California Recall Has Enough Signatures To Make Ballot

Speaker 1: 00:00 From efforts to recall governor Gavin Newsome to California, losing a congressional seat for the first time in history, there's a lot happening in the golden state's political landscape, which could soon change joining me to make sense of it all is that cows are political science professor at UC San Diego and chair of the political science department. Welcome. Thanks for having me. So now that it has been verified that the recall campaign has met the needed number of signatures, what are the next steps? Well, now we've Speaker 2: 00:30 Hurry up and wait. So secretary of state, Shirley Weber is still working through the process of getting a final count of signatures. After that the people who did sign this petition are going to have the chance if they want to take their names off the petition, but more than a hundred thousand people would have to do that. So that chances are vanishingly slim of that happening. And the state also goes through a process of trying to figure out what it would cost to hold the recall election. After that happens, then we move to a full certification of the recall Lieutenant governor gets to then decide whether the election will be held anytime between 60 and 80 days afterwards. So we're probably looking at an early fall recall of governor Gavin Newsome, or at least in the temp. Speaker 1: 01:14 Hmm. Remind us how we got here. I mean, what fueled this campaign to recall governor Newsome, Speaker 2: 01:19 Even though this re competition was started before the pandemic and was I think the sixth or seventh recall campaign, uh, that was, that had been circulated since Gavin Newsome had taken office. What really fueled it was this really tough winter. The California had where our COVID rates were, some of the highest in the nation. We had terrible, uh, numbers of people in the hospital and, and passing away. And at the same time, Gavin Newsome on the Eve of him sort of shutting down the state because of the, the, the, the COVID metrics. He was caught at the French laundry of fancy, uh, Napa Valley, a restaurant out eating with people. And that really seemed to many people to show that he was out of touch and not handling the state. Now fast forward to today, and we're at a much better place in the pandemic. The economy is reopening. Schools are reopening. Gavin Newsome looks a lot stronger, but who knows exactly where we'll be in the fall. Speaker 1: 02:14 So when voters get a ballot for the recall, what exactly will they be weighing in on Speaker 2: 02:19 Voters are going to face two choices when the recall election starts. So they're going to have those two choices work under different rules. The first choice is about whether or not to throw out Gavin Newsome yes or no. And that's governed by a simple majority, 50% plus one throws him out of office. The next ballot is to replace them. They're going to choose between a wide number of candidates, right? We've already seen a lot of candidates say they're going to hop in last time. In 2003, we had 135 candidates. Whoever gets the most votes, the plurality winner, even if it falls far short of a majority, gets to be the next governor of California. If Gavin Newsome is thrown out Speaker 1: 02:56 And you know, who's vying to Newsome, if the recall is successful. Speaker 2: 03:01 So the leading contenders are all Republicans and that's no accident. We've got John Cox, he's the San Diego Republican who ran against Gavin Newsome in 2018. We've got clearly the front runner in many people's minds as former San Diego mayor, Kevin Faulkner. We also saw Caitlin Jenner generate a lot of attention last week, uh, when she announced her intention to run all of these are Republicans. All of these are folks who have supported Donald Trump, which we'll, we'll make it tough for them to win, but the field is clear because no major Democrat has yet stepped in. And I think that's unlikely to happen. And part of that is because Gavin Newsome and his allies are making sure that everyone, uh, you know, endorses him in the recall fights against the recall. And doesn't hop in to this replacement race and give voters a democratic alternative. Gavin Newson wants to say, Hey, it's me, or, or a Donald Trump Republican. And that I think is his best chance of winning. Speaker 1: 03:54 All right. So polling indicates that the recall election will likely fail, but I'm wondering how likely you think it is that Newsome will actually prevail. Speaker 2: 04:02 Well, I think right now, the recall supports about 40%. I think that was even before California had continued to get better and better and its response to the pandemic. So I think if the election were held today, it would have a very low chance of passing. But if there's one thing we've learned about the last year in politics and in, in an American in the world, it's the things can change really quickly. So if we're at a, a fourth wave of the pandemic, if schools and the economy are shutting down, if we have this all occurring in the midst of a wildfire season, Gavin Newsome is going to have a lot of political obstacles to overcome. Speaker 1: 04:35 I want to switch gears and talk a bit about California losing a seat in the house of representatives due to the recent census count. How did other States fair? I mean, which States were the so-called winners and losers? Speaker 2: 04:47 Yeah. California lost a congressional seat. Although we still have the most in the nation because we grew, but we didn't grow as fast as we normally do. And as fast as some of the Sunbelt States, uh, so Texas gained two seats. Uh, North Carolina believe Florida also gained a seat Colorado. So California's growth rate was just about, add on a little bit below the national average, uh, and in the States where, or many Californians are moving to, but also that are just seeing growth B for, for a wide variety of reasons. Those are the places that as the map drawers draw, another round of redistricting, that's where those new congressional seats and the electoral college votes are going to go. Speaker 1: 05:27 And with California losing a seat and Texas and Florida gaining a seat, what do you think the impact Speaker 2: 05:32 That will be well, this could make an impact if the congressional margins are razor thin as they are right now in the next election. So, so with both parties fighting it out for control of the house, the party, the gain seats, and, and w what we saw as is some red States, uh, gaining seats, and most importantly, States where those new congressional lines will be drawn by Republicans governing the state house. Those areas gained seats, California. We've got an independent commission, uh, designing the plans. They're less likely to be gerrymandered in any way, but Democrats will be losing. And so Nancy Pelosi is not happy to see this trend. And talk to me more about gerrymandering. Well, gerrymandering is that is any intentional drawing of district lines, congressional, or state legislative, even city council in a way that helps some group and hurts and other right. Speaker 2: 06:19 Just about anytime you draw lines, they're going to, they're going to favor some group and, and hurt another, right. There's no completely neutral way to do redistricting what California has done. And we've seen this at San Diego in the city and County level, and we've seen this in the state through, through a ballot proposition. It created a citizens or district redistricting commission is saying, Hey, let's take the process out of the hands of politicians, put it in the hands of experts or in a statewide case, normal folks. So that those draw loads lines, even if they're not completely neutral. So that they're ones where everyone has a voice in how the lines will be drawn. And they're drawn in the fairest possible way. Speaker 1: 06:54 I think that the census question, um, was an attempt to, to get an under count so that gerrymandering would be easy. Speaker 2: 07:02 Well, there are a few things going on there. So there was a proposed census question about citizenship that the Trump administration wanted to put in for that for the first time, uh, in, in recent years, in recent decades in the census. And that was seen widely as a way to discourage people from answering the census, for me even opening the door, right, the census supposed to count everyone, whether or not they're here as a citizen, and that was thrown out by the courts, right? So we didn't have that census citizenship question, but there all remain a lot of questions and probably there will be lawsuits, uh, that will contest how the census was done during a pandemic, a really tough time and, and done by an administration that has not been notably friendly to immigrants. And so I think there's a lot of contention over really which States are getting the seats and whether, whether some States had their, their population under counted, that will be overseen by, uh, an independent audit by the American statistical association and potentially in the courts. Speaker 1: 08:00 This holds, how will it be determined, which seat California loses, Speaker 2: 08:04 Right? No individual legislator loses their seat and jets get thrown out of office, but everyone kind of potentially dies a death by a thousand cuts of all the little changes to all the districts that will be made by this independent citizens commission. That was, you know, th th uh, we'll be holding meetings starting September 30th, when they get the, the really micro level census data that they need to redraw maps, uh, holding public meetings across the state. I think there'll be virtual, but they could be in person by them and coming up with plans by February, all of those lines will change. And so all of the city members of Congress will need to fight hard to keep their seats, which is sort of how democracy Speaker 1: 08:42 I've been speaking with that. Cows are political science professor at UC San Diego and chair of the political science department. Professor cows are thank you so much for joining us. Speaker 2: 08:51 Thanks so much for having me.