SACRAMENTO -- California isn't broken, Gov. Jerry Brown declared Monday, insisting that he's taken significant steps to reduce decades of dysfunction from the Capitol -- even when they didn't square with his mission to convince voters to raise taxes in November.

In an exclusive interview with this newspaper, the governor pointed to pension reform, workers' compensation reform and other legislative victories as proof of his recent successes to rid California of its image of a failed state.

"I haven't solved all the problems of California and no governor has since Peter Burnett started in 1849," Brown said in a telephone interview from his Oakland office. "You never get it all. But this is more than anybody would have thought about three or four years ago.

"From an objective point of view, we've made a helluva lot of progress."

Brown's chest-thumping and cheerleading comes as he heads into the critical period of his campaign for new taxes. While the governor hopes the job he has done translates to support at the ballot box, he says his agenda to move ahead on controversial projects like high-speed rail and a water tunnel are ample evidence that his work hasn't been dictated by selling Proposition 30.

Read more here.