LOS ANGELES – Less than two years in office, California Governor Gavin Newsom is forced to defend his job.
Ravaged by several crises including the coronavirus pandemic, crippling unemployment, devastating wildfires and a very ill-timed luxury dinner, Newsom is facing a recall that shows no sign of slowing down.
A petition to oust Newsom contains more than half the signatures needed to trigger a special election, said Orrin Heatlie, who is leading the Recall Gavin 2020 campaign. Volunteers collected 844,000 signatures on Tuesday, he said.
The recall needs to collect 1.5 million signatures in mid-March to force elections, and a surplus of signatures is needed as some will likely be disqualified during the certification process.
“He did this to himself,” Heatlie said. “We wouldn’t have been as successful as we have been if it wasn’t for Gavin Newsom.”
Dan Newman, a spokesman for the governor, said Californians will have to decide whether they want a “distraction and circus” to draw attention away from state troubles. He said a special election could cost taxpayers more than $ 100 million as the state works to distribute Covid-19 vaccinations, reopen schools and kick-start the economy.
“This is a crass squad of pro-Trump, anti-vaccine extremists, along with some ambitious Republican politicians eager to become governors,” Newman said. ‘I don’t think it’s something anyone wants. I would be surprised if Californians wanted to spend the extra money and hold another election the following year. ”
The current recall is one of six such attempts since Newsom took office, Newman said. It started in February, even before the coronavirus turned life around the world upside down. At the time, Newsom’s opponents were frustrated that he had passed a bill to force companies to classify independent contractors as employees with legal protections and benefits. In a vote in November, the law was overturned, but the political damage was done.
Then there were announcements that thousands of inmates would receive parole under the state’s Covid-19 containment plan and that immigrants without legal status would receive coronavirus emergency relief through the state.
The last straw for recalls advocates was photos that surfaced with Newsom dining at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in California’s wine country, where the tasting menu starts at $ 350 per person. The story quickly went viral, upsetting business owners and residents alike. Newsom of being arrogant and hypocritical for asking Californians not to get together and stay six feet apart, while doing the opposite at a luxurious private dinner for a friend of a lobbyist.
“In the past three or four weeks” since the French Laundry incident “we’ve seen the number of signatures explode,” said Randy Economy, a member of the Recall Gavin 2020 campaign. “It’s about the arrogance of power.”
Newsom’s missteps have caught the attention of Republicans outside California and others tired of the pandemic control measures plaguing the economy. Last week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee waded into the controversy, throwing their weight behind recalls.
“California’s liberal elite are sending their kids to private school and out to dinner while lecturing YOU about the danger of leaving your home. Governor Newsom’s closure is holding families hostage. It’s time to go. @GavinNewsom, ”Said Huckabee in a tweet.
But political analysts warn that President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to contest the presidential election make it difficult not to view the recall as another example of Republicans’ democratic processes.
“Republicans see it as a way to destabilize the political system and make the government ineffective,” said Fernando Guerra, a professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University, the director of the Center for the Study in Los Angeles. “They want to cause paralysis. This is like toppling the 2018 [gubernatorial] election.”
Local Republican leaders are also jumping into the fray, including former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
Newsom “can celebrate birthday parties. But he can’t. He can dine on a $ 350 meal at one of California’s fanciest restaurants during the worst recession in generations. But you absolutely can’t. Can you believe this? I can do it. not”, Faulconer tweeted Nov. 13.
About a week after Faulconer fired the tweet, a spokesperson told NBC San Diego that Faulconer is considering a run against Newsom.
In a special election, Newsom would be forced to defend his track record for just two years in office. If the recall fails and he runs for re-election in 2022, Newsom will campaign every two years since 2018.
“This is not about rational public policy,” said Guerra. ‘It’s not about policy at all. It’s about punishing the governor and distracting him. ”
According to the Secretary of State, the Californians have attempted 165 recalls since voters approved a 1911 provision that gave them the power to remove elected officials and Supreme Court justices. At least 54 of the efforts are aimed at the governor.
Just one recall removed a governor from office: Gray Davis, a Democrat, in 2003.
Davis was recalled during a 2000 electricity crisis linked to the Enron scandal, which eventually toppled an energy company that caused rolling blackouts for thousands of Californians while manipulating energy trading in the stock market.
Davis was elected “by a landslide” in 1998, and his approval ratings were 60 percent and above before the energy crisis, former senior adviser Garry South said. But by 2001, his approval rating had dropped below 40 percent, and he entered 2002 “as damaged goods,” South said.
“It was a disaster, but it wasn’t his fault,” said South. That all stayed with Davis’s shoe. The general opinion was that he is not tackling the problem fast enough and aggressively enough. ‘
Davis won reelection in 2002, but only by 5 percentage points, while Newsom received approval ratings in the 1960s for its handling of the pandemic in several recent polls held for the French wax fiasco.
Two final blows struck Davis when Arnold Schwarzenegger transformed from action hero to governmental candidate and when Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa put nearly $ 2 million of his fortune into the recall. Schwarzenegger’s announcement sparked a wave of new contenders that looked more like a ‘clown car’ or ‘the’ Star Wars’ bar scene, ” South said, as Issa’s financial backing gave the recall campaign teeth.
“It was a cast of quirks and freaks,” South said, noting a list of 135 candidates, including Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, porn star Mary Cook and former child actor Gary Coleman.
But the California of 2003 is very different from the California of 2020, analysts say. When Davis was recalled, 43 percent of California voters were registered as Democrats and 35 percent as Republicans, the Secretary of State said. This year, in the general election, 46 percent of voters were registered as Democrats and only 24 percent as Republicans.
“R is the scarlet letter in California,” South said, adding that a successful rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine could be enough to turn the tide in Newsom’s favor.
Still, he cautioned, Newsom can’t afford to ignore the recall: “He can’t just wish it away.”