Although they weren’t successful the first time, a group of patriots who say they are fueled by anger is at it again, trying to collect enough signatures to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom from the highest office in California.
“Gov. Newsom has done everything possible to stop Californians from enjoying a lot of their basic rights,” said Mike Netter who co-founded RecallGavin2020. “There's a lot of things Gavin Newsom has done, which are unconstitutional. He doesn't seem to check the state constitution when making these decisions and seems to care more about cutting a massive deal with China for masks when we have so many Californians out of work.”
The LA Times reported the state paid $1.4 billion to a Chinese company called BYD for a shipment of 150 million N95 masks earlier this year while the unemployment rate hovers at 14.9 percent, according to the Employment Development Department.
“It's also important to recall Gavin for the country too because the state of California makes up 12% of the nation’s population and if California is going into a deficit and we are required to have a balanced budget by law, who do you think is going to make up that gap,” Netter told the Southern California Record. “It's going to have to be the federal government.”
A recall allows for an elected official to be removed from office before their term limit is up by a public vote but first a certain number of signatures must be collected and verified with the Secretary of State much like a ballot initiative.
“There were two previous recalls that just took place in the August to December timeframe for the recall of Gavin Newsom and neither one of them made the cut although with very little organization and publicity, we collected 400,000 signatures," said Netter in an interview. "About 272,000 were verified."
In order to be voted on in March 2021, the Secretary of State requires the RecallGavin2020 group to gather 2 million wet signatures by Nov. 17, 2020. So far, they have about 5 to 6 percent and 80,000 volunteers up and down the state collecting more.
“We are raising money for paid circulators because if it’s worth fighting for, it's worth funding,” Netter said. “To recall Gavin Newsom, it’s probably costing an average of about $1.25 per signature using volunteers, paid circulators and mass mailings or people can download the petition from our website, sign and mail it in.”
If the organization is successful, it wouldn’t be the first time a governor was unseated by public vote.
According to media reports, Gov. Gray Davis was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.
“Gray Davis was recalled because he got involved in deregulating utilities, which caused utility costs to skyrocket, which we're still facing today and we had the highest gas prices in the country and we had the sixth-highest electric costs," said Netter. "Basically, Gray Davis didn't follow the will of the people and this is what Gavin Newsom is doing. He’s not following the will of the people. That's really what the recall is all about.”