Organizers behind the recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom successfully completed the first phase of their effort, turning in more than 2.1 million signatures by the deadline.
The movement led by former San Diego Mayor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kevin Faulconer only needed 1.5 million signatures to get the effort on this year’s ballot but aimed for 2 million to offset any invalid signatures.”Our statewide movement has taken a giant step toward removing Gavin Newsom from office. Over 2.1 million Californians — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — have signed this recall petition and made it clear that they are ready to turn the page on an elitist administration that has disregarded science while hurting millions of California families,” Faulconer said in a Thursday statement.
The next phase is a bit more complicated. The collected signatures must go out for review and confirmation, actions that need to be taken by April 29th. Then the Department of Finance and the Newsom-appointed Secretary of State get involved.
Once the recall is confirmed, a series of windows begin to open: Voters who signed the petition have 30 days to withdraw their signature. Then the state Department of Finance has 30 days to estimate how much the recall election will cost — a pricey endeavor in the nation’s largest state.The legislature gets another 30 days to review the cost estimates. Then it’s up to Secretary of State Shirley Weber (D) to make a formal certification that petitioners met the signature requirements.Weber is just a few months into a job she won when Newsom appointed her to replace her predecessor, Alex Padilla. Padilla was Newsom’s choice to succeed Vice President Harris when Harris formally resigned her seat to take her new post as vice president.
At this point, it appears that the recall vote should take place during the November election cycle if all goes well.
Clearly, Newsom has a few regrets about the crushing and prolonged pandemic restrictions, especially those implemented in early December just ahead of the Christmas season.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week acknowledged mistakes in communicating with the public over his administration’s shifting coronavirus lockdown orders last year.”We were communicating with counties and businesses and sectors and industries, not with the public, what that modification meant and what it didn’t mean,” he said about a loosening in restrictions about two months after the March 2020 lockdown that was soon followed by a rise in cases. “And in hindsight, clearly, we could have done a much better job by informing the public what those modifications meant.”
What must be especially irksome for the governor is that for large states, Florida’s much less restrictive approach led to case numbers that were on par with the economy-crushing policies implemented by Newsom in the Golden State.
California and Florida have taken different approaches to managing the COVID-19 pandemic.Both states initiated lockdowns early in the pandemic, but since then, Florida has eschewed mask mandates, lockdowns, and other public health guidelines to mitigate deaths and hospitalizations from COVID-19.California, on the other hand, has had multiple lockdowns and a mask mandate in place since June 18, 2020.Despite this, per capita cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID-19 in these states are similar.California has had about 8,900 cases per 100,000 people while Florida has had about 8,700 per 100,000.
After a year of the pandemic, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is considered a serious presidential aspirant. And while Newsom dutifully shut-down the state, perhaps in part to hurt President Donald Trump’s reelection, his French Laundry hypocrisy, anger at the closure of schools for in-person learning, and rage at the forced closure of (some, unfavored) businesses mean that he may no longer be able to count on an elected office beyond the one he is now enjoying.
The recall election of 2003 had 135 officially declared candidates, including a porn star, actor Gary Coleman, and box office star Arnold Schwarzenegger (who won). Currently, there are only 3 official contenders: Former Rep. Doug Ose (R), former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and businessman John Cox (R).
It will be interesting to see how many will toss their hats into the circus ring this time.
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