The Newsom Swamp Rises
California’s scandal-plagued Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, has waded into our lawsuit with an Amicus Brief for Newsom. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact he’s currently begging for an appointment as U.S. Senator.
This was one of 12 briefs filed with the Court of Appeals, an equal number for us and Newsom. Also doing the Governor’s bidding is a so-called “association of counties,” which in fact is a Sacramento-based lobbying outfit. Real counties are banding together against Newsom’s failed COVID policies, with Lassen just becoming the latest to pass our Healthy Communities Resolution.
As to Padilla, if does get the Senate appointment (which prediction markets say is a 76 percent likelihood), it’ll be the sort of irony you only see through the looking-glass of California politics: our state’s top elections official would become a Senator without an election, fully complicit in Newsom’s evasion of the U.S. Constitution.
Newsom would then get to choose not just the Senator, but Padilla’s successor as Secretary of State and Xavier Becerra’s replacement as Attorney General. Perhaps the only trio conceivably worse than Padilla, Becerra, and Kamala Harris would be a triumvirate of lackeys installed directly by Newsom. This all serves to underline a basic reality of 2020: while it’s been a nightmare for millions of Californians, it’s been just fine for political insiders and special interests.
With respect to the latter, Newsom’s latest Jabberwocky is a press release announcing the appointment of a “Chief Ethics Advisor” to monitor his own corrupt relationship with lobbyists. This followed a revelation that the lobbyist who Newsom feted at the French Laundry used his influence to get Hollywood an exemption from his lockdowns. Yet the SF Chronicle has already uncovered that the new “ethics” policy won’t apply to that lobbyist.
Meanwhile, the state’s biggest Special Interest, the California Teachers Association, has launched a statewide disinformation campaign with the goal of closing all schools. Even Dr. Fauci says schools should be open at this point – but then again, he hasn’t given Gavin Newsom millions of dollars. One thing we can be certain Newsom won’t do is adopt my policy of refusing all contributions from any entity with a lobbyist.
This singular filthiness of the Newsom Swamp is why we’re seeing a citizens’ revolt, with the Recall becoming a stronger possibility each day. Quite a few politicians, like myself, are supporting the Recall. But this began as a citizen-led movement and it will succeed as a citizen-led movement.
There’s an old expression, “politics is the long and slow boring of hard boards.” Usually change is slow, incremental, a grind. But every so often, the status quo is so intolerable that there’s sharp break. Politics becomes too important to be left to politicians, and the public at large – We the People – demand transcendent action. In moments like this, the forces of day-to-day governance are shaken, scrambled, realigned, and suddenly everything is up for grabs. Extraordinary change can happen in the blink of an eye.
This Recall can be such a transformational moment. The future of our magnificent but beleaguered state hangs in the balance.
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