How Fresno County is playing a key role in the drive to recall California Gov. Newsom
Susan Kraemer and her husband own a small pool-service company in Fresno that employs four people. Dane Wildey runs a contracting and real estate firm in the city.
Both share the belief that California is on the wrong track, and for that they blame Gov. Gavin Newsom.
They are emblematic of a statewide recall effort targeting Newsom that, a year ago, would have been unfathomable, but which is now gaining traction. A once-in-a-century pandemic challenging the governor, coupled with some recent major missteps by him, are giving life to the effort that shows no signs of slowing.
If the statewide petition campaign can get 1,495,709 valid signatures, it will cause a special election to be held, and the fate of Gov. Newsom to be decided. As of Thursday, 800,000 had been collected.
Fresno County is one of the key places in California powering the recall effort, which began June 10. As of Thursday, it was fifth on the list of counties with most signatures turned in to election officials. Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties lead the way.
Kraemer and her friend Tami Thiessen Brown are organizing the local push for signatures.
The statewide campaign’s website, recallgavin2020.com, showed nearly 23,000 signatures collected from Fresno County, but Kraemer said that was a bit dated and that 40,000 had actually been submitted to a third-party firm for verification.
The rules for petition signatures are strict, Kraemer said: A person has to be a registered voter who cast a ballot in the 2018 election when Newsom was elected.
I asked Kraemer what was driving Fresno County residents to sign the petitions. She said there were many reasons:
“In the summer, when it was 115 degrees, people would come forward and want to sign the petition — mostly parents when the schools closed down. Then those when the restaurants closed down. Then people upset he went to the French Laundry (a Napa Valley high-end restaurant) and had dinner. They felt that was hypocritical — we cannot do Thanksgiving, but he can go and not wear a mask.
“Every month, we have people come out for different reasons.”
Newsom out of touch
Kraemer believes Newsom is out-of-touch with small business owners like her and her husband.
Such owners “see when people line up in front of big box stores, but no one is coming to their stores. Businesses here in Fresno for three generations are now closing.”
Does Wildey support the recall? “Absolutely. There are a myriad of reasons, it is not just the COVID crisis. It is the mass exodus and California not being business friendly.
“And I don’t agree with a lot of how he handled COVID.”
In contrast to recall proponents, Ruben Zarate, chair of the Fresno County Democratic Party, says Newsom “has provided exactly the kind of leadership for which we elected him. If we had someone less acclimated to dealing with crisis, we might be looking at disaster. Now is the time to rally behind solution-oriented leaders and to ignore the partisan and negativist naysayers.”
Zarate doubts the recall effort will succeed. “Californians remember how badly things went awry following the last gubernatorial recall,” he said in an email response to questions. Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was recalled in 2003 and voters replaced him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican and movie action hero.
Right to a voice
The recall campaign links Newsom to big problems California has faced for years: “Unaffordable housing. Record homelessness. Rising crime. Failing schools. Independent contractors thrown out of work. Exploding pension debt. And now, a locked down population while the prisons are emptied. Hold Gavin Newsom accountable. Gavin Newsom must go.”
Most of those problems occurred before him, and the state Legislature has had a sizable role in letting those challenges balloon in scope.
But critics also point to pandemic decisions Newsom has taken, like closing schools, churches, gyms and restaurants, but letting big-box stores remain open as essential.
Then there was the ill-fated French Laundry dinner on Nov. 6 that Newsom had with a major lobbyist who happens to be a good friend. And the fact his young children returned to in-person teaching at their private school while students in public programs had to remain at home in distance learning.
“The voice of the people needs to be heard,” said Kraemer. “A lot of things he is doing, he is not asking (the Legislature), he is doing on his own. We are supposed to have checks and balances.”
She sums up the recall effort this way: “The main thing we want to get out is we have a right to voice our opinion.”
Come next March, the deadline for the petition drive, we will see how loudly Californians have spoken.
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 8:54 AM.
