Recalling Democracy

Newsom recall effort: it’s something we’ve seen before

Gavin Newsom was barely two months in office when the first effort to recall him was launched. The current effort isn’t all that different: He stands accused of being a Democrat. But democracy itself is really what’s under attack.

Democracy is under attack across the country and around the world. California might seem immune, but it’s not. Its most seemingly democratic features — the initiative and the recall — have been hacked before and are being hacked again in the attempted recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. He stands accused of being a Democrat, according to the text of the recall petition, which makes no mention of the pandemic, because it was filed before the pandemic began.

Internationally, the V-Dem Institute recently reported that “The global decline [in democracy] during the past 10 years is steep and continues in 2020,” with a two-thirds majority of the world population living under autocratic rule.  Most notable is the rise of “electoral autocracies,” where elections continue to be held, but with very little chance of power changing hands. “Electoral autocracy remains the most common regime type,” V-Dem’s report stated.  “The world’s largest democracy turned into an electoral autocracy: India with 1.37 billion citizens.” 

The U.S. is far from being like India on a national level, but the GOP has introduced more than 250 voter suppression bills in 43 states just in the first few months of this year—a wave of activities that indicates a serious state-level threat of moving in that same direction. A new paper, “Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding” analyzes 61 “indicators of democratic performance” from 2000 to 2018 to create a “State Democracy Index.” It tested a range of theories to explain democratic backsliding, and found only minimal evidence for any of them, except for “Republican control of state government, which dramatically reduces states’ democratic performance during this period.” Thus, the current wave of voter suppression laws furthers a broader pattern that was already under way.

In California, Republicans have very little power, so — aside from dreaming of secession, or breaking the state into pieces — what we see instead are largely acts of rebellion, disruption or sabotage meant to make the system more dysfunctional, in hopes of fueling discontent and generating opportunities to gain power. A recall effort with shifting and deceptive rationales fits well within this pattern. What appear to be the most robust expressions of our democracy — the initiative, referendum and recall powers — are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, as Richard J. Ellis argues in Democratic Delusions: The Initiative Process in America.

 “The delusion is that an initiative is an unfiltered pure version of the people’s will and somehow the people speak more clearly or purely through the initiative process than the legislative process,” Ellis told Random Lengths News in 2005, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was engaged in a sweeping multi-pronged initiative campaign aimed at weakening his political enemies — public sector unions and the state legislature. “It ignores who controls the forces surrounding the working of the initiative process,” Ellis said. “In California as in most states, it’s the special interests and the politicians.”

The Newsom recall effort is a case in point. The recall petition text is silent on the pandemic, since it was filed in February 2020, but absent the pandemic it would have surely failed. People signing it may have multiple, often contradictory complaints about the pandemic, but the recall effort’s top funder is someone who faults Newsom for not making the pandemic worse. John Kruger, who donated $500,000, is an Orange County entrepreneur who supports charter schools, and opposes Newsom’s restriction on indoor worship during the pandemic, according to Politico. Such services have been identified as super-spreader events all across the country, and the vast majority of churches have avoided them, out of concern for churchgoers’ health. Using the power of money to gain  majority support for unpopular proposals is the essence of the pseudo-populist hack.

A classic example last cycle was Proposition 22, removing labor protections from app-based workers, under the guise of “freedom” and “opportunity.” The companies who exploit those workers — Uber, Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates — outspent the opposition almost 12-to-1: $188,937,777 to $15,896,808. But they stole every penny of that more than three times over from their own workers: more than 2,500 Uber and Lyft drivers had filed $630 million in back wage claims filed as of April 16 last year. How’s that for  hacking democracy?

That 12-to-1 money advantage won 58% support at the polls, but it included a provision requiring a 7/8ths supermajority for any future legislative fixes — a breathtakingly anti-democratic feature almost never mentioned. Plus, a portion of that money was spent harassing a labor law expert Veena Dubal, who the companies set out to demonize.  “Dubal seems to have become a target in a complex campaign involving social media harassment, take-down articles on conservative websites and actions by at least two public relations firms hired by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates,” CNET reported.

The same kind of well-funded online gutter politics will likely play a major role in the attempted recall of Gavin Newsom, expected to be certified soon. According to CalMatters, it already played a key role in helping California Republicans win back four of seven Congressional seats they lost in 2018, via a network of at least 74 “pink slime” websites masquerading as local news, as described in our Project Censored story last year. And, thanks to California’s highly atypical recall process, Newsom could potentially be replaced by someone getting millions of votes less than him. If a majority votes to recall him, then whoever comes in first to replace him will be elected governor, regardless of how many — or how few —votes they may get.  (This happened in State Senate District 29 in 2018, when 66,197 voters [42%] opposed the recall of Democratic Senator Josh Newman, while Republican Ling Ling Chang won the seat with 50,215 votes [34%].)

Recalling the Past

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” Mark Twain reputedly said. So, it’s worth looking back at Schwarzenegger’s election — as well as his failed initiative campaign (four measures defeated by an average of 15.1%) — to see what light it may cast on what lies ahead. The 2003 recall of Gray Davis was only the second successful gubernatorial recall in American history, but it’s sobering lessons have yet to be learned.

Three major problems revealed with the Davis recall were: 

1. Lack of accountability — all the focus on the incumbent being recalled effectively gives a pass to whoever’s elected in their place; 

2. The attempted hijacking of California politics to push a right-wing corporate agenda; and 

3. The celebrity erosion of political substance.

The combination of the dotcom recession and energy price manipulations by Enron and others plunged California into a severe budget crisis following Davis’s re-election in 2002—made far worse by Republican legislators’ refusal to compromise. The financial situation was dire, but largely due to forces beyond a governor’s control — just as COVID-19 is today.

The recall effort was begun by anti-tax activist Ted Costa, but would not have succeeded without $1.7 million in funding from wealthy GOP Congressman Darrell Issa, who saw the recall election as his way to win higher office. But Schwarzenegger — who was vastly more famous — swooped in and stole the momentum once the signatures were secured. To help cope with the budget shortfall, Davis reinstated a substantial vehicle license fee, using powers written into the law when it was cut. Schwarzenegger made cutting the license fee a key part of his campaign — but without any plan to replace the lost revenue, much less deal with the larger budget problems, which he never did.  

The 2016 election of Donald Trump has weirdly resulted in Schwarzenegger’s recasting as a sensible Republican representing fiscal and moral sobriety lost, but that’s a lie. He a forerunner to Trump, not an opposite, with his bullying, strong-man approach to politics, his faux populism, reliance on celebrity, lack of political knowledge or experience, and open — but trivialized misogyny.

Using his celebrity and taking advantage of the very short campaign period (76 days vs. at least a year in a regular election) Schwarzenegger was largely able to avoid serious scrutiny… until the last week of the campaign, when the Los Angeles Times published a detailed report on eight different women’s accusations, with two follow-up stories adding seven more.

The Times had tried to be responsible following one model — to investigate exhaustively before going public with an explosive, damaging story, rather than reporting salacious bits and pieces — but in those pre-#MeToo days, it was easily dismissed as the opposite by Schwarzenegger and his defenders — as an irresponsible last-minute hit job.  It was yet another example of how Schwarzenegger anticipated Trump.  

In a follow up, author Susan Faludi noted that “Schwarzenegger and Clinton emerged with mirror-opposite gender gaps” when tarred with sexual-harassment allegations. The reason was simple: Clinton, “may have been the aggressor, but as a seducer he really meant to seduce, thus exposing an almost feminine sort of desire and vulnerability. For this, he was humiliated.” Men disdained him, but women empathized. “He was essentially shamed like a fallen woman,” Faludi wrote.

Schwarzenegger was the exact opposite. “Sex isn’t even the prime object here: The women in the Times story were manhandled, not seduced. There is no warning, no courtship… the hand darts into their underclothes like a bolt from the blue, a preemptive strike.”  In short, the same attitude Trump revealed in his Access Hollywood tape — and the same excuse, too. Faludi noted that a Schwarzenegger spokesman had offered the “locker room humor” excuse for one particularly egregious incident.

He also rallied support from women he’d worked with, as well as his Kennedy clan wife, Maria Shriver, and — as with how to pay for the vehicle license fee — Schwarzenegger also promised to deal with the substance of the charges after the election.

But, of course, he never did. In fact, shortly after he left office seven years later, it came out that he’d cheated on his wife with their housekeeper, fathering children within days of each other by both of them. With the hindsight of the #MeToo movement, Schwarzenegger’s personal pattern is all too obvious, but much of the public was unwilling to see it then.

But his related political pattern —misogyny impacting policy — came through loud and clear. Less than two months after winning election, he was picketed and protested by the California Nurses Association at the annual Governor’s Conference on Women and Families in Long Beach. The reason was his overturning of new staffing ratios set to take effect in January 2004, as required by a 1999 law.

“Pay no attention to those voices over there,” Schwarzenegger said of the protesting CNA nurses. “They are the special interests, and you know what I mean. The special interests don’t like me in Sacramento because I am always kicking their butts.”

“The fact that he would call registered nurses a special interest is just completely insulting and precisely why registered nurses are out here today,” CNA leader Rose Ann DeMoro responded.

That toxic macho swaggering ended in political disaster for Schwarzenegger. The nurses staged massive protests, successfully sued him for breaking the law, and, along with teachers, formed the backbone of popular opposition to a suite of four initiatives Schwarzenegger promoted in a special election attempt to outflank Democratic legislators he refused to work with — yet another Trumpian move). Every step of the way, he played “champion of the people” against “the politicians” and “special interests.” But he financed the campaign by fundraising all across the country at events the nurses dogged with protests. After losing badly, he still managed to get re-elected, but never did restore the state’s financial footing.  That didn’t happen until Jerry Brown was elected to succeed him in 2010, and Democrats made sweeping changes — both through legislation and through initiatives.

Newsom’s Crime: Being A Democrat!

On January 7, 2019, Gavin Newsom was sworn in as California’s 40th governor, having been elected overwhelmingly with 61.9% of the vote. Sixty-seven days later, Erin Cruz (and 69 others) filed a petition for his recall. (Cruz ran for US Senate in 2018, coming in 6th in the open primary with 4% of the vote, less than half of the top Republican.)

It was a busy day for Cruz. She filed to recall seven statewide officials—every executive officer except Superintendent of Public Instruction, which is nominally non-partisan. Cruz filed a subsequent recall petition on August 2, 2019, but only gathered 281,917 valid signatures—far short of the 1,495,709 required. By then Newsom arguably had some record in office, but the recall petition cited “Over a decade of proven mismanagement of-policies, public monies and resources, and of leadership,” making it quite clear that the reason for Newsom’s recall was simply for being a Democrat.  

Others took up the cause after Cruz, but with a similar focus. The petition being tabulated now was filled before the pandemic, and thus makes no mention of it. Its list of grievances begins, “Governor Newsom has implemented laws which are detrimental to the citizens of this state and our way of life. Laws he endorsed favor foreign nationals, in our country illegally, over that of our own citizens”—typical Trumpian lies.  

The petition also falsely accused Democrats of horrible mismanagement: “People in this state suffer the highest taxes in the nation [false!], the highest homelessness rates [false!], and the lowest quality of life [false!] as a result.”  It’s quite different in the real world. California has the fairest tax system in the country, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which tracks and compares state taxes. It does have the highest tax rate for millionaires and billionaires—four times higher than Washington and Texas, for example. But it’s lower for the 60% of residents in the broad middle, and much lower for the 20% on the bottom.  So, what this false claim tries to do is convince average Californians that millionaire tax rates are a populist issue!  

We do have a high level of homelessness, but not the highest, and our quality of life is either above average (#18 according to US News and World Report) or near the top (#5 according to the Boston University School of Public Health ranking of “healthiest states,” including “social determinants of health” across five interrelated domains: healthcare access, food access, resource access, housing and transportation, and economic security.) In short: not a hell-hole. But that’s the lead rationale behind the recall.

Republicans haven’t been alone in trying to abuse the recall. There have been 55 gubernatorial recall attempts, including every governor since Pat Brown in 1960. But there’s a world of difference between a fringe of disgruntled activists and deep-pocket institutional support. That’s what sets the GOP apart, and links the current recall to 2003.

What gave this attempt its legs was Newsom’s foolish violation of his own stay-at-home order at a fancy Napa Valley restaurant in early November. That came around the same time a judge extended the signature-gathering period due to the pandemic. Suddenly, a doomed effort seemed promising, and money started rolling in to support it. 

In mid-November, recall funding had stalled for a month at around half a million, with 749,196 signatures gathered, according to a story in the Daily Caller— roughly half of the 1,495,709 required, even with an unheard-of 100 percent validity rate.  But funding picked up dramatically after that, crossing one million in December, two million in January, and nearing 3 million by mid-March. Signatures did not mount nearly as fast—another indication of how money drives the recall process from above—but they rose enough to make the recall election seem certain weeks before the final tabulation became known.

As with the 2003 recall, what happens next will likely have little relationship to what happened before. Another Schwarzenegger-like figure is unlikely, but with national GOP donors panicked over losing power, massive infusions of outside spending should be expected, but the content of their messaging could literally be almost anything. Just don’t expect it to have any relationship to the truth. It is, after all, Donald Trump’s GOP now. And Trump is wildly unpopular here in California. So whatever they do, they are going to lie their asses off about who and what they are. They simply have no choice.