In early 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom was congratulating himself on a staggering budget surplus – $ 28 billion (23.1 billion euros) – when his political rise hit the very unforeseen obstacle of Covid-19 . A year later he faced a campaign of “Recall”, the procedure by which citizens can vote to dismiss an elected official before the end of his term of office. In California, there is an illustrious precedent: that of the recall of Democratic Governor Gray Davis in 2003, immediately replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The campaign against the governor focuses on his handling of the pandemic. Anti-mask activists accuse him of having abused his authority by deciding on strict confinement in mid-March 2020. The measure had proved effective and the governor had been set up as a model throughout the country. But, as elsewhere, Californians relaxed the pressure, politics got involved and the epidemic started again in the summer, then in December. When Gavin Newsom closed down restaurants and non-essential stores, the rebels defied orders, followed by a few sheriffs who refused to intervene.
The governor is now the subject of about fifty complaints – about the closure of beaches, arms stores, the limitation of ceremonies (an annoyed fiancée sues him for having ruined his marriage) … He is accused to have arrogated the power “Dictatorial” of “Picking the winners and losers of the pandemic”. To have allowed to develop a gigantic fraud – some 10 billion dollars – in the distribution of unemployment benefits. Above all, he had the lightness to go to dinner at the beginning of December at the French Laundry, a restaurant in Napa Valley, three Michelin stars, in defiance of sanitary rules. Opponents of confinement have had a good time accusing him of hypocrisy.
The “Recall Newsom” campaign is supported by the Republican Party and funded by national conservative associations. An Orange County businessman, furious at the closure of churches, single-handedly donated $ 500,000 (412,000 euros). Activists demonstrate in front of shopping centers with signs ” All jobs matter (“All jobs matter”). They must collect 1.5 million signatures before March 17, for the revocation procedure to be submitted to voters.
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