By Andrew Joseph Moore
For the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, his administration has not been going in the direction he wants. His approval ranking has been shrinking. The Coronavirus vaccine rollout has been subpar. And there is currently a petition going around the state trying to remove him from office to top it off.
Before understanding the recall, it is essential to know where exactly Governor Newsom was standing before. In 2018, then lieutenant governor Newsom was elected to office with 62% of the vote. Fast forward two years and a few months later; everything changed in June 2020 when California voters were more likely to be asked if governor Newsom should be ousted.
The recall effort was started by a Folsom resident named Orrin Heatlie and is being funded by the Republican Party of California and wealthy individuals. So now comes to the question of why? On the recall petition itself, it states:
The grounds for this recall are as Follows: Governor Newsom has implemented laws which are detrimental to the citizens of this state and our way of life. Laws he endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens. People in this state suffer the highest taxes in the nation, the highest homelessness rates, and the lowest quality of life as a result.
He has imposed sanctuary state status and fails to enforce immigration laws. He unilaterally over-ruled the will of the people regarding the death penalty. He seeks to impose additional burdens on our state by the following;
removing the protections of Proposition 13, rationing our water use, increasing taxes and restricting parental rights. Having no other recourse, we the people have come together to take this action, remedy these misdeeds and prevent further injustices.
However, that is not the full story. As Jonathan Lloyd, a writer for NBC Los Angeles, explains, the petition states nothing about his handling of the pandemic, which those advocating for the recall have criticized. It also doesn’t include Newsom being caught eating out with friends and lobbyists after telling citizens to stay home and the missteps that have contributed to ten billion dollars of unemployment fraud.
The chances of success of the recall are surprisingly high; however, even with that, Newsom has been very silent on the issue with only making a brief statement “this is a ragtag crew of pro-Trump, anti-vaccine extremists, along with some ambitious Republican politicians who would like to be governor,” Newman said, “I don’t think it’s something anyone wants. I’d be surprised if Californians wanted to spend the extra money and have another election the following year.”
As reported by The Sacramento Bee, the recall leaders stated that they had collected the required 1.95 million signatures, which spared them by about a little more than a week, as the petition’s deadline is March 17th. However, county and state election officials still need to validate all of these signatures, and they still have 1.5 million signatures to go.
So if things go in favor of those supporting the recall effort, a few things will have to happen. First, a recall election will have to be held within 60 to 80 days of the verification, and then once an election date is set, voters will get a ballot with two questions. Those questions are: should Governor Newsom be recalled, and who should succeed him if he is recalled. For the recall to pass, the first question needs to have a majority of votes.
As for the second question, whoever happens to have the most votes will become the next governor of California. Currently, only a handful of Republicans have announced campaigns. However, there could be a chance that the number increases.When California had a recall election back in 2003, which is how Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor, there was a total of 135 candidates on the ballot.
It is merely a waiting game as there is still much work to do, but if one is to place a bet on what will happen in the future, I would say a recall election will happen.
