Beginning on June 10, 2020, upset Californians began petitioning to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. The recall was originally started to remove Newsom from office after his efforts to contain the Coronavirus, increased taxes, the high rate of homelessness, rationing water use and restricting parental rights.
Since 1911, there have been over 55 attempts to remove a California Governor from office, only one of which was successful. Since Newsom took office in 2018, there have been five unsuccessful attempts to recall him. Should the petition gather the necessary 1,495,709 signatures by the 17th of March, there will be a vote to recall Governor Newsom. If the petition succeeds and the citizens vote him out, the effort could cost a shocking 81 million dollars of taxpayers money.
Newsom’s case was not helped in November of 2020 when he was seen attending a party at an exclusive restaurant in Napa, despite his own restrictions. Since then, Newsom has made more questionable decisions regarding the restrictions he has imposed.
As of the sixth of February, the petition has only received about 1 million signatures, a long way off the 1.5 million needed to have a new governor voted in.
Should Newsom get recalled, a number of candidates have announced that they will run to take over his position. Travis Allen, John Chiang, John Cox, Delaine Eastin, Amanda Renteria as well as many others, including Gavin Newsom. By April 15, an announcement will be made telling California citizens the outcome of the petition and whether or not they will be able to vote Newsom out in November. Some argue that we will be in a much different situation come November, as Newsom plans to have students back in classrooms and 75% of Californians vaccinated. Once vaccinations become available to the 16-65 age group, Newsom hopes that they will be able to progress much faster maintaining well over 100,000 vaccinations per day.
So far, the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom isn’t looking promising, with nearly a million signatures to collect in just over a month. Newsoms adversary’s will need to step up their game if they want a chance at getting rid of him. Whether or not the recalling is worth the extreme costs is questionable. But if citizens really do want to get rid of Newsom, maybe the sixth time’s the charm.