Total recall: Governor Gavin Newsom

California Governor Gavin Newsom finally spoke out against the campaign to force him into a recall election. His statement that the campaign is a partisan effort came just two days before the deadline to submit the 1.5 million signatures required to trigger a recall bid. The timing suggests that although Governor Newsom rather ignore the campaign that has been building for months, he believes the RecallGavin2020 Committee statement released last week that it already had more than 2 million signatures. Since the Governor cannot ignore the recall election any longer, his message is that the movement is an illegitimate effort by Republicans, and not actually a denunciation of his leadership by the electorate at large.

On the other hand, a recent article by Hailey Branson-Potts of the Los Angeles Times posits that the recall bid might be backlash from disgruntled residents in rural Northern California. The thrust of the article suggests that the Governor's decision to enact statewide shutdowns to combat the spread of COVID-19 is motivating Northern California conservatives to challenge his seat.

However, the sources cited in the article suggest that the movement is more of a mixed bag: the Chairman of the RecallGavin2020 Committee, Orrin Heatlie, hails from Yolo County; a poll from UC Berkeley shows that support for the recall breaks along party lines; the mask mandate was objectionable but also went unenforced in Northern California; some Trump supporters see the recall as a second chance at beating a Democrat; finally, the French Laundry scandal supplied enough ammo to tip many ambivalent voters in favor of the recall.

These grievances track with my observations of life in Redding under quarantine from May-July 2020. Cases in Shasta County never surged like they did in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. That makes sense considering the area is remote, it is not a major tourist destination for foreigners, and it is not as densely populated as other hard-hit cities. Nevertheless, places that could host large public gatherings were closed. Although most people wore masks in most stores, some shoppers and shop-owners were a little more lax about the rules. On the road, there were trucks with writing on the windows calling COVID-19 a "hoax." 

Due to social-distancing, I only had the opportunity to speak with the workers and owners of businesses I frequented. The owner of a "steakburger" establishment told me during lunch that the first statewide shutdown cost him $30,000. That was money he and his wife had saved for retirement, but the costs of business without any income and retrofitting the restaurant to make it safe meant they had to empty their savings. 

He did not wear a mask, and he liked to chat up his customers. That aspect of his business seemed almost as vital as serving food. He made it clear that he was not an anti-government radical as he would follow any safety precaution that was mandated, but the costs associated with those measures already buried him a few weeks into the shutdown.

The lack of proportionality in response to the pandemic supported the sentiment that Northern California is neglected by the government. It is impossible to say that the shutdown was not the cause for keeping their cases down. However, since no serious outbreak occurred, the prolonged shutdown became perceived as increasingly unnecessary and an overreach of government attempting to stop the spread in distant cities.

In the LA Times article, that belief is voiced from an unlikely source, a liberal 18 year-old named Ceiba Cummings. She wrote a letter to the Governor explaining that rural regions have been treated unfairly during the pandemic. In Siskiyou County, where Ms. Cummings lives, there have been less than 2,000 cases and only 14 deaths from COVID-19 over the last year. Still, her senior year of high school has been upended by hybrid learning. Furthermore, she sees local shops struggling, while major chains remain unchanged. 

These circumstances leave little wonder as to why pictures of Governor Newsom dining at French Laundry caused an uproar. On March 17, we will know whether the recall will happen. I am unfamiliar with how the Secretary of State reviews and reports signatures, but I am more interested in learning if the signatures show a schism between the North and the South, too.