaped Brown and made him a dominant force in California politics.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Richard A. Clucas is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

REVIEWS

      “Richard Clucas's book on The Speaker's Electoral Connection provides a clear picture of how Willie Brown has been able to run the California Assembly for more than 14 years. . . . [P]articularly useful in explaining how Brown has won the loyalty of Democratic legisla­tors.”

—Malcolm E. Jewell
University of Kentucky (Emeritus)

        “Contemporary legislative leaders now have as one of their principal jobs that of raising funds for their party's legislative candidates. None has mastered the art of campaign finance like Willie Brown of California, the subject of Richard A. Clucas's groundbreaking contribution to our knowledge of legislative leadership.  Theoretically based, methodically analyzed, and cogently argued, the study provides solid evidence for where the speaker's money goes and what it buys.”

          —Alan Rosenthal
              Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers