Tag Archive for: Newsom Recall

Why Another Newsom Recall Attempt Matters

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AUDIO: How another Newsom recall attempt is a healthy expression of democracy, informing the nation about California’s failures as a one-party state. Segment begins at 2:15 – 10 minutes on One America News – Edward Ring on Tipping Point with Kara McKinney.

https://www.audible.com/podcast/Trump-Waves-at-Migrants-Across-the-Border-Friday-03-01-2024/B0CX27D9KR

How Another Newsom Recall Effort Helps America

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California isn’t as bad as millions of people outside the state have been led to believe. No, not every downtown street is awash in homeless drug addicts, schizophrenics, and predators. No, not every retail shopping district has crumbled under the onslaught of brazen shoplifters and smash-and-grab gangs. And despite almost every major “news” network in the nation pretending that an allegedly unprecedented onslaught of bomb cyclones is literally washing the entire state into the Pacific Ocean, overall California still has the best weather in the world.

Nonetheless, California is broken. Even if you aren’t one of the millions of Californians who doesn’t have to step over syringes and feces day after day merely to walk your children to school or get to work and back, and even if you aren’t one of the hundreds of thousands of business owners who no longer has a business or one of their employees who no longer has a job, California is broken.

For the vast majority of people living there, just surviving in California is a challenge. The median home price is nine times the median household income, and the prices of gasoline and utilities are the highest in the nation. California also has the highest tax rates, while it has among the worst public schools, the worst crime, the worst roads, water rationing, energy shortages, and a housing shortage. Pay all that money, for that, and go broke. Welcome to California.

California also has a brutal, overwhelming, complicated array of laws and regulations, worse than any other state. California also has the highest number of regulatory agencies. These agencies write and enforce rules that not only change all the time but are often in conflict with each other. Businesspeople in California have to choose which laws to break because total compliance is impossible. Chief Executive magazine has ranked California as the worst state for business for the last 19 years in a row, which is as long as they have been doing the rankings. Give the best years of your life, bet your fortune on being an independent entrepreneur, and endure nothing but harassment from your own government. Welcome to California.

Another Newsom Recall

This is the context in which yet another attempt to recall Governor Gavin Newsom was launched this past Monday, February 26, by the same team that successfully qualified a gubernatorial recall back in 2021, forcing a special election.

Newsom deserves it. He’s been on the road, barnstorming America, hoping to convince a critical mass of liberal voters that preserving the right to on-demand, late-term abortions is the most important issue of our time and that, as U.S. President-in-Waiting, he is their savior and protector. Meanwhile, the citizens of his own state desperately cope with an economy that’s breaking them, caused by a hostile, indifferent, incompetent, bloated network of state and local governments, all of them hijacked by special interests, all of them controlled by Democrats, with their absentee leader, Gavin Newsom, presiding over the whole failed, misanthropic mess.

Along with a broken economy, Newsom and the political machine that made him have done a superb job of rigging elections to prevent any return to sanity or humanity. Automatic voter registration, mailed ballots, and ballot harvesting, paid for by donations from leftist billionaires and public sector unions, all ensure that hand-picked and housebroken candidates continue to win elections all the way from local water board up to and including the governor.

But there’s still the recall. It’s the last viable avenue for grassroots activism to make a difference in California. Citizen democracy in California was once robust but has been deliberately diminished. Ballot initiatives where citizens can enact annoying laws like the legendary Proposition 13, which forbids rampant escalation in property tax rates, have been all but eviscerated thanks to “reforms” passed by the state legislature in recent years. But while initiatives have been safely regulated to the point where only billionaires, multinational corporations, and government unions retain the financial throw weight now required to get them qualified for a state ballot, the simple recall remains viable for the common activist.

The secret to the ongoing viability of recalls in California, at least until a few more “reforms” come down from a state legislature that is determined to preserve their absolute one-party rule, is that the petition verbiage needed to qualify a recall can fit onto one page, which means it can be mailed inexpensively to, for example, households where at least two registered Republicans live. Packaged with clear instructions to voters on how to sign the petition, a reply envelope, and an added form to make a donation, signature gathering for recall campaigns using direct mail can be self-sustaining. The horror!

Win or Lose, an Attempt to Recall Newsom Helps Republicans Everywhere

If this latest attempt to recall Newsom succeeds in forcing him to again defend himself in a special election, but he survives the recall attempt, it will nonetheless be a win for Republicans all over America. Democrats in California are the ATM machine for Democrats in the rest of the nation. Every dollar that is spent defending Newsom on his home turf is a dollar that isn’t exported to swing congressional districts across America. They’re not small dollars.

In opposition to the 2021 attempt to recall Newsom, the governor’s allies raised over $88 million. The recall committees altogether spent not quite $21 million. Depending on whether you consider the gross or the net amount, that is at least $67 million in campaign contributions that did not go off to bolster campaigns for Democrats in other states.

Here’s how much of a difference this money can make. In November 2022, the median amount of money raised by an incumbent U.S. Congressman in a battleground district (rated as “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report) was $5.5 million. This means $67 million would cover 100 percent of the campaign expenses in 12 close congressional races. We may assume median spending for congressional seats will be higher in 2024 than in 2022. But in 2024 congressional races in swing districts, where funding is already flowing in from around the nation, it’s reasonable to assume $67 million will go a long way. If a Newsom recall is qualified for the California ballot this year, that money is going to stay home. Successfully placing a Newsom recall on the ballot during this critical election year in California is going to damage the Democrat’s plan to recapture control of the U.S. Congress. It matters that much.

And who can be certain Newsom will survive a recall this time? As California rolls predictably into another spending deficit, California’s public institutions will falter even more. Fed-up voters may finally see past Newsom’s slick pompadour and telegenic smile and realize that all his blather about the threats of MAGA and the climate “crisis” were just distractions. They’ll connect the dots at last. It’s impossible to live here, and Newsom and his Democrats are the reason why.

Ultimately, rescuing California will depend on finding new candidates with the common sense and charisma to offer obvious solutions to voters: prosecuting criminals again, enabling school choice, and deregulating the housing and energy industries. Subjecting Newsom to a recall election will therefore also provide a forum for aspirants to replace Newsom. They will have a chance to explain their vision and offer voters an alternative to the corrupt, punitive governance that has made their lives far too difficult for far too long.

Win or lose, getting a Newsom recall effort onto the state ballot this year will force the governor to defend a record he can’t defend. At a critical time, it will spotlight the failures of his administration and his party. It will force Democratic donors to divert what might easily be up to $100 million away from close races in the rest of the nation. It will bring national attention to the failed one-party state called California and remind independent voters all over the country that the obsessions of social liberals may not be more important than retaining the ability to earn a living under a business-friendly government. And it will provide an opportunity for new candidates to get visibility for themselves and their ideas well in advance of California’s 2026 gubernatorial election, when Newsom will be termed out even if he survives this latest assault.

In short, trying yet again to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom is a healthy expression of democracy. Bring it on.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

Why the Newsom Recall is Nonpartisan

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If you’re searching for an accurate term to describe the Newsom recall effort, it’s not easy. With 48 percent of the electorate planning to vote for Newsom’s retirement according to the latest poll, and only 24 percent registered Republicans in California, characterizing the recall as a “Republican Recall” is inaccurate. But that’s not stopping California’s Democrats from doing that, because it works.

The demonization of Republicans in California has its origins in Prop. 187, championed in 1994 by Pete Wilson, the Republican governor at the time. Approved by 58 percent of the electorate, but later struck down in court, the measure would have prohibited undocumented immigrants from using social services, public schools, and public healthcare services except in cases of emergency.

Ever since, Republicans in California have been successfully stigmatized as racist. The next step in the demonization of Republicans in California came with Prop. 8, approved by 52 percent of voters in 2008. Defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and also struck down in court, the legacy of Prop. 8 is to taint California’s Republicans as not only racist, but homophobic bigots as well.

If these factors weren’t enough, California’s Republicans are now tagged as Trump supporters. Since California’s electorate is thoroughly conditioned to associate Trump with every negative right-wing stereotype imaginable, that, too, works.

No wonder we have a national politicians like Elizabeth Warren appearing on television ads in California, where she equates supporters of the Newsom recall with “Trump supporters across the nation attacking election results and the right to vote.” Warren goes on to say “now, they’re coming to grab power in California, abusing the recall process and costing Californians millions.”

Warren’s message, paid for primarily by Netflix founder and billionaire Reed Hastings, is a textbook example of the vacuous brilliance of anti-recall messaging. Every bit of it is false yet compelling, from its blatant distortions of current facts to the hollowed out half-truths that constitute its core premises.

Current facts, for example, completely contradict the idea that there’s any connection between what are, in any case, legitimate attempts to restore faith in voting integrity across the nation with the Newsom recall. Facts also contradict the idea that the Newsom recall is an “abuse of the recall process.” If it were just Trump Republicans who supported the Newsom recall, Reed Hastings and the SEIU wouldn’t be spending millions to oppose it.

The cold fact of political life in California is this: Republicans constitute less than one quarter of registered voters. Democratic demagoguery aside, things are complicated. There are millions of non-Republicans who support the recall. This same nuanced reality informs any historical analysis of partisan politics in California over the past few decades.

Prop. 8, for example, attracted 7.0 million “yes” votes back in 2008, at a time when there were only 5.3 million registered Republicans left in the entire state – and as if 100 percent of them turned out. Not only did millions of independents and Democrats support Prop. 8, but its presence on the ballot caused a split in the California Republican party from top to bottom on social issues that still exists.

What’s most misleading about recall opponents tagging it as a “Republican Recall” is that all of this is meant to distract voters from the failures of California’s ruling Democrats.

And what of the core premises of Democrats? Maybe Prop. 187 went too far. That doesn’t mean the immigration debate is over. When will honest Democrats, along with their allies in big tech and the media, acknowledge that at some point there is a practical limit to how many foreign refugees can settle in the United States? When will they admit that the real reason for lax border security is because it suits the agenda of government bureaucrats, corporations and financial special interests who want a surplus of labor and a shortage of public services? Millions more people mean more taxes to provide them more services, bigger government, cheap labor, and obscene profits for real estate speculators.

Similarly, when will honest Democrats along with their allies in the media acknowledge that somewhere, and we may debate with civility exactly where, there is a practical limit to how emphatically we must celebrate this week’s mandatory gender innovation of the century? One may argue that Prop. 8 was behind the times. But does that mean anything goes? Maybe, for example, it isn’t necessary to upend the entire so-called “binary” paradigm of gender when instructing first graders in the public schools, and maybe, just maybe, transsexual women should not be competing in women’s sports?

The Democratic party’s positions on these issues are themselves intolerant in the extreme. If you wish to question the efficacy of lax border enforcement and sanctuary cities, you are a racist. If you wish to question the entire transgender agenda, you are a bigot. And yet on these unreasonable premises, they’ve turned the entire Republican party radioactive.

Despite massive spending on misleading political ads, Gavin Newsom could lose. Because Californians of all backgrounds and lifestyles are realizing that Republicans aren’t to blame for the problems they’re facing. Republicans are politically impotent in California and they have been for nearly two decades. Crowing about supposed Republican extremism is a distraction from the real story.

Democrats are the reason California’s cities are overrun with homeless people, because Democrats are the reason that overregulation has made homeless shelters and homeless housing impossible to build at scale, or with any conditions for entrance. Democrats are also the reason that overregulation has made housing impossible to build without construction subsidies, and unaffordable to occupy without either rent subsidies or unusual personal wealth.

Everywhere you turn, it’s the Democrats whose policies have created the problems confronting ordinary Californians. Expensive, unreliable electricity. Water rationing. Public schools utterly failing low income communities. Congested, pitted roads that desperately need upgrades and expansion. Forests that are burning up because Democrats destroyed the logging industry and imposed regulations that make it almost impossible for landowners to do controlled burns or thinning.

The list of Democratic party failures goes on. And on. And on. And it has nothing to do with supposed Republican “bigots.” Gavin Newsom’s support from billionaires and unions representing public bureaucrats is not inexplicable. What constitutes a betrayal of private sector working families spells profit for the oligarchs, and empire building for the bureaucrats.

That’s the real message. One would think that Elizabeth Warren would understand at least half that story. Perhaps she does. But money talks.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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It’s Not a “Republican Recall,” Mr. Hastings

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Consumers of broadcast television were treated to a barrage of ads over the past week lambasting the “Republican Recall.” Revealed at the close of these ads was the source of major funding for the ads, Netflix founder and billionaire Reed Hastings. Compared to other Silicon Valley notables such as Mark Zuckerberg, who spent $400 million to tilt the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Hastings flies mostly under the radar. But that’s changing fast.

Last year, Hastings contributed nearly two million to a dirty campaign that got George Gascon elected to Los Angeles County District Attorney not by extolling his virtues and qualifications, but by maliciously maligning the incumbent. Angelenos are paying an awful price, as Gascon implements a crime friendly regime that has aroused open rebellion among his subordinates and enraged so many residents that the vast county teeters on the precipice of political realignment.

Not content with supporting the problematic Gascon, Hastings now has his eyes on the whole state. But what motivates him to do this? Why is keeping Newsom in office so important to Reed Hastings that he’s willing to throw additional millions into a statewide political campaign? Hastings, like dozens of his progressive billionaire counterparts in the Silicon Valley, is not stupid. So what part of Newsom’s legacy is he so determined to protect, and what is it about the recall movement that he consider so toxic?

It’s fair to wonder the rhetoric you’ll hear from the fringes of any movement. California has its share of extremists and eccentrics, although it’s hard to imagine they’re any crazier on the Right than on the Left. But not only are the extremists on the Right in California given inordinate levels of attention and condemnation, they are portrayed as representing the entire Republican party. This is absurd and unfair, and Gavin Newsom has angered far more people than the small percentage of California’s conservatives that qualify as extreme.

Consider these basic facts relating to California’s electorate. As of February 2021, Republican statewide voter registration stands at a pitiful 24 percent. And yet two recent polls show voters almost split 50/50 on the question of a recall. The Emerson Poll, released on July 22, has 43 percent of Californians supporting a recall, vs 48 percent opposed, with 9 percent undecided. An LA Times / UC Berkeley poll released on July 27 is even closer, showing 47 percent supporting a recall vs 50 percent opposed.

You may interpret those results any way you like, but simile aside, you can’t call this a “Republican Recall.” Because Republican voters, even if they were monolithically in alignment, would only account for half of the people polled who support a recall.

Something else is going on. Reed Hastings, and the entire progressive elite that are, now more than ever, using their billions to swing state and national elections, are advised to reconsider the true sources of discontent with politicians like Newsom. As the summer wears on, and the forests burn, water rationing takes full effect, and the streets of every major city become even more impassable, here are some questions they might ask:

Why is Governor Newsom inviting the homeless and dispossessed of the world to come to California, when his plan to help them involves spending hundreds of billions to build shelters in the most expensive parts of town? How’s that going to work?

Why isn’t Newsom facing reality, acknowledging human nature, and recognizing that when you decriminalize crime and don’t get drug addicts off the street, your fair weather state becomes a magnet for every predator and drug user in America?

When the forests start burning again, will Newsom convene the lobbyists and legislators that have conspired for the last thirty years to destroy the timber, biomass, and cattle businesses in California and demand they negotiate a pathway to reviving these taxpaying, job creating, forest thinning industries?

When water rationing becomes extreme, will Newsom tell the truth to the environmentalists that have held up water projects for decades: that Californians cannot solve water scarcity merely through conservation, that it’s time to set an example to the world of environmentally sustainable desalination, water reuse, runoff capture, and yes, even expansion of surface reservoirs, and it needs to be done in years, not decades?

When blackouts and brownouts return on the hottest days, will Newsom have the courage to suggest maybe California can keep more of its clean burning natural gas power plants operating, figure out a way to keep Diablo Canyon operating safely for another thirty years or more, and, gasp, permit construction of new and modern nuclear power plants?

And as investment banks gobble up single family dwellings across the state, pricing ordinary working families out of home ownership, Newsom pushes to destroy “exclusionary” zoning laws, so these banks can demolish these homes to build fourplexes and fill them up with rent subsidized occupants. Never mind the neighbor who worked their whole life like a dog to pay their mortgage to live in a nice neighborhood. After all, they’re “privileged.” Their lives don’t matter.

Instead, Newsom, joined by his woke gang of billionaire allies, perseverate over “disproportionate outcomes,” demanding redress and restitution and reparations. Apparently they think that unaffordable housing, unreliable electricity, $5.00 per gallon gasoline, and rationed water, or forest fires that choke half the state in unbreathable filth, or power brownouts that last for days, or streets overran with criminals and drug addicts are problems of which only “Republicans” are unreasonable enough to object.

Gavin Newsom is fighting for his political life. Why he is getting cover from billionaires like Reed Hastings is anyone’s guess. Newsom, Hastings, and the entire moneyed ruling class in California are invited to ponder the preceding questions, and other questions of that ilk, and decide what they stand for. Don’t blame this recall on Republicans. Look in the mirror.

This article originally appeared on the website of the California Globe.

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Newsom Recall Gathers Momentum

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With over 1.2 million signed petitions already collected, and tens of thousands more arriving daily, the chances that Gavin Newsom will have to fight for his political life in a special recall election have never been higher. How the proponents have built a powerful coalition of committees is an example of innovation that offers a new model for qualifying initiatives, recalls and referendums, one that will not be restricted to billionaire corporations or one-party legislatures.

According to lead proponent Orrin Heatlie, the volunteer signature gathering army that has been growing all summer is now deploying over 5,000 people every weekend to gather signatures. “They’re tired but they keep plugging along like they always have,” said Heatlie, adding that “more and more people volunteer as they learn about the progress of the movement.”

The latest counts, confirmed by representatives at both of the main committees, indicate over 200,000 signatures have already been collected via a direct mail effort, and over 1,000,000 signatures have now been gathered by volunteers. The original volunteer committee, the California Patriot Coalition led by Heatlie, has been active since June 2020. The committee running the direct mail campaign, Rescue California led by Anne Dunsmore, has only been doing mass mailings for a few weeks.

Using direct mail instead of professional signature gatherers is a risk that appears to be paying off. Paid signature gathering campaigns currently face the multiple obstacles of COVID restrictions on where they can set up, as well as the impact of AB 5 which destroys the traditional business model of hiring signature gatherers as independent contractors. Even before these new hurdles were added, the costs for signature gathering had already gone up because the number of firms able to do statewide campaigns consolidated at the same time as the number of well-funded special interests willing to pay whatever it takes increased. For example, Uber, or the real estate industry, or the association representing dialysis clinics, and others, can easily spend tens of millions of dollars on a signature campaign. But activist groups rarely have unlimited funds.

This is why the synergy generated by the original committee, the California Patriot Coalition, which successfully recruited a grassroots army, combined with the innovative approach of direct mail being used by Rescue California, may become a precedent setting breakthrough to be emulated in future initiative qualification campaigns.

“It is exciting to see the response to our effort,” said Anne Dunsmore when reached for comment. “We are way ahead of our projections, and we absolutely expect to reach our goal of 700,000 signed petitions via direct mail. The signed petitions we receive are validating at the astonishing rate of 98 percent, each response averages over two signatures, and we also have received donations from over 8,000 people, including over 500 in the past week.”

Dunsmore also recognized the tremendous contributions of the original recall committee, saying “We are enormously pleased with our partnership with the California Patriot Coalition and their volunteer effort.”

A key member of the California Patriot Coalition is Robin McCrae, who echoed Dunsmore’s sentiments about the synergy between the two committees, saying “we are all well intentioned, passionate people who care about making change for the better and we all have a common goal and common purpose and our parallel efforts will get the job done.”

With thousands of active volunteers, managing the logistics and messaging of the group is a challenge. Heatlie explained how that challenge was recently complicated by Facebook. “We have 75 local Recall Gavin groups on Facebook with over 200,000 members,” said Heatlie, “and in the days following the events on January 6 in Washington DC, all of our administrators were locked out of posting or commenting on posts. Over 150 of our administrators and regional managers were locked out of their Facebook groups. The ban won’t lift until January 23rd.”

The irony of Facebook leaving these group pages up but locking out the administrators is that the group leaders lost the ability to screen user posts and comments. This meant the risk of non-administrators leaving posts or comments that might offend Facebook went up, not down, by virtue of their ban. “If violations were entered on our Facebook pages,” said Heatlie, “we couldn’t remove them anymore.”

Opponents of the recall point to incendiary comments online, attributable to a few people and often posted in the heat of the moment. But a few objectionable comments only represent a minute fraction of the vast movement behind the recall. It is worth wondering who is helped when Facebook prevents recall organizers from even moderating their online forums.

McCrae offered additional thoughts that might summarize the motivations of the vast majority of recall supporters when she said “The heart and soul of this recall are hard working volunteers who are dedicated to saving California. They are fighting for the right to work, to save their businesses, and protect their freedom from government overreach. They recognize that California is no longer thriving. Our beautiful state is deteriorating and we are trying to save it.”

Dunsmore summed up the opportunity represented by tapping tremendous grassroots energy and supplementing that with traditional professional campaigning. “We are working together with passion, but not reckless passion. That’s hard when people are coming up with policies that are so atrocious and polarizing. When something is really important and it’s bad, you can’t just get mad, you have to fix the problem with a level head.”

What Newsom faces with this recall is a new coalition. A populist movement that is growing in political and logistical savvy every day, allied with a group of seasoned professionals who dove in against the odds to support them. There are many politicians in California that have, at least in the minds of millions of voters, failed to recognize and correct the challenges facing Californians. As they watch the “walls close in” on Newsom, they may rest assured they will be next.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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