A powerful symbolic ally came to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's aid yesterday in his battle to reduce California's crushing burden of public employee pensions. Willie Brown, the former Democratic Assembly Speaker and San Francisco mayor, not only joined the governor at his press conference, but owned up to some of the blame. "I don't come to this issue, frankly, with clean hands," he said. "I did a lot of stuff when I served as a member of the Legislature."

This coming year, California's pension costs will have risen 2500% in the past decade, a period when state revenues increased only by 24%. "We are about to get run over by a locomotive," Governor Schwarzenegger said. "We can see the light coming at us."

Mr. Brown agreed, even if he declined to endorse specific reform proposals. But he emphasized the need for action. Earlier this year he wrote a widely-circulated column in the San Francisco Chronicle lamenting the "out of control" civil service: "The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life. But we politicians -- pushed by our friends in labor -- gradually expanded pay and benefits . . . while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages."

When I interviewed Mr. Brown in New York in March, he lamented that he hadn't anticipated the long-term implications of over-generous pensions: "When I was Speaker I was in charge of passing spending. When I became mayor I was in charge of paying for that spending. It was a wake-up call."

Governor Schwarzenegger wants the legislature to revoke certain pension reforms enacted in 1999, which made pensions much more generous. Mr. Brown may signal the emergence of other liberal allies calling reform, despite the opposition of powerful Democratic unions. The more that pension costs balloon, the less money is available for other programs -- including many dear to the hearts of progressives. At a time when California is slipping into insolvency, even liberals are coming to realize that public employees will have to share in the sacrifices.

-- John Fund