When Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) became involved in the Recall Gavin Newsom movement, it wasn’t because he wanted to be a candidate.
“This is certainly not the role I expected to play this year but I have decided to step forward because I think it's what will give the recall movement, the greatest chance of success,” Kiley told the Southern California Record. “I'm doing so as carrying the torch for the movement not just because I woke up one day and decided I wanted to be the governor.”
The lawmaker announced his candidacy this week and said he would do things a lot differently than Gov. Gavin Newsom if elected.
“First and foremost, I'd actually represent the people of California in every decision that I make,” Kiley said. “We have a governor who is driven entirely by the desires of the special interests that put him in office and that has had tragic consequences for our state. We've seen it more than ever over these last 15 months. What we need is a return to the idea of government by and for the people.”
While working as part of the California State Assembly, Kiley has paid the price for being an outspoken critic of Gov. Newsom. As previously reported in the Southern California Record, a bill Kiley proposed that would have banned vaccine passports, AB 327, was scuttled in committee two months ago.
“What’s challenging is that it’s a truncated term because you don't get a full four years with a recall,” he said. “I would act immediately to summon a special session of the legislature, to address issues like reforming our failing public school system or dealing with the crisis of the cost of living here that's driving so many people out of the state among other key challenges.”
The next election is in 2022, and whoever wins would be sworn-in in January 2023.
“I initially ran for the legislature because I saw that our corrupt political class was failing the state and over the last five years in the legislature, I have seen firsthand that it's even worse than I imagined,” Kiley said. “I've tried to fight in every way I can.”
When Kiley was first elected Assemblyman in 2015, he wrote a resolution that protected freedom of speech on college campuses. It passed the Legislature unanimously. Prior to being elected, Kiley worked as a high school teacher and a prosecutor.
“I now have a very clear understanding of how our political system is broken and the sort of changes to our political institutions and political culture that we'll need in order to fix it,” he said.
Other Republican candidates gunning to unseat Gov. Newsom are former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, businessman and attorney John Cox, olympian, reality TV star and transgender woman Caitlyn Jenner, former congressman and businessman Doug Ose, and Army veteran Steve Chavez Lodge whose wife Vicki Gunvalson appears on Real Housewives of Orange County, according to media reports.
But Kiley doesn’t view the candidates as competitors.
“I see us all as being on the same team because unlike an ordinary election where candidates oppose each other, in a recall, we're all working towards the same goal first and foremost, which is to recall the governor by having a successful yes on the first question of the ballot,” he said.
The first question on the recall ballot is whether the voter would like to remove the current governor from office.