Gavin Newsom has made mistakes as governor, but none so bad that he should be recalled

A simple yet monumental question faces California voters on Sept. 14: Should Gov. Gavin Newsom be removed from office?

Absolutely not. There are plenty of reasons to be frustrated with Newsom, but replacing him through this egregious recall process is wrong and dangerous. It poses a serious threat to the state.

Let’s briefly put aside a field of challengers who are not ready for the job — or are shamefully uninformed and unqualified. This recall could invalidate Newsom’s historic mandate from California voters in 2018, a 24-point margin, under false pretenses and partisan schemes. Removing the California governor now would have profound consequences nationwide, and change the goalposts for good policymaking ahead of critical midterm elections in 2022.

McClatchy’s California editorial boards (Sacramento, Fresno/Merced, Modesto and San Luis Obispo) met with Newsom and the leading recall challengers, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, businessman John Cox and talk radio host Larry Elder. In small doses and some media coverage, the opponents come off as legitimate candidates. But when put to the test, answering tough questions about California’s essential issues, some displayed a total lack of understanding, presented bizarre, untenable views and repeatedly failed to disavow Trumpism — an undemocratic, chaotic ideology that deserves no quarter in our Capitol.

This recall has been framed as a joke and a waste of time, but it’s not. It should alarm us that our toxic political environment led us here, on the sixth attempt to remove Newsom barely halfway through his first term. Every California governor over the last 60 years has faced some sort of recall effort. In 2003, Gray Davis, marred by record budget deficits and an energy crisis, was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the state’s first gubernatorial recall election.

However, the genesis of this year’s special election is simply bitter partisanship and right-wing nationalism — not a legitimate or righteous cause to prematurely remove the governor.

Recall origin

The first issue that was mentioned on the petition speaks for itself: “Laws (Newsom) endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens.” The lead recall proponent, retired Yolo County sheriff’s deputy Orrin Heatlie, is a well-documented xenophobe who thinks immigrants should be microchipped like stray animals. The campaign’s social media pages once harbored violent rhetoric and posited QAnon conspiracy theories, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Yet here we are, 1.5 million signatures later, about to determine whether California’s governor should serve the final 15 months of a first-term that earned 62% of the votes — the largest share in state history.

In the absence of federal leadership early last year, U.S. governors played a central role in protecting the public from a novel virus that required constant research and adaptation. Every administration across the nation struggled. Here in California, the whiplash from Newsom’s ever-changing policies caused intense hardship. The shameful hypocrisy he showed — flouting his own administration’s health orders by attending a lobbyist’s birthday at the French Laundry — will live in infamy. By all accounts, that maskless, indoor dinner was the No. 1 catalyst for the recall.

Agree or not with the Newsom administration’s COVID restrictions, California’s infection rates, and death rates — specifically, our cases and deaths per 100,000 residents — rank in the bottom half of the country. We have administered 44.2 million vaccine doses, and 73% of eligible residents have received at least one shot.

There was plenty of kindling to spark the recall fire, though. When hundreds of thousands of Californians lost their jobs overnight and needed financial support to survive the pandemic, the Employment Development Department crumbled under his watch. Billions of dollars were paid out to fraudulent claims while thousands of residents were trapped in a backlog without relief.

The vast majority of California’s 6 million K-12 public school students were unable to return to classrooms until late in the 2021 school year — months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided guidance for safely reopening schools. Privileged families, including Newsom’s, sent their children to open private schools while public school districts were hamstrung by collective bargaining. Newsom bowed to powerful teachers’ unions and our children suffered greater learning losses as a result.

Despite all the task forces and billions of dollars spent, homelessness in California has only gotten worse, exacerbated by high housing costs and disjointed policies. Newsom touted his Project Roomkey initiative, which evolved into Project Homekey and could create 42,000 housing units in two years. But it’s no silver bullet, and the state has done little to incentivize more low-income housing and fewer market-rate developments. The capacity for large-scale mental health or addiction services is still lacking.

Why Newsom should stay

Still, few officials in California have such a nuanced understanding of the complex issues facing our state like Newsom does, or attempt to earnestly address them in a future-minded manner. His ability to leverage Silicon Valley’s brainpower to efficiently address emergency measures like COVID testing or determining unemployment eligibility demonstrates a willingness to innovate and modernize.

Newsom appreciates the grave threat of climate change, now and in the future, and has a growing track record of advancing policies that help end reliance on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gases. During his first three years, California has often set the national standard for climate policies. He even boasted about Canada following our timeline for banning gas-powered cars.

During interviews with the top recall challengers, we heard fierce rhetoric about Newsom’s record on homelessness and affordability, and partisan differences on managing water supply and criminal justice. Unfortunately, the focus was more on California’s problems and the general displeasure with Newsom, rather than any real strategies or substantive solutions that could move the needle.

Despite running multiple gubernatorial campaigns, Cox failed to specify how he would deliver on his promise of cutting homelessness in half in five years, and deferred on a key question about voluntary water agreements in the Central Valley. On energy, he said he did not know specifics about the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant but thought it should remain on the table. He also expressed support for greater investment in fossil fuels such as oil and “relatively clean burning” natural gas.

“I think the world environment would be terrifically benefited if natural gas, that’s produced in the United States, were to be liquified and shipped over to China,” Cox said.

It should be noted he was the opponent Newsom handily defeated in 2018.

Faulconer, a pragmatic Republican who holds many socially liberal views, repeatedly dodged the question of whether Trump is a liar. The former president made false or misleading claims over 30,000 times during his term, yet Faulconer has no problem calling out Newsom. The former mayor defends his support of the twice-impeached president even after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The most disturbing candidate is Elder, a far more aggressive pro-Trump conservative who uses right-wing dog whistles to deny systemic influence on racial inequities. When asked if he believed Joe Biden won the election, he said yes, before launching into a QAnon-like tirade about Russian election hacking and the alleged double standard in how the media covered Trump’s “big lie” when compared to Hilary Clinton’s.

Vote ‘no’

It’s easy to articulate the problems facing California, but it’s much harder to make things better. The recall challengers complain well, but they all lack the experience and depth of expertise needed to steer the fifth-largest economy on the planet — Elder and Cox, especially.

Let us be clear, though. This partisan recall attempt should be a wake-up call for California’s Democratic supermajority. Sacramento establishment politics are failing to deliver the scale and speed of change that’s needed to address California’s existential crises.

But removing Newsom would be a major setback and cause partisan gridlock at a critical juncture. The policies adopted in the early 2020s will determine the long-term viability of the Golden State.

The ambivalence of many California voters in this special election could create a disaster scenario where a Trump conservative like Elder, who is leading the polls, becomes governor with an insignificant fraction of the vote. Apathetic voters cannot afford to sit out this election under the false assumption that Newsom is safe.

Newsom should be held accountable for his actions, but not through partisan exploits of a recall process in desperate need of reform. It should be at the ballot box next year, in a general election when voters are supposed to decide if the incumbent governor deserves a second term.

McClatchy’s California editorial boards are urging California voters to turn out for this special election and vote “no” on the recall. If Newsom fails to respond after this, then voters can consider a different Democrat or Republican in 2022. That’s democracy. This recall is an attempt to undermine it and must be rejected.

This story was originally published August 5, 2021 at 12:40 PM.