Today on The BradCast: It takes a lot of chutzpah — and plenty of confidence that corporate media is too cowed to call you out for it — to continue calling your party a “conservative” one, after forcing state taxpayers to waste almost $300 million to run a special Recall Election that ends with almost the exact same results as the last time Republicans tried to defeat the popular Democratic Governor in an election. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]
But, yeah, that’s what happened on Tuesday. With about three quarters of the vote now tabulated in California, Governor Gavin Newsom has clearly crushed the GOP’s attempted Recall Election in California — by a mile. As of now, the vote to keep the Governor in office is ahead by about 28 points, or 64% to 36%. That’s almost the same margin by which President Biden annihilated Donald Trump in the state in 2020, and slightly smaller than Newsom first term victory in 2018. (Though the results may still widen for Newsom before all is said and done with the processing of late Vote-by-Mail ballots and Provisionals over the next few weeks.)
The Governor, who will face a normal reelection contest in just over a year, offered brief remarks after media called the race on Tuesday night. “‘No’ is not the only thing that was expressed tonight,” Newsom told supporters. “I want to focus on what we said ‘yes’ to as a state: We said yes to science, we said yes to vaccines, we said yes to ending this pandemic.”
Along with a laundry list of rights and freedoms that progressive California voters “said yes” to, in contrast to the rightwingers hoping to end public health mandates and more, Newsom also noted the state “said yes to people’s right to vote without fake fraud or voter suppression.”
On Monday, the day before the Recall — before any results were known at all — the GOP’s top candidate, far-right radio talk show host Larry Elder, unveiled a “Stop CA Fraud” website demanding a special session of the state legislature be convened to “investigate and ameliorate the twisted results of this 2021 Recall Election.” That would have been unknown results, at the time, which he disingenuously charged included “improperly formed ballots”; “instances of undocumented ballots”; and “statistical analyses [that] have detected fraud in California resulting in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as governor.” Without such a special session — presumably at an even higher “conservative” cost to taxpayers — Elder’s campaign threatened use of the “ammo-box.”
Hours after most media outlets had called the race for Newsom on Tuesday night — after Fox “News” had quickly pulled down all of their Election Night incoming results numbers in order to pretend there had been no election at all that day — Elder finally conceded and encouraged supporters to be “gracious in defeat”. But, after lying about “fraud” in the election and threatening use of the “ammo-box”, he should receive zero credit for those remarks. He then pledged that, though he “may have lost the battle, we are going to win the war.”
We’re joined today by longtime Editor of The American Prospect, former Editor of L.A. Weekly and frequent Los Angeles Times contributor HAROLD MEYERSON. We discuss whatever lessons may be learned from the Recall for both Democrats and Republicans in the state, as well as across the nation, as we head into next year’s mid-term elections and, as Meyerson writes at The Prospect today, “the California GOP has gone down the same rathole as the rest of the Trumpified horde.”
“They’re saying Larry Elder is now the dominant figure in the California Republican Party,” Meyerson observes, regarding GOP hopes for a rematch against Newsom next year. “If you want your party leader, your standard bearer, your best electoral prospect to come into the next race trailing by four to five million votes — okay! Take it away!”
We also discuss why and how California’s 100-year old, once well-intentioned progressive Recall and Ballot Initiative process needs to be overhauled in the state, where it should have been done by Democrats years ago.
Finally, in a BradCast with way more good news than we are accustomed to these days, more good news on the Senate Democrats’ newly unveiled election reform compromise bill known as the “Freedom to Vote Act”. We summarized the wildly encouraging key points of the new bill, crafted by eight Senate Dems including Joe Manchin, on yesterday’s program. But, we didn’t have the legislative text at the time to report on whether the summary’s promise of “Voter-Verified Paper Ballots,” would truly offer the long-overdue right to a hand-marked paper ballot for all voters across the country, or whether the legislation would offer gaping holes on that point, as the Dems’ otherwise excellent For the People Act — on which the Freedom to Vote Act is based — currently does.
On that point, now that we’ve seen the actual text of the proposed 592-page bill [PDF], we can happily report the good news that the new legislation does, on page 318, appear to promise long-overdue HMPBs for all “at every in-person voting location” in the country! Passage of this bill — if Dems can figure out how to get Manchin’s permission to reform the filibuster to do it — would be the most transformative legislation for American democracy since the Voting Rights Act of 1965…and could, arguably, even out do it!
Let’s get the “Freedom to Vote Act” passed, ASAP!!!
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
|
Just an observation and caution.
In your discussion with Harold Meyerson, you reference Ernest A Canning’s article on reforming Calif’s Gubernatorial Recall where he suggests replacement Governor by Lt Governor. I would suggest that first California amend the State Constitution so that the Gov/LtGov positions be required to be from the same party for obvious power-grabby reasons. Although I hear and read this Calif succession recommendation occasionally, I just thought I’d pass the glitch in this info along. (Too late to comment on Canning’s article so it landed here.)
Cheers & thanks to you and Desi for all your good work and keeping us focused on what’s critical. And your music makes us smile.
Thanks, Fiona. To be honest, I hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that they run on separate tickets. So, good point. Though that reform could also be done at the same time as a state Constitutional referendum to reform the Recall process.
Replacing with the Lt. Gov is just the easiest one to do, which wouldn’t require a bunch of other stuff. There are a number of ways the process could/should be reformed.
Appreciate the thought! (And I’ve passed it on to Ernie, since you referenced his article on this. He may want to jump in here as well.)
Thanks, Brad. Agree, changing both is critical, yielding a same party Gov/LtGov succession.
Re Fiona @1 and Brad @2:
While it is theoretically possible that a Lt. Gov. could be from a different Party as a CA Gov. at some unspecified and distant future date, as it stands now, that’s all but mathematically impossible.
Both the Gov. and Lt. Gov. are elected at the same time in a statewide General Election. The last time a Republican won a General Election in CA for any statewide office (Gov., Lt. Gov., Attorney General, Sec. of State, etc.) was 2006. Republicans account for less than one-in-four registered voters in our Golden State.
In 2018, two Democrats squared off in the General Election for Lt. Gov. because no Republican received enough votes to qualify to run for that office under CA’s top-two primary system.
In order to create a Gov./Lt. Gov. Party “ticket” during a General Election, CA would have to ditch its undemocratic Cajun Primary system and replace it with a semi-closed primary system, which leaves open the ability of No Party Preference voters to weigh in on the Democratic Presidential Primary, just as they do now.
This, however, doesn’t detract from the immediate need to eliminate the GOP’s partisan incentive for abusing the gubernatorial Recall process via auto elevation of the Lt. Gov.
BTW The other reforms I advanced — mandating specific grounds (corruption, malfeasance and crimes or acts (e.g. sexual harassment) involving moral turpitude and eliminating paid signature gathering should be applied to all CA Recalls and not just gubernatorial Recalls.
@4Canning.
All reforms you recommend would ameliorate.
Of concern: What is now may not be in future re party ratios. LtGov Curb(R) served in a mixed exec. admin with Gov Jerry Brown(D,); i.e., it has happened, it could happen again.
It’s problematic in terms of succession and in terms of appointment powers the LtGov office holds–again for the future. Setting up the mechanics so it works now and in future, in calm and in adversity would be acting responsibly as I see it.
Appreciate your taking time to explain your reasoning and insight. Thanks!
Ernie @4 said:
Not in the least. It could have happened this week, had Newsom lost on Question 1. It also happened when Arnold took Gray Davis’ seat.
And, of course, Fiona is right that “What is now may not be in future re party ratios.”
Remember, you’re talking about correcting a situation created by a Republican (and a progressive one at that!) more than 100 years ago! It takes quite some confidence — and lack of imagination — for you to know what CA politics are going to look like at anytime over the next 100 years! 🙂
Not at all. It could be run like a Presidential election. A Gubernatorial candidate wins the primary and names his/her running mate.