"No governor may serve more than two terms," the California Constitution reads, but Democrat Jerry Brown will be sworn in for an unprecedented fourth term as the state's chief executive today because the term limit was not in place when Brown first occupied the office, from 1975 to 1983.

The historic victory felt "pretty neat, actually," Brown told the Los Angeles Times on election night, and the governor said he would soon be back at the Capitol, "figuring out what the hell you do in a fourth term."

Key items on his administration's agenda have since crystallized, The Associated Press noted, and Brown seeks to extend his legacy of fiscal stability and promote a bullet-train project "to accommodate future generations of Californians seeking clean transportation."

On Tuesday, work on the $68 billion high-speed rail line will break ground on its first significant section in the Central Valley.

"The governor, I think, looking at the next four years, wants to do all kinds of things," said Nancy McFadden, Brown's executive secretary. "But the most important is when he leaves office in 2018, he wants to leave a truly balanced budget, which is where we are now."

Consequently, Brown is set to release his budget proposal for the coming year by the end of the week. Observers expect the governor to up funding for higher education but also use a record influx of tax revenue to pay down debt service and retirement obligations.

That, however, will require resolve, outgoing state Treasurer Bill Lockyer told the Los Angeles Times. "The problem always is there are a lot of hungry birds in the nest that want to get fed."

Brown, California's longest-serving and the nation's oldest governor, may be less worried about dishing out favors, however, given his is an usual position: The "successfully re-elected governor in the nation's most populous state ... seemingly (has) no ambition for a 2016 presidential bid," Dow Jones Business News reported.