Joe Guzzardi: Momentum to Recall Governor Gavin Newsom Positive factors Steam – and Signatures | Opinions

The attempt to recall Governor Gavin Newsom has attracted petition signature booths across California, including the parking lot near Costco on the Camino Real Marketplace in Goleta. (Noozhawk photo)

Facebook has two pages that, unsurprisingly, have a large number of new followers: “Leaving California” and “Life after California”.

These pages caught my attention because, as a native Californian who left the state and discovered life in California, I was curious about what Facebook members saw as the final straw in their decision to move.

And I can’t decide if it’s harder to leave California with disappointed transplants happening out of state or natives remembering California in its former glory – the pristine grandeur that millions of Midwestern and East Coast residents have moved to the Golden State.

The further behind the Californians in their life experiences, the more difficult it becomes to watch the accelerated decline of the state.

And I go a very long way back to when Republicans Richard Nixon and Pete Wilson served as US Senators in California. Years later, Republican Conservative Ronald Reagan became governor of California, and Wilson was eventually elected governor as well.

San Francisco and Los Angeles have the dubious distinction of being the twin symbols of California’s decline.

The former has gone from being a cherished place to live to an urban hellhole so quickly that even the New York Times recorded its collapse. Calling the migration from the Bay Area “real,” an understatement, the Times said that residential rents in San Francisco were 27 percent lower than last year and office vacancy rates rose to 16.7 percent, a high that has not been seen since the mortgage collapse in 2008.

In Los Angeles County, the most densely populated country of 10 million people, rented households are the majority and the most expensive in the country. With tenants in the Los Angeles area paying about 45 percent of their income for rent, it has become increasingly difficult to achieve the California bourgeois lifestyle.

When I watch California from my new home in Pennsylvania, I can barely understand what is happening in the west. The problems that drove California into the abyss are all too well known: overcrowding, taxes, homelessness, crime, protected-area status, and the high cost of living.

California’s steady decline has led to the recall of the sixth Citizens against Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a company that has gained momentum since the infamous French laundry scandal.

And since that fateful evening, when a maskless Newsom dined with other maskless elite friends and lobbyists, he has issued strict stay-at-home orders, increasing the anger of frustrated Californians.

For many good reasons, Californians are understandably angry and want Newsom to be called back. With a deadline of mid-March, 1 million of the approximately 1.5 million required signatures that would qualify the recall for the vote had been collected.

However, looking back at the recall history offers a cautionary note: be careful what you want

Many Californians unilaterally blame the Democrats, who have a stronghold in the state’s political offices, for the steep decline of California.

But in 2003 the then Democratic Governor Gray Davis was recalled and the action hero, movie star and nominal Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger took over. Hopes were high that the nationally popular Schwarzenegger, an immigrant turned US citizen and governor, could use his popularity both within the state and in Washington, DC, to help California effectively with its growing illegal Dealing with immigrant population.

In 1994, 59 percent of California voters approved Proposition 187, which would have banned unlawful foreigners from receiving public services other than emergency medical care.

However, a consortium made up of Davis, the Mexican-American Legal Protection and Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, and various judges tried to overturn the election results. The impartial Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated Prop. 187 would have saved the state about $ 200 million annually.

Schwarzenegger could not have restored Prop. 187, and any attempt to do so would have been folly. But he could have tried, on the basis of his personal immigration history, to create new but reasonable immigration restrictions, which Californians, including Schwarzenegger, had voted for by an overwhelming majority. Instead, Schwarzenegger advocated more liberal visa regulations, including granting work permits to illegal immigrants.

In terms of illegal immigration, Schwarzenegger ended up being no different from Davis. He has done nothing to curb illegal immigration or to slow the state’s unsustainable population growth. When he became governor of California, the state had 35.3 million residents. today there are 39.4 million.

Newsom deserves a call back. But replacing it will not automatically be a panacea. Californians must find a worthy replacement who can hold the entrenched establishment off and work to save the state, a great and potentially insurmountable challenge.

One name being talked about is Republican and former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, a presenter who signed the Newsom recall petition. Should he prevail, Faulconer will need a will of steel to reverse the downward trend that ruined California.

Good luck to him or whoever can replace the failed Newsom.

– Joe Guzzardi is an analyst and researcher at Progressives for Immigration Reform, now based in Pittsburgh. He can be reached at [email protected]or follow him on Twitter: @ joeguzzardi19. Click here to read the previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.