Newsom, Gavin

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      California Could Throw Away What It’s Won

      by

      If you live in California and haven’t yet voted or made plans to vote on the proposed recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, please wake up. This is a situation in which apathy could have awesome consequences: California, which isn’t as liberal a state as you may imagine but is nonetheless considerably more liberal than the nation as a whole, may be about to absent-mindedly acquire a Trumpist governor who could never win a normal election.This would happen at a moment when control of statehouses is especially crucial because it shapes the response to the coronavirus. MAGA governors like Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida aren’t just refusing to impose mask or vaccination requirements themselves; they’re trying to prevent others from taking precautions by issuing executive orders and backing legislation banning the imposition of such requirements by local governments and even private businesses. And that’s the kind of governor California will probably find itself with if the recall succeeds.How is something like this even possible? Because the recall process is crazy. Voters answer two questions: Should Newsom be recalled? And who should replace him? If a majority vote “yes” on recall, whoever is chosen by the largest number of people on the second question becomes governor, even if that person receives far fewer than the number of votes to keep Newsom in office.And the most likely outcome if Newsom is ousted is that Larry Elder, a right-wing talk-radio host who is vehemently opposed to mask and vaccine mandates, will end up in the governor’s office despite receiving only a small fraction of the total vote.What would make this outcome especially galling is that California is in many ways — with the glaring exception of housing, which I’ll get to — a progressive success story.The Golden State took a sharp left turn in 2010, with the election of Jerry Brown as governor. Two years later, Democrats gained a supermajority in the Legislature, giving them the power to enact many progressive priorities. California soon raised taxes on the rich, increased social spending and increased its minimum wage. It also enthusiastically implemented the Affordable Care Act.Conservatives predicted disaster, with some saying that the state was committing economic “suicide.” And California gets a lot of negative coverage in the business press, where one constantly finds assertions that business is moving en masse out of the state to lower-tax, less-regulated states, like Texas.The data, however, say otherwise. Given all the trash-talking of California and trumpeting of Texas’ prospects one reads, it’s a bit startling to look at trends in real G.D.P. and employment between 2010 and the eve of the pandemic and discover that California and Texas had essentially the same growth rates. It’s also startling, given all the talk about people fleeing high taxes, to learn that highly educated, high-income workers — who do indeed pay higher taxes in California than in most other parts of the U.S. — were continuing to migrate into the state.California’s experience, in other words, gives the lie to conservative claims that taxing the rich and spending more on social programs destroys prosperity. And the state didn’t just achieve rapid economic growth; its effective implementation of Obamacare helped it reduce the number of its residents without health insurance much more rapidly than the rest of the country.OK, there are some important shadows on this picture. Even as affluent workers continued to move to California, lower-income workers — who actually pay lower taxes in California than they do in Texas — were moving out. This was surely in large part because of the high price of housing, which has become a huge problem.Despite overall economic success, California has the nation’s highest poverty rate (when you measure it properly), largely because of high housing costs: The median apartment in San Francisco rents for more than twice as much as an apartment in any Texas city. California also has a lot of homelessness, for the same reason.What’s behind California’s housing nightmare? Runaway NIMBYism, which has blocked new housing construction. California’s economic performance matched that of Texas in the 2010s, but it issued far fewer building permits despite having a larger population. California gained three million jobs between 2010 and 2019 but added fewer than 700,000 housing units.NIMBYism, however, happens to be one of the few major issues that cut right across party lines. Conservatives are as likely as liberals to oppose housing construction; some progressives — among them Governor Newsom — are strong advocates of housing expansion. So California’s big policy failure shouldn’t be an issue in this recall election. What’s on the line are its policy successes.If Californians choose to turn their backs on these successes, well, that’s their right. The danger now is that the state won’t choose — that it will stumble into MAGAland via a bizarre recall process and lack of attention.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Biden to Campaign for Gov. Newsom Before California Recall Election

      by

      Some political activists had wondered whether the turmoil in Afghanistan would cause President Biden to back out of a planned trip to help Mr. Newsom retain his job.LOS ANGELES — Although he is mired in a political crisis about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden still plans to campaign for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election in California, Mr. Biden’s press secretary said on Wednesday.The president had previously indicated he would try to help Mr. Newsom retain his job. But some political activists had wondered whether Mr. Biden would back out of the trip because of the turmoil in Afghanistan.Jen Psaki, the press secretary, said Mr. Biden still planned to go to California. “I don’t have a date for you at this point in time,” she said, “but that is still certainly his plan.”Mr. Newsom, the Democratic governor of the nation’s most populous state, is fending off an effort to remove him from office that began as a long shot initiated by Republicans dissatisfied with his policies on immigration and the death penalty. But as the coronavirus pandemic wore on and frustration built over prolonged restrictions, the recall gathered steam and, thanks in part to an extended deadline, enough signatures to trigger an election.Now Mr. Newsom and his allies are working to get the attention of the state’s enormous Democratic base, hoping to counteract enthusiasm for his ouster among Republicans.All of the state’s some 22 million registered voters were set to receive ballots by mail. On those ballots, they will be asked whether they think Mr. Newsom should be recalled, and if so by whom. The leading candidate to replace Mr. Newsom is Larry Elder, a conservative radio host from Los Angeles who some Democrats have described as an agent of a far-right power grab.Mr. Biden has already voiced support for Mr. Newsom. The president said on Twitter that the governor was “leading California through unprecedented crises — he’s a key partner in fighting the pandemic and helping build our economy back better.”Vice President Kamala Harris is set to return to the Bay Area this week to stump for the governor of her home state. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the prominent progressive from Massachusetts, has for weeks appeared in television ads warning that “Trump Republicans” are “coming to grab power in California.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Brace Yourself for the Man Who Could Become California’s Governor

      by

      PALO ALTO, Calif. — In ordinary times it would be fairly ridiculous to fret about Larry Elder becoming California’s next governor.Elder is a longtime conservative talk radio host from Los Angeles, a fixture of right-wing punditry in the mold of Rush Limbaugh. His schtick is offense and outrage, and over nearly three decades in the business he has minted an oppo-research gold mine of misogynistic and racially inflammatory sound bites that would seem to doom his prospects in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly two to one.But California sometimes feels as prone to political earthquakes as geological ones; every once in a while voters here throw a tantrum and the seemingly unthinkable becomes sudden reality. This state’s voters have passed Proposition 13, a revolt against property taxes; Proposition 187, which denied public services to undocumented immigrants; Proposition 209, which prohibited affirmative action in the public sector; and Proposition 8, the 2008 ban on gay marriage whose reversal by the Supreme Court paved the way for marriage equality in the land.You can also thank us for the Reagan era. And the last time we recalled a not particularly likable Democratic governor, we ended up with the Terminator as our chief executive.So when I received my mail ballot this month asking whether our current governor, Gavin Newsom, should be booted from office, my heart sank. For weeks the Newsom recall has felt like a meaningless political circus. The effort was prompted by a right-wing group that has criticized Newsom’s positions on immigration and taxes. The petition for Newsom’s recall went viral last November, after he was photographed dining at the French Laundry in violation of his own Covid-19 guidelines.Still, the recall seemed like a comic long shot. The reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner is among the high-profile candidates. Last week another Republican in the race, John Cox, was served with a subpoena during a televised debate.But Elder’s candidacy makes the race as serious as a heart attack, especially because the rules governing California’s recall election, which will take place on Sept. 14, are unfair to the point of plausible unconstitutionality. For Newsom to prevail, a majority of voters must oppose his recall; if he were to fall even just barely short of that majority, the rival who gets the most votes becomes our next governor, even if that candidate wins far fewer votes than Newsom.Because California’s Democrats appear deeply apathetic about the race, current polls show likely voters to be roughly tied on the question of Newsom’s recall. Elder, meanwhile, is far ahead of his fellow challengers in the race to replace Newsom — even though he is supported by only about 20 percent of voters.The stark upshot: Newsom’s recall is no longer a sideshow. With Elder as a front-runner, it’s one more looming disaster for our beleaguered state. On top of everything else — on top of the pandemic, droughts, the wildfires and unbreathable air — this state has a new emergency to worry about. Unless California’s Democrats wake up, in three weeks’ time a Trumpian provocateur could well be chosen to run one of the nation’s bluest states.If Elder’s victory is a liberal nightmare, though, it is just the nightmare Newsom needs us to be thinking about. Elder’s record is so far beyond the California mainstream that he functions as a one-man cattle prod for energizing the Democratic base. No wonder Newsom has made Elder the star of his recent ads. “Some say he’s the most Trump of the candidates,” Newsom said of Elder recently. “I say he’s even more extreme than Trump in many respects.”He could be. Elder opposes the minimum wage, abortion rights, and vaccine and mask mandates, and in 2008 called climate change a “crock.” (He now says climate change is real but he’s not sure if it’s playing a role in California’s wildfires — given the scientific evidence, that’s little different than denying climate change altogether.) He has a long history of breathtaking misogyny. In 2000, he argued that women tend to vote for Democrats over Republicans because, bless their hearts, they’re just not as well informed as men.“Women know less than men about political issues, economics and current events,” he wrote. “Good news for Democrats, bad news for Republicans. For the less one knows, the easier the manipulation.”In the 1990s, Elder, who is Black and grew up in South Central Los Angeles, rose to national prominence largely for his paternalistic attitudes on race. He has called Blacks “victicrats” for painting themselves as victims of racism. “In the year 2001, racism is not our major problem,” he once said. “Personal responsibility is.”An audio clip recently surfaced of Elder performing a political stand-up act in an L.A. comedy club in the mid-1990s. He is heard doing an apparent impression of F. Lee Bailey, one of O.J. Simpson’s defense attorneys, practicing saying the N-word — a slur Elder repeats several times with cringey, theatrical gusto.It’s possible that the attention Newsom and the news media are now heaping on Elder will burn up his budding candidacy. Last week Elder’s former fiancée, Alexandra Datig, told Politico that during an argument in 2015, Elder waved a gun at her while he was high on cannabis. This week Jenner and another Republican vying to replace Newsom, the former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, called on Elder to drop out. Elder has denied Datig’s claim and rejected his opponents’ counsel; late last week, he shook up his campaign staff.But anyone who was alive in 2016 ought to appreciate the danger of Newsom’s focus on Elder’s extremism. Like Donald Trump, Elder has a keen understanding of the utility of outrage; when the left attacks him, he goes on Fox News and wears the criticism as a badge of purity, helping him further stand out from the Republican pack. Perhaps that’s why Elder’s standing in the polls has only gone up amid the onslaught of criticism. By making him the face of the recall, Newsom is cementing Elder’s lead, all but guaranteeing him as a successor should Newsom fail to win a majority. It’s a frightening strategy, even if it’s Newsom’s best play.And whether or not Newsom prevails, the fact that we are wasting any energy on this nonsense recall vote only emphasizes the underlying political dysfunction plaguing this state. As I have ranted about before, because the Senate and Electoral College render populous states essentially meaningless, California’s 40 million people are all but shut out of determining the direction of America’s national government. Now it’s clear our state government, too, is rudderless.Newsom, who has been in office for just two and a half years, has a lot on his plate. In addition to the pandemic and climate disasters, there’s a housing affordability and homelessness crisis battering the state, and according to some measures, our poverty rate is the highest in the nation. I don’t think Newsom has any silver bullets to solve these problems, but I can promise you that he’ll make little progress on any of it if he has to spend all his time running to keep his job.In 2018, nearly 62 percent of voters chose Newsom to lead the state. The least we could do is give him the chance to do the job.Office Hours With Farhad ManjooFarhad wants to chat with readers on the phone. If you’re interested in talking to a New York Times columnist about anything that’s on your mind, please fill out this form. Farhad will select a few readers to call.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      What to Know About California’s Recall Election

      by

      What to Know About California’s Recall ElectionShawn Hubler �� Reporting from SacramentoMarcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressIf he fails, California’s next governor will be the top vote-getter among 46 challengers on the ballot, even if only a small plurality votes for the winner. Right now, the frontrunner is Larry Elder, a Trump-Republican talk radio host, with about 20 percent support. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      How Did Larry Elder Become a Front-Runner in California’s Governor Race?

      by

      Mr. Elder, a conservative radio host who paints himself as the native son of a simpler and safer California, has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.SACRAMENTO — For a generation, Larry Elder has been an AM radio fixture for millions of Californians, the voice they could count on when they were fed up with liberal Democratic politics. Undocumented immigrants? Deport them. Affirmative action? End it. Equal pay? The glass ceiling doesn’t exist.Now Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” could end up as the next governor of the nation’s most populous state. As the campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom has become a dead heat among likely voters, Mr. Elder has emerged almost overnight as the front-runner in the campaign to replace him.Fueled by a combination of arcane recall rules, name recognition and partisan desperation, his rise to the top of a pack of some four dozen challengers has stunned and unnerved many in both parties.Democrats call him the agent of a far-right power grab. Republican rivals say he is an inexperienced, debate-dodging opportunist. Orrin Heatlie, the retired sheriff’s sergeant who is the recall’s lead proponent, said he and his fellow activists were voting for someone else.This month, The Sacramento Bee and two Republican candidates — Kevin Faulconer, the former San Diego mayor, and Caitlyn Jenner, the television personality and former Olympian — demanded that Mr. Elder drop out of the race after an ex-girlfriend of his said he brandished a gun at her while high on marijuana during a 2015 breakup.“We were having a conversation and he walked to the drawer and took out a .45 and checked to see that it was loaded,” Alexandra Datig, 51, said in an interview. Ms. Datig, who worked as an escort in the 1990s and now runs Front Page Index, a conservative website, said: “He wanted me to know he was ready to be very threatening to me. He’s a talented entertainer, but he shouldn’t be governor.”Mr. Elder, 69, did not respond to requests for comment about Ms. Datig’s claims, but he did tweet that he has “never brandished a gun at anyone,” adding, “I am not going to dignify this with a response.”The onslaught has come as a Sept. 14 election deadline nears. Ballots have been mailed to all active registered voters, asking whether the governor should be replaced, and, if so, by whom.Supporters of Mr. Elder outside of a debate by Republican candidates this month.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressConstitutional scholars say Mr. Elder’s sudden ascent is an example of all that is wrong with the recall process, which requires a majority to oust a governor but only a plurality to replace one. Polls show a rout by Mr. Newsom among all Californians but a far tighter race among likely voters. Mr. Elder leads 46 challengers on the ballot with about 20 percent of the likely vote.Mr. Newsom, whose fate rides on turnout, has made a foil of Mr. Elder, a “small-l libertarian” who reliably agitates the governor’s base with claims, for instance, that the minimum wage should be zero, the “war on oil” should be ended and racial preferences are destructive..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“The leading candidate thinks climate change is a hoax, believes we need more offshore oil drilling, more fracking, does not believe a woman has the right to choose, actually came out against Roe v. Wade, does not believe in a minimum wage,” Mr. Newsom has told supporters.“Don’t paint me as some wild-eyed radical,” Mr. Elder said in a recent interview. “I’m running because of crime, homelessness, the rising cost of living and the outrageous decisions made during Covid that shut down the state.”To his loyal listeners, Mr. Elder paints himself as the native son of a California that was once simpler and safer than the teeming, disaster-prone nation-state he sees anchoring the West Coast today. Listeners know that his father, a former U.S. Marine, saved his pay as a janitor to open a restaurant in Los Angeles’s Pico-Union district, and to buy a house in a neighborhood that shifted from mostly white to mostly Black residents in less than a decade.His father was also violently abusive, Mr. Elder wrote in 2018, driving him to leave home the moment he graduated from Crenshaw High School. Admitted to Brown University under an early affirmative action program, Mr. Elder, the second of three sons, stayed away from California for years, moving on to the University of Michigan Law School and becoming a lawyer and legal recruiter in Ohio.He was a guest on a Cleveland PBS show when the stand-in host, the Los Angeles-based conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager, suggested he come back.“I was so impressed with his original mind and phenomenal grasp of the issues that when I returned to Los Angeles I invited him onto my show — solely in order to persuade the KABC station manager to hire him,” Mr. Prager wrote in an email.Mr. Elder in a Burbank, Calif., studio last month. He has been on talk radio in the Los Angeles area since 1994.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressIt was the age of Rush Limbaugh, and Mr. Elder rose swiftly. Los Angeles progressives boycotted his advertisers, but he hung on, writing books, making Fox News appearances and expanding through syndication until 2014, when the station abruptly fired him. Another station soon picked him up; Salem Media Group has syndicated his show since 2016 and is holding his slot while he campaigns.“I have never, ever, ever, ever thought I would be entering politics,” Mr. Elder said. But he was persuaded, he said, by Mr. Prager, Jack Hibbs, the evangelical pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, and a host of others including radio colleagues, his barber and his dry cleaner.“I kept waiting for somebody to say, ‘Are you kidding?’” he said. “But nobody said that. People said: ‘If not you, who? If not now, when?’”Mr. Elder’s political positions speak loudly and clearly to the state’s small but vocal strain of far-right conservatism. He supports school vouchers and prioritizes jobs over environmental and climate considerations. He opposes abortion. He is vaccinated against the coronavirus because of a rare blood condition but opposes vaccine and mask “mandates.”And, G.O.P. consultants note, Mr. Elder is among a handful of California Republicans with enough name recognition to compete in a state of almost 40 million people.“I’ve been a listener of his for years,” said Shelby Nicole Owens, 35, a Republican in the rural community of Sonora who admired Mr. Elder’s consistency and “common-sense approach” long before her ballot arrived in her mailbox.“Done and done!” she posted on his Facebook page, adding a kiss-blowing emoji after marking her vote.But establishment Republicans such as Mr. Faulconer, say he is more suited to provocation than to governing.While other candidates disclosed their income taxes, Mr. Elder supplied partial returns and then successfully challenged the state requirement, keeping his private.Gov. Gavin Newsom has made a foil of Mr. Elder, a “small-l libertarian” who reliably agitates the governor’s base.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesAfter incomplete conflict-of-interest disclosures — now being investigated by state campaign finance regulators — were amended, they showed that Mr. Elder is being paid by The Epoch Times, a purveyor of political misinformation and far-right conspiracy theories.He has refused to debate other Republicans and bashed the news media when challenged. He has told left-leaning editorial boards that President Biden fairly won in 2020 and conservative radio interviewers that he did not.He has recanted assertions made in 2008 that climate change is “a crock” but, in an interview, offered $10,000 to charity for proof he had ever said that and falsely claimed that “nobody really knows to what degree” humans caused climate change. He has written that Democrats do better with female voters because, according to academic research, “women know less than men about political issues.”In an interview this month, Mr. Elder said he had been single since an amicable divorce in the 1990s, and now shares his Hollywood Hills home with a girlfriend who is an interior designer. Asked about Ms. Datig, he said they had dated “for a few months and that’s it.” Ms. Datig said they lived together between 2013 and 2015 for 18 months and discussed marriage.Employed by Heidi Fleiss and the now-deceased Beverly Hills Madam during the 1990s, Ms. Datig has since spoken publicly against sex trafficking and worked as an assistant to a now-retired Los Angeles city councilman. She used her connections to help Mr. Elder get a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, she said, and tattooed “Larry’s Girl” across her lower back.Mr. Elder and Alexandra Datig, a former girlfriend, in an undated photo.via Alexandra DatigBut as the relationship deteriorated, she said, he threatened eviction. A legal agreement shows she left for $13,000 in relocation money, $7,000 for tattoo removal and a Cadillac.She did not report the alleged gun incident to the police, she said, in part because she had signed a 2014 nondisclosure agreement, but she did ask for help from acquaintances and city officials. Three confirmed last week that they had gotten her emails.Ms. Datig, who has endorsed Mr. Faulconer, said she went public after learning that her NDA was less restrictive than she had realized.And Ms. Owens, the voter? At her farm in Tuolumne County, she predicted that fans of Mr. Elder would be unshaken.“There does not seem to be a politician alive today,” she said, “that doesn’t have some sort of past relationship scandal.”The sage from South Central, she added, still has her vote. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Why the Recall in California May Replace Newsom with a Republican

      by

      The populist politics that may eject Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, from office before his term is out are more than a century old. Progressive reformers took power in California in 1911 promising, in the words of then newly elected Gov. Hiram Johnson, to restore “the people’s rule” and destroy “the former political master of this state,” the Southern Pacific Railroad.As part of their program, the progressives convinced voters to enact the initiative and referendum, promising that those electoral tools would prevent private interests from ever again subverting the people’s will. They also enshrined in the state Constitution “an admonitory and precautionary measure which will ever be present before weak officials,”: the recall.Though they worked to strengthen democracy, the well-meaning reformers created a weapon that, one hundred years later, could be wielded by an aggrieved minority to thwart the will of the people whom turn-of-the-century progressives aimed to protect. The relative ease of California’s recall process is just one of many long-term factors that, combined with Mr. Newsom’s inconsistent leadership, has created the possibility that California, one of the bluest states in the nation, may soon find itself with an extremely conservative Republican governor. A recent poll gives Mr. Newsom only a 3 percent edge among likely voters in the recall election, scheduled for Sept. 14. If he gets anything less than 50 percent, then the top vote-getter among his opponents — at this point, the Trump-backing, mask- mandate-opposing radio host Larry Elder, with only about 20 percent support among likely voters polled — would replace him.America’s constitutional landscape, at both state and federal scale, contain provisions that can be bent to fulfill anti-majoritarian agendas. Like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the Senate itself and the Electoral College, California’s recall process allows a determined minority to overrule the will of the voters. The state constitutional amendment promoted by Governor Johnson that established the recall set a relatively low bar for its use. Recall proponents need attain the signatures of only 12 percent of voters in the most recent election for governor. (Many other states set the minimum at 25 percent.) Still, despite dozens of attempts, recall organizers almost always failed to get enough signatures within the 160 days prescribed by law. The one exception occurred in 2003, when voter anger over rolling electrical blackouts led to the successful recall of another Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis and his replacement by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood celebrity and a Republican. The recall proponents of 2021 would have failed as well, but a judge agreed to give them an additional 120 days because the pandemic made it difficult to obtain signatures in person.The extension gave recall proponents enough time to target right-wing voters and encourage them to send in their petitions. Partisan polarization, as pronounced in California as in the rest of the nation, is another long-term reason for Mr. Newsom’s current state of political peril. California is a deep blue state: Joe Biden won 64 percent of the presidential vote in 2020, Mr. Newsom won 62 percent of the vote for governor in 2018, and the Republican Party claims only 24 percent of registered voters. But some areas of the state, particularly the Sierra Nevada foothills and the sparsely populated counties in the state’s Far North, are home to right-wing activists who abhor Mr. Newsom’s liberal policies on immigration, marriage equality, gun control and income taxes.Living in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, these conservative residents feel angry, alienated and powerless. Some even want to secede and form a new state with like-minded rural conservatives in southern Oregon. Residents of California’ northernmost counties, whose hand-painted signs proclaim that drivers on Interstate 5 north of Redding are entering the “State of Jefferson,” signed the recall petition in astonishing numbers. In Lassen County, more than 18 percent of registered voters signed, as opposed to less than 2 percent in San Francisco County. These conservative voters are more likely to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from the Republicans and that mask and vaccine mandates are examples of tyranny. Some of them believe that any Democratic executive is by definition illegitimate.Mr. Newsom was the first governor in the nation to issue a mask mandate, and his early pandemic response won him high approval ratings from most Californians. But the state’s shifting guidance on masks, as well as on business and school reopenings, caused some of those early supporters to change their minds. The governor made his biggest personal mistake last November, when he and his wife joined other guests without masks to celebrate the birthday of a lobbyist friend. Not only did the governor violate his own face-covering policy, he did so at one of Northern California’s most expensive restaurants, the French Laundry, in Napa Valley. The pictures of the event crystallized an image of him as an elitist and a hypocrite, and helped the recall campaign surge to more than 442,000 signatures in just one month from a little more than 55,000. Though Republicans see Mr. Newsom as the worst kind of tax-and-spend, gay-friendly, immigrant-loving liberal, many left-leaning Californians find him to be ineffectual at solving the structural problems of the state. Income inequality, they note, is increasing, despite some redistributive efforts by the governor and the state Legislature, and the number of homeless residents has reached historic levels. Fires destroy the homes of thousands of Californians every year, and make the air unbreathable for tens of millions more.Yet Mr. Newsom has accomplished a great deal, especially given the size of the various crises — involving the climate, the economy and public health — that he faces. He has pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to prevent future wildfires, and forced the private utility PG&E, which has admitted blame for starting some of the worst blazes, to spend billions to compensate victims and to forgo dividend payments to shareholders for three years. He’s also signed the largest funding package for affordable housing and aid to the homeless in state history. Hiram Johnson and the progressives wanted to empower the voters to recall corrupt public officials, not punish those who struggled because they faced enormous public health and environmental emergencies.If liberal Californians cannot muster enough enthusiasm to send in their ballots against the recall, they might wake up on Sept. 15 to find themselves with a new governor-elect who has just a sliver of voter support. Such a result would almost certainly prompt a movement to change or even abolish the recall. To achieve Hiram Johnson’s stated goal of “the return of popular government in California,” its voters might need to consider getting rid of one of his signature reforms.Kathyrn Olmsted is a professor of history and the interim chair of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at the University of California, Davis. She is the author, most recently, of “Right Out of California: The Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Can Gov. Gavin Newsom Keep His Job?

      by

      The vote is expected to come down to whether Democrats can mobilize enough of the state’s enormous base to counteract Republican enthusiasm for Gavin Newsom’s ouster.President Biden sent an urgent message last week to the most populous state in the nation: Keep Gov. Gavin Newsom “on the job.” On the airwaves, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the prominent progressive from Massachusetts, has been repeatedly warning that “Trump Republicans” are “coming to grab power in California.”Text messages — a half-million a day — are spreading the word on cellphones. Canvassers are making their case at suburban front doors. As some 22 million ballots land in the mailboxes of active registered voters this week in anticipation of the Sept. 14 recall election, Mr. Newsom — a Democrat elected in a 2018 landslide — has been pulling out all the stops just to hold on to his post.The vote is expected to come down to whether Democrats can mobilize enough of the state’s enormous base to counteract Republican enthusiasm for Mr. Newsom’s ouster. Recent polls of likely voters show a dead heat, despite math that suggests the governor should ultimately prevail.Less than a quarter of the electorate is Republican. Mr. Newsom has raised more campaign cash than all four dozen or so of his challengers put together. And the governor’s most serious rival is the talk radio host Larry Elder, who has called global warming “a crock,” says the minimum wage should be “zero-point-zero-zero,” and gave Stephen Miller, the hard-line Trump administration immigration adviser, his first big public platform.But the coronavirus pandemic has not been particularly governor-friendly. Polls this month show that approval for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is sagging as the state writhes under spiking deaths and hospitalizations. And Mr. Newsom’s supporters are encountering a striking degree of ambivalence and distraction.“I think he has done as well in the job as any governor could have, given the last year of the pandemic, but I’m not a fan,” Anamaria Young, 53, said recently in El Dorado Hills, east of Sacramento. Removing the governor more than a year before the end of his first term feels undemocratic, Ms. Young, a Democrat, said, but she also dislikes his lack of progress on homelessness and his deference to teachers’ unions.“When my ballot comes,” she said, “I really don’t know how — or if — I am going to vote.”Only one other attempt to recall a California governor has come to a vote, when Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Gray Davis in 2003.Mike Blake/ReutersInitiated by Republicans who took issue with Mr. Newsom on the death penalty and immigration, the once long-shot effort to recall the governor gained improbable traction as the coronavirus persisted. First, pandemic-related shutdowns prompted a judge to extend the measure’s signature-gathering deadline, and then word leaked that the governor had dined unmasked with lobbyists at an exclusive restaurant after imploring Californians to cover their faces and stay home.If a majority of voters decide to recall Mr. Newsom, the new governor will be whoever among his 46 challengers gets the most votes, even if no rival gets a majority.Critics of the state’s recall rules have long worried that 49 percent of the electorate could vote to keep an incumbent, only for a tiny plurality of voters to choose a replacement. On Friday, a lawsuit was filed in federal court challenging the recall’s constitutionality, based on that argument. Mr. Newsom has been urging Democrats to vote no on the recall and not even bother to answer the second question, which asks who should replace him. Among likely voters, recent polls show support for Mr. Elder, the current front-runner, at around 20 percent..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“No intellectually honest analysis” would predict the governor’s defeat, said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan data firm Political Data Inc. in Sacramento. But state lawmakers in February extended pandemic-related accommodations to voters through the year, dealing a wild card.The rules allow voting by mail at a scale comparable only to the 2020 presidential election — which is seemingly a Democratic advantage, although off-year participation is harder to forecast. Only one other attempt to recall a California governor has come to a vote, and 18 years have passed since the state replaced Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Mitchell noted.“The swing voters in this campaign are not the usual ones choosing which party to vote for,” agreed Nathan Click, a former spokesman for the governor who is now campaigning to defend him. “They’re Democrats who are choosing whether to vote.”Mr. Elder, 69, a Black “small-l libertarian” lawyer who rose to national stature from Los Angeles, where he has been a talk radio fixture for decades, said in an interview that he was not “some wild-eyed radical,” and that he entered the race at the behest of “normal people” such as his barber and dry cleaner as well as like-minded friends such as Dennis Prager, his right-wing broadcast mentor. His priorities — public school choice, high housing costs and rising crime — transcend party labels, he said.Larry Elder, who has been a talk radio fixture in Los Angeles for decades, is the leading Republican candidate in the recall election.Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated PressHe said his opposition to abortion was irrelevant in a state that supports abortion rights as much as California, and his view that a minimum wage deters job creation is mainstream economics. Remarks such as the one he made in 2008 on “Larry King Live” discounting global warming were merely to criticize “alarmism,” he said, acknowledging that climate change is happening but adding, falsely, that “nobody really knows to what degree” it is caused by humans.He said he has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since the 1970s, not just Donald J. Trump.“Why bring up Stephen Miller? Why bring up abortion? Why bring up minimum wage?” Mr. Elder said. “Because Gavin Newsom cannot defend his record.”Polls indicate that majorities of Californians approve of Mr. Newsom’s policies, but when surveys are narrowed to the most likely voters, his margin thins.A statewide poll in mid-July by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found that likely voters were almost evenly split over whether to oust the governor, with 47 percent saying they would vote to recall him and 50 percent saying they would retain him, an edge that just barely exceeded the poll’s margin of error. Subsequent polls have affirmed those results.So Mr. Newsom has spent big to turn out his party’s 46 percent share of the voters. His recall defense campaign received some $46 million in contributions through July, far more than Mr. Elder ($4.5 million); Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego ($2.1 million); John Cox, the businessman campaigning with a bear ($9.4 million, mostly self-funded); the reality television figure and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner ($750,000); or any other candidate.Canvassers for an immigrant advocacy group pitched Mr. Newsom to voters in Palmdale, Calif., last month.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesThe mere reminder that ballots are heading for mailboxes should turn many tuned-out Democrats into likely voters, Mr. Click said, and teams of supporters have been texting some 500,000 Democrats daily. Representative Barbara Lee, co-founder and the co-chair of the group Women Against the Recall, said the national Democratic Party is looking to such grass-roots efforts as a potential model for future campaigns.But Sonja Diaz, the director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Democrats seemed to be playing catch-up as the Delta variant preoccupied voters.“People have been procrastinating,” she said, comparing the governor’s team to overconfident students failing to study for a final. “Delta has made it clear you’re not prepared for the exam.”Northeast of Los Angeles, in Palmdale, canvassers for an immigrant advocacy group pitched the governor to voters last week.Ashley Reyes, 27, a registered Democrat who was watching her toddler and his cousins play in her gated driveway, said she did not realize the recall had qualified for the ballot. Her parents and in-laws were immigrants, she said, adding that she would vote to keep the governor.Ashley Reyes, a registered Democrat, said she would vote to keep the governor.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesPeering into 101-degree heat through his metal screen door, Edgar Robleto, 62, a Republican, replied “I want him gone” when the canvassers mentioned Mr. Newsom. The state G.O.P., which represents 24 candidates, voted last weekend against endorsing one contender, lest any Republican opt not to vote.Experts predict a slugfest. “Negative partisanship is the biggest driver of political decision-making right now,” said Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican adviser.David Townsend, a Democratic consultant, agreed: “This is going to be totally tribal.”“This is not going to be about Newsom,” he said. “It’s going to be about whether Democrats want Trump to have a governor in California.” More

    • 75 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      California's Impending Recall Election Is Unconstitutional

      by

      The most basic principles of democracy are that the candidate who gets the most votes is elected and that every voter gets an equal say in an election’s outcome. The California system for voting in a recall election violates these principles and should be declared unconstitutional.Unless that happens, on Sept. 14, voters will be asked to cast a ballot on two questions: Should Gov. Gavin Newsom be recalled and removed from office? If so, which of the candidates on the ballot should replace him?The first question is decided by a majority vote. If a majority favors recalling Mr. Newsom, he is removed from office. But the latter question is decided by a plurality, and whichever candidate gets the most votes, even if it is much less than a majority, becomes the next governor. Critically, Mr. Newsom is not on the ballot for the second question.By conducting the recall election in this way, Mr. Newsom can receive far more votes than any other candidate but still be removed from office. Many focus on how unfair this structure is to the governor, but consider instead how unfair it is to the voters who support him.Imagine that 10 million people vote in the recall election and 5,000,001 vote to remove Mr. Newsom, while 4,999,999 vote to keep him in office. He will then be removed and the new governor will be whichever candidate gets the most votes on the second question. In a recent poll, the talk show host Larry Elder was leading with 18 percent among the nearly 50 candidates on the ballot. With 10 million people voting, Mr. Elder would receive the votes of 1.8 million people. Mr. Newsom would have the support of almost three times as many voters, but Mr. Elder would become the governor.That scenario is not a wild hypothetical. Based on virtually every opinion poll, Mr. Newsom seems likely to have more votes to keep him in office than any other candidate will receive to replace him. But he may well lose the first question on the recall, effectively disenfranchising his supporters on the second question.This is not just nonsensical and undemocratic. It is unconstitutional. It violates a core constitutional principle that has been followed for over 60 years: Every voter should have an equal ability to influence the outcome of the election.The Supreme Court articulated this principle in two 1964 cases, Wesberry v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims. At the time, in many states, there were great disparities in the size of electoral districts. One district for a state legislative or a congressional seat might have 50,000 people and another 250,000. Those in the latter district obviously had less influence in choosing their representative.In Wesberry, the court held that congressional districts of widely varying size are unconstitutional because they are akin to giving one citizen more votes than another, denying citizens equal protection as a result. The court extended that reasoning later that year to state legislatures in Reynolds. Today the one-person one-vote principle requires roughly equal-size districts for every legislative body — the House of Representatives, state legislatures, City Councils, school boards — except for the United States Senate, where the Constitution mandates two senators per state.After Chief Justice Earl Warren retired in 1968, he remarked that of all the cases decided during his time on the court, the one-person one-vote rulings were the most important because they protected such a fundamental aspect of the democratic process.The California recall election, as structured, violates that fundamental principle. If Mr. Newsom is favored by a plurality of the voters, but someone else is elected, then his voters are denied equal protection. Their votes have less influence in determining the outcome of the election.This should not be a close constitutional question. It is true that federal courts generally are reluctant to get involved in elections. But the Supreme Court has been emphatic that it is the role of the judiciary to protect the democratic process and the principle of one-person one-vote.This issue was not raised in 2003 before the last recall, when Gray Davis was removed from office after receiving support from 44.6 percent of the voters. But his successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was elected to replace him with 48.5 percent of the vote. So Mr. Schwarzenegger was properly elected.This time, we hope that a state or federal lawsuit will be brought challenging the recall election. The court could declare the recall election procedure unconstitutional and leave it to California to devise a constitutional alternative. Or it could simply add Mr. Newsom’s name on the ballot to the list of those running to replace him. That simple change would treat his supporters equally to others and ensure that if he gets more votes than any other candidate, he will stay in office.A court might not want to get involved until after the election, hoping that as in the last recall election, Mr. Newsom will not end up being replaced by a less popular candidate. But that would be unwise. Undoing an unconstitutional election after the fact would be considerably messier than fixing the process beforehand.The stakes for California are enormous, not only for who guides us through our current crises — from the pandemic to drought, wildfires and homelessness — but also for how we choose future governors. The Constitution simply does not permit replacing a governor with a less popular candidate.Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the forthcoming book “Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights.” Aaron S. Edlin is a professor of law and of economics at Berkeley.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More