Easter is upon us, a time when Christians celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In the political sphere, there are also resurrections.

Governor Jerry Brown is working on the new California state budget, the first in more than a decade to be free of the state's deep chronic fiscal crisis. It's an agenda which his two most immediate predecessors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis, in large measure promoted themselves.

Some imagine that Brown is at last embracing the way of his father, the legendary late Governor Pat Brown, widely credited as the builder of modern California, in developing what might be called an Edifice Complex. But that's not quite it.

Is California America's first "failed state?" I asked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown.

California's next governor is likely someone who's already won a landslide election as governor, albeit 30 years ago. That's Jerry Brown, who won his latest landslide for Attorney General in 2006.