Tag Archive for: Gavin Newsom recall special election

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

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 Moves Relentlessly Towards Qualifying

With exactly one month left to gather signatures, the effort to force California Governor Newsom to fight for his political life in a special election appears on the verge of success.

Back in June 2020, against the advice of every political expert in the state, a group of volunteers began circulating a recall petition. The chances they would gather 1.5 million verifiable signatures were considered negligible. But they had several advantages previous volunteer efforts lacked.

For starters, the recall committee had access to thousands of volunteers who had already participated in an earlier effort to recall the governor. Before running out of time in February 2020, that recall campaign, while unsuccessful, had gathered over 350,000 signed petitions. That may not have been anywhere close to the number required, but was nonetheless an impressive achievement that required a well coordinated statewide effort.

When the new recall petition was approved for circulation in June, this army of volunteers was not only trained, but reenergized by Newsom’s response to the pandemic. His heavy handed approach, of dubious benefit, was added to a litany of preexisting complaints about his governance.

Another advantage this recall effort had was its skillful use of online resources. Even ten years ago, when smartphones were just beginning to become ubiquitous, these tactics could not have had the same impact. But by June 2020, it was possible to immediately offer virtually any registered voter a downloadable petition along with written and video information on how to print it and fill it out. It was also possible to coordinate volunteer efforts on social media groups, aggregate and map locations to get petitions or turn them in, and publicize rallies and signing events. The campaign did all of these things.

Another break came in mid-summer when Orrin Heatlie’s volunteer committee began working with Anne Dunsmore, a veteran political consultant. Dunsmore, who was involved in the successful Gray Davis recall in 2003, has a reputation for taking on campaigns against the odds. She quickly established momentum with her parallel committee.

Since then the synergy between these committees has put them on the brink of complete success. Using the same firm to process and verify signed petitions, but employing different strategies, Heatlie’s Recall Gavin 2020 committee of volunteers and Dunsmore’s Rescue California committee of professionals are on track to have gathered 1.4 million signed petitions as they enter the second week of February and the final month of collection. Because it is impossible to eliminate every petition that may be improperly completed or otherwise ineligible, the goal of the campaign is to collect 1.8 million signatures in order to be certain that at least 1.5 million will be verified.

How these signed petitions break down by source reveals unprecedented success with not one, but two unconventional means of signature gathering. Typically ballot initiatives must employ paid signature gatherers. In today’s market these paid petition circulation firms can charge as much as $10 per signature, although the price can vary considerably. It isn’t unusual for a campaign to enter into an agreement that starts at a lower price, but as time runs out and – as is often the case – harassment by operatives hired by the opposition becomes more intense, the price shoots up into the $10 per signature range. For powerful special interests like Uber or Lyft, or the California Teachers Association, or various industry groups, paying this much for signed petitions is not a problem. But for a grassroots recall campaign, it is unthinkable.

Instead, to-date the Recall Gavin 2020 volunteers have gathered over 1.1 million signatures. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this achievement. Prior to this, the most productive volunteer signature gathering efforts in history would include the 2014 attempt to force a referendum on AB 1266 (transgender bathrooms), where despite narrowly failing to qualify, about a half-million signatures were gathered by volunteers. To find anything of similar scale before that requires going all the way back to 1978, where estimates of the volunteer share of signatures to qualify the famous Prop. 13 (limiting property taxes) are also around a half-million.

The Recall Gavin 2020 volunteers have collected more than twice as many signatures as the previous records. And they have over 5,000 volunteers working every weekend to collect more.

The other unconventional method to gather signatures is being employed by Dunsmore’s Rescue California committee. Using targeted direct mail, they are sending recall petitions and reply envelopes to millions of Californians. Results so far indicate this is a cost-effective alternative to paid signature gathering. According to Rescue California, they will complete the direct mail objective of mailing 3.5 million households by February 7, and that so far they have received over 270,000 signed recall petitions thru these direct mail efforts. Based on the timing of the mailings, with half of them still to be delivered and a significant proportion of the rest just received, the committee expects to collect additional hundreds of thousands of signed petitions over the next few weeks. According to Dunsmore, these direct mail petitions are validating at an extraordinary rate of 98 percent.

Success catalyzes success. If there was a tipping point in this recall campaign, it would probably be in early November, when two things happened. On November 6 the campaign was granted a 120 day extension to gather signatures, based on their appeal that COVID-19 restrictions hampered the ability for volunteers to circulate petitions. Also around that time, the campaign announced they had gathered over 700,000 signed petitions. With more time, and an already impressive total of signed recall petitions, money and support began to pour in.

Reports just filed with the California Secretary of State, combined with disclosures from committee spokespersons indicate the two committees together have already raised over $3.4 million. Rescue California has raised $2.3 million from over 13,000 contributors, and the Recall Gavin 2020 committee has raised over $900,000 from several thousand donors as well.

Leaving nothing to chance, Rescue California has just added a paid signature gathering effort for the final 4-5 weeks, using funds provided by a group of Silicon Valley donors. For those observers who felt relying merely on volunteers and direct mail was a risky approach, this decision – made possible by the recent surge in donations – further increases the probability of success.

It appears inevitable that a very public trial of Gavin Newsom’s conduct as governor is about to begin. By extension, this recall election will put on trial the entire ruling class and super-majority party Newsom is part of, and the failed policies they have perpetrated on ordinary working Californians. This recall election will also, of course, be an opportunity for new candidates with new ideas to challenge Newsom and everything he represents.

The nation, and the world, will be watching.

This article originally appeared on the website California Globe.

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