Jeff Chiu/AP Photo
Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2018
A version of this piece appears in the Los Angeles Times.
Shocked by recent polling that showed likely voters almost evenly split on the question of whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Democrats are responding by pledging to walk more precincts and air more ads.
Let me gently suggest that those efforts, while necessary, fall well short of sufficient.
So long as the question before voters is solely that of Newsom’s tenure in office, Republicans will have a built-in advantage. Democrats and independents, from the evidence of the polls, are supportive of Newsom but hardly brimming with enthusiasm. Republicans, by contrast, are a Trumpified party stewing in and defined by a hatred of Democrats and progressives, for deeds both real and imagined. Republicans in California also know they cannot win statewide offices in regular elections. Since Arnold Schwarzenegger was re-elected governor in 2006 (after having first been elected in a recall), the Republicans have gone zero for 37 in such contests. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by a nearly two-to-one margin. It’s only in a low-turnout recall that Republicans stand a chance.
As Democrats are not, then, Republicans come to the recall, to cop a line from Yeats, “filled with passionate intensity.”
Against that intensity, how can Newsom prevail? Easy: Focus on what a Republican governor would likely do to the state if Newsom were recalled. On the retro policies such a governor would inflict on this decidedly non-retro state. And on who that governor might be.
Imagine that the state’s senior U.S. Senator, Dianne Feinstein, age 88, either becomes incapacitated or dies during the tenure of a recall-elected Republican governor. Far fetched? Perhaps, but it’s no black swan.
On that last consideration, the same poll that showed the recall had real prospects of passing also showed a clear front-runner among the 30-some-odd candidates who’ve entered the fray: Larry Elder, a radio talk show host in the mode of Rush Limbaugh. Even if disgruntled and disproportionately Republican voters don’t anoint Elder, most of the other candidates also come from Trump country. In today’s Republican Party, no other country exists.
So just what could—and couldn’t—a Trumpian governor do?
Let’s start with what he or she couldn’t. The new post-recall governor surely couldn’t get rightwing legislation through the Legislature, nor even successfully veto many if any bills that the Legislature enacts, as the Democrats hold veto-proof majorities in both houses. The new governor also couldn’t dictate policy or change personnel in any of the offices held by other elected officials, such as the state’s attorney general, lieutenant governor, or treasurer. If any of those statewide elected offices come open due to death or retirement, the governor could appoint a successor, but that successor couldn’t take office unless confirmed by the legislature.
In other matters, however, the governor could do as he or she pleased. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has often noted, personnel is policy, and the governor could discharge any and all executive branch officials and install new ones who aren’t subject to legislative confirmation. By so doing, the governor could bring any state programs he or she doesn’t like to a shuddering halt. That could include mask mandates during the pandemic, or state promotion and provision of COVID vaccinations—policies that all good Trumpians reject. That could also include ordering state departments to slow-walk or shut down programs that the Legislature has enacted, such as expanding Medicaid to the elderly undocumented. A court fight would doubtless ensue, but the program could be put on hold until the courts ruled—and the same fate would likely befall other programs not in accord with the right’s priorities.
The new governor could appoint development zealots to the Coastal Commission and order his Department of Labor to stop investigating wage theft. He or she could deploy the National Guard to the border to stop the flow of immigrants. He could appoint “scientists” who pooh-pooh global climate change to decision-making posts.
And, oh yes—there’s one appointment, more important than any other, that the governor gets to make in which the Legislature has no say whatever: filling a U.S. Senate seat.
When Kamala Harris became vice president and Newsom appointed state Secretary of State Alex Padilla to take her seat in the U.S. Senate, that call was, by law, entirely the governor’s.
Imagine, then, that the state’s senior U.S. Senator, Dianne Feinstein, age 88, either becomes incapacitated or dies during the tenure of a recall-elected Republican governor. Far fetched? Perhaps, but it’s no black swan. According to the Social Security Administration’s actuarial table, an 88-year-old woman has an average life expectancy of 5.6 years, and there’s a 10.4 percent probability that she will die within a year. Feinstein’s odds are probably better than that, but if the state is governed by a Republican over that next year, there’s no way to hedge that bet. That governor would surely replace her with a Republican, thereby turning control of the Senate over to Mitch McConnell and instantly dooming the prospects for any part of President Biden’s and the Democrats’ agendas.
The best the state could hope for if a Republican becomes governor—even if only until the regular election of 2022—is continual constitutional warfare between the governor and the Legislature, much like that between Congress and President Andrew Johnson, who took office following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Congress was determined to bestow civil and voting rights on Black Americans, while Johnson was a hardline racist completely opposed to the more egalitarian policies of both Congress and his predecessor. Congress passed laws forbidding Johnson from removing Lincoln’s cabinet members and came close to removing him from office through the impeachment process, but the federal government did little to protect Blacks until Johnson left office.
A 21st-century version of that conflict is—at best—what awaits Californians if the Newsom recall succeeds. More immediately, so do policies of social scapegoating and minority bashing. So does the grim persistence of COVID-19.
The intensity of the right’s hatred of Newsom and all things Democratic will never be matched by an equivalent intensity of Newsom love. The way to defeat the recall is for Democrats to show what would befall California under a Republican who governs in the spirit of Donald Trump. Only that would gin up an anti-recall intensity among most California voters.
