State employee unions are lining up behind Jerry Brown for governor.

A quick tally of donations to the Democrat's campaign shows that four state labor groups have given about $50,000 so far combined, even though he's had no real opposition in the run-up to the June primary.

You can understand the unions' support. As the state's executive from 1975 to 1983, Brown signed the legislation that unionized the California's government work force.

He's also not former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, the GOP front-runner for governor, or her intraparty rival Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Both regularly blast public employee unions, state government bloat and state worker retirement benefits they say are too generous.

• Want to make government better? Improve midlevel management, says state Auditor Elaine Howle.

Howle's bureau ferrets out waste, fraud and abuse in state government and recommends fixes. During a recent interview with The State Worker at her Capitol Mall offices, Howle described a system that breaks down in the bureaucratic layers between the rank-and-file employees who execute policy and the high-level officials who set it.

Maybe it's as small as letting staff slide on filing accurate time sheets, or as big as failing to meet deadlines to qualify for millions of federal stimulus dollars.

A common thread? "Management's low expectation of employees and themselves," Howle said. "They don't expect due diligence."

• The Legislature on Monday sent a bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would exempt an estimated 80,000 "special fund" department state workers from furloughs with a lopsided combined vote of 97-14.

(There's no legal definition for "special fund," but in this case, the bill furlough-proofs jobs paid 95 percent or more with fees, federal money or other sources outside the state's perpetually cash-poor general fund.)

It's a near lock that Schwarzenegger will veto the measure – and highly unlikely that the Legislature would override him. The bill passed 27-7 in the Senate, so if one vote switched from "aye" to "no" the two-thirds overturn threshold in the 40-member upper house would be lost.

That's the math. Here's the history: The Legislature has overturned vetoes only four times since 1946. The last time, it reversed a veto of a 14.5 percent pay raise for 210,000 state workers who hadn't had one in years.

It happened in 1979. The governor was Jerry Brown, the union's go-to guy now.

Which makes you wonder, if he's elected to a second go-round, will labor get Brown the unionizer or the Brown who vetoed a pay raise?

"Ask almost any SEIU-er and they're gaga for Jerry," said Kevin Menager, a state employee and union activist. "But few realize his past. What they recognize is that he is NOT Meg Whitman."

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Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.