Getty/Max Whittaker
But as he's proved before, Brown often seems to believe that when it comes to explaining his ideas... he's best the guy for the job.
His appearance before a packed hearing room was part sales pitch, part tough love, with a dash of lamentation thrown in for good measure.
Brown defended his 12-point plan but also tacitly acknowledged that it may not do enough, all while urging quick legislative action to help restore the public's faith in its elected officials.
The governor arrived in the state Capitol's Room 4203 almost midway into the afternoon long hearing of the joint committee on public employee pension reform. And he wasted no time warning legislators that the issue is yet another tough row to hoe in fixing California's fiscal problems.
"This is more Castor oil, I'm afraid," Brown said. "Allocating less is not as much fun as allocating more."
But there were hints that his pension plan isn't as bitter a medicine as the governor would dole out were it not for legal and political hurdles to even more austere proposals. "In my opinion, this is the minimum," he said.
Brown's most pointed comments about the existing system came in his criticism of concerns voiced Wednesday by CalPERS about the future liability of existing pension promises if traditional 'defined benefit' packages are eliminated.
"Well, that tells you you've got a Ponzi scheme," said the governor. "Because if you have to keep bringing in new members, then the current system itself is not in a sustainable position. I don't accept that."
And in an exchange with Sen. Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Niguel), Brown offered a pretty frank reason for why his proposal avoids what Walters and other strident pension critics want: a revision of the benefits promised to current workers.
"I'm trying to write a plan that I think has the real possibility of getting enacted," he said.
That response seemed to be a nod not only to the belief that long standing legal rulings preclude those kinds of changes, but also to the political war that such a strategy would set off with public employee unions.
Governor Brown is by no means a critic of traditional pensions, and he affirmed his support for them during his back-and-forth with legislators.
Nonetheless, he offered several lamentations of the status quo.
On the 1999 law that enhanced many public employee pensions, Brown said, "I was incredulous at the time and I'm still incredulous."
And on the aforementioned legal bindings on pension benefits for current public employees, the quotable governor offered this gem:
"I don't like these kind of irrevocable commitments. I waited a long time before getting married, to 67. And you still have divorce. There's no divorce with a defined benefit pension plan."
If Brown's fellow Democrats hope the chief executive will eventually dial back his proposal, he didn't give any hint of it today -- though administration officials who testified earlier had admitted that many key elements, including the idea of a "hybrid" pension/401k system for future state employees, are still very much a work in progress.
