California Governor Newsom to face recall vote in September

Drive by Republicans to unseat governor of US’s largest state will go to California voters in rare special election.

Supporters of the recall campaign of California Governor Gavin Newsom prepare for the upcoming recall election with a rally and information session in Carlsbad, California, on June 30 [Mike Blake/Reuters]

A Republican-led drive in the United States to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom, a leading Democrat, will go to a special vote on September 14, a state official declared on Thursday after the state’s top election official certified a recall petition.

The race to remove Newsom 2-1/2 years into his four-year term is shaping up to be chaotic, as several high-profile Republicans – including transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner and former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer – have said they will run to replace him.

Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis said in a statement that a special election would be held on September 14 to determine “whether Gavin Newsom, Governor of the State of California, shall be recalled, and if the majority vote on the question is to recall, to elect a successor”.

Recall elections are rare in the US but not uncommon in California’s free-wheeling state political system. Newsom’s handling of lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic sparked a backlash against his leadership, leaving him beleaguered. Defeating Newsom, a telegenic politician who is considered a potential future Democratic candidate for president, has become a cause celebre among US Republicans nationwide.

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Newsom has framed the recall effort as a power grab by Republicans who have little other chance at gaining statewide office in California, where the party represents only a quarter of registered voters.

California Governor Gavin Newsom reacts during the selection of winners of a vaccine lottery contest program at Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles on June 15 [Mario Anzuoni/Reuters]

In California, a recall – a process by which elected officials or judges can be removed from office before the end of their terms – entails a two-part ballot. Voters decide whether they want to remove the sitting governor and then on the same ballot choose a replacement.

If more than 50 percent choose to end Newsom’s term, then the replacement candidate with the most votes to succeed him, even if less than a majority, wins and becomes the new governor.

California law does not limit how many candidates can run in a recall. According to CalMatters, a public interest journalism nonprofit, 55 individuals have already filed a statement of intention to run.

The campaign against Newsom picked up steam amid frustration with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, closed schools and complex panoply of shifting public health rules imposed to confront the pandemic.

“I am ready to lead this recall and begin the California comeback to clean up our streets, cut taxes on the middle class, and reopen our schools,” Faulconer, a moderate who is thought to be a real threat to Newsom among the Republicans, said on Twitter.

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But the governor’s approval ratings have climbed as the state recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly six in 10 likely voters said in a Public Policy Institute of California poll in May that they would vote to keep Newsom in office in a recall.

Newsom, a former lieutenant governor and San Francisco mayor, was elected governor in 2018 with almost 62 percent of the vote. Normally, he would be up for re-election in 2022.

The recall effort against Newsom began in February 2020, led by a group called the California Patriot Coalition that opposed Newsom’s liberal politics.

The only other recall attempt to have qualified for the ballot in California was in 2003, when then-Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat who was just a few months into his second term, was replaced by bodybuilder and Hollywood action-film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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