With the gubernatorial recall election around the corner, it’s raising questions about how many voters in the deep blue state could be disenchanted by one-party rule, leading to a vote against retaining Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Despite the language the governor elected to use in the voter information guide, and which was the subject of a lawsuit, many Democrats and Independents signed the petition to recall Newsom, and more Democrats have recently indicated they intend to vote for recalling the first-term governor.
Last month former state Senate Democratic Majority Leader Gloria Romero said she would back Republican candidate Larry Elder because of Newsom’s record on schools, and environmental activist and author Michael Shellenberger has taken issue with policy decisions impacting the state’s growing homelessness crisis.
“They both have big platforms, and these are both people who have legitimately been on the progressive movement for a long time,” Lance Christensen, chief operations officer at the California Policy Center, told the Northern California Record. “And there are others who are popping up as well, so I think that the idea that the governor keeps calling this the Republican recall is falling on deaf ears.”
What the Covid impact will be on schools this fall remains an open question; many parents who had been Newsom supporters ultimately signed the recall petition after schools remained closed far longer than other states, due in large part to teacher union conflicts over vaccines.
“The governor has done the bidding of the public sector unions, especially the teachers unions, to not allow education opportunities to happen for most families in California,” Christensen said. “And the recall is one small opportunity for parents to share their voices and to demand that they have better choices for their kids’ educational future.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently decided in favor of private school parents who challenged Newsom’s school closures.
“California’s forced closure of their private schools implicates a right that has long been considered fundamental under the applicable caselaw—the right of parents to control their children’s education and to choose their children’s educational forum,” Justice Daniel P. Collins wrote in the July 23 ruling.