Fast Takes on California's Recall
A great quote from former Governor Davis
Gray Davis was the first and most recent Californian Governor to have his recall reach the ballot, and dubiously the first and most recent Governor recalled. This provides him an unfortunate wisdom, something of a Cassandra in reverse, and in the New Yorker he had this to say about California and its recalls: “Anyone who runs for governor knows full well that for a hundred and eleven years, California has said the people have the first and last word on all policy matters. They can elect you; they can unelect you; they can repeal laws you pass; they can write laws of their own. These powers have been part of the constitution for over a hundred years. I never moaned and groaned about that. It’s part of the drill, comes with the territory. If you don’t like it, well, don’t run for office in our state, then. Find some state that doesn’t have a recall, run for office there.”
California, My Favorite Democracy
I love this idea of California as a great and frightening democracy, a place where the people rule (to mixed results). Yes, we should have the ability to fire the Governor. The people should be able to do with their government what they see fit, and the government should be afraid and respectful of the people it governs. Any politician who is too much a coward to accept that should leave. The people rule, and the government merely governs.
Conservatives deify a polity powerful enough to nullify its government, but Republican politicians practice little of what they preach. Republicans use their Senate majorities to dam up the judiciary with ideologues, to bar unfavorable constituencies from even voting. Elections that do not deliver Republican majorities are deemed fraudulent.
Democrats in California, for all of Larry Elder’s hubbub of tyranny, respect the people’s right to rule. Only the special intercession of a Superior Court judge allowed the recall to collect signatures many months after the previous deadline in a ruling that found the pandemic had disadvantaged the recall campaign, the pandemic which recall organizers flatly deny as a legitimate hardship. Governor Newsom, despite his legislative supermajorities and a Democratic Secretary of State, respected these signatures collected in bad faith. He then campaigned across the state, making it clear that he knew he had to earn his votes.
This shows the moral unseriousness of the modern Republican party’s main position, which is a belief that Democratic rule is a tyranny and illegitimate. They can only get the votes they need by accepting the aid of the government during trying times. Their entire platform during the recall was that California is owned by a villainous Democratic Party that would use the pandemic to usurp power. It was only because of the olive branch extended to the recall organizers by the Californian government that they got a shot at the ballot. It’s one thing to cry wolf; it’s another when the wolf comes around and turns out to be an excellent shepherd.
Governor Newsom is a Good Politician
We called upon Newsom to govern, and I’m invested in the outcome of this recall in part because I think Newsom did govern, governed well, and that we should reward his governance. Me and my progressive ilk talk a lot about how we want politicians to give us the goods, that we are tired of the Manchins and Bidens moderating away the change that we desire.
Newsom, in contrast, has made the lives of me and my friends, his constituents, materially better. He cut my many unemployed friends generous stimulus checks, checks I saw them receive and cash. The unemployment system in California likewise kept my friends afloat.
His leadership under the coronavirus, while not unimpeachable, laps most government officials. In 2020, the federal government under Trump absented itself, leaving the hardest jobs in American politics to the four governors of our four biggest states. One lied about coronavirus numbers, paraded himself on cable news, and groped women. Two others, DeSantis and Abbott, committed themselves to impeding mask mandates and stoking anti-vaccination sentiment.
Or, to put it bluntly, Newsom oversaw one of the world’s largest democracies, one of world’s largest economies, and did better than most anyone else in a similar position. Modi, DeSantis, Abbott, Cuomo, Boris Johnson, Bolsonaro, Trump: this is the cohort we must compare his performance to, and there is no comparison. Yes, there is Vietnam and Japan, both with larger populaces and with fewer body bags, but these were countries with the benefit of central banks and closed borders, and without the vocal anti-mask phalanx that exists in America. They are comparable, but in many key ways they are not. Newsom had a tough job and did well. It would be tough to convince me otherwise, and I think a sober accounting of his record would yield similar conclusions.
I am not some blind worshiper of Newsom’s: he kept mum about proposition 22 because Uber is a major donor. And his time at the French Laundry showed a major error in leadership.
Yet, when I see the dead of New York and Texas, I don’t give a shit about the French Laundry. If this was his great sin and lapse in judgment, then whatever. He’s atoned for it by sticking it to the virus, guiding the economic recovery, and cutting his constituents checks. As far as an apology goes, I think a couple hundred dollars per capita is sufficient penance.
And he’s effective: when his seat was on the line, he cut those checks and he kept that eviction moratorium, a position quite unpopular among California’s richest. He has also framed this election correctly, in a way that I hope Democrats emulate in 2022: he has said that if he is recalled people will die. He has made this argument cogently and convincingly.
Yes, yes, I would like him to do more, to fight harder, and I’m under no delusion that he is some progressive stalwart whose heart is in the Communist Manifesto and David Graebber books. But Newsom takes seriously that he has a constituency that he is morally bound to protect. He’s someone who has done his duty as a politician. So, let’s elect him.
I truly Hate Larry Elder
Damn, that guy needs to go choke on a turd. It was his candidacy that spurred me to be a tad bit bitchy with my friends when asking them if they were going to vote. Because, it just would feel right, a few weeks before my birthday, to have the state of California say “Fuck off Larry Elder.” Things could certainly still go awry, and we may have that particular clown ascend to the governorship, but I’d appreciate it if this didn’t happen.
One Hundred Percent of my Friends Voted
And, with the exception of one who is going to her local polling place this afternoon, all voted early and easily by mail. All checked that their ballot was counted when I asked them. This is no independent survey, but the young people that I know, at least, aren’t going to have the Republican Party take away our state. I appreciate that.
Recalls are Good; California’s Two-Round Voting Less So
I will end as I began with the words of someone else: this overview of different recall laws in the United States shows that while it is important to be able to unelect governors, California certainly has an odd way of doing it. No other state would allow a candidate with 20% of the vote to win office, a likely outcome should Newsom be recalled. Other states allow for run-offs, or for the governor to run against someone. It seems unfair that a governor must run against someone when elected to a full term, but then must run against their own record in isolation when recalled.
Someone is going to be governor, and sadly former-Governor Davis is wrong: it is not actually possible to unelect someone. It is only possible to elect. And I hope California elects Newsom.