Can a politician be too accomplished?
The question isn’t a riddle. It’s the real conundrum facing California as Gavin Newsom departs the governorship.
When Newsom was a kid performing magic shows, he introduced himself as “The Great Gavini.” In eight years as governor, the Great Gavini has conjured such a long list of new policies that the human mind can’t quite process it all.
That’s one reason Californians have yet to reckon with administration’s historic progress. Another is that his governorship has spanned difficult times, and almost every Californian has some beef with him. (I’ll never forgive him for failing to reopen the schools when COVID vaccines became available.) Plus his personality can be grating, so why give this political devil
his considerable due?
Your columnist is among those who have resisted delving into the Newsom record. In my defense, between multiple jobs and family responsibilities, it’s hard to make time to appreciate a in progressive governance. After years of hearing our governor rattle off accomplishments as if he were a restaurant maitre’d …. Tonight, we have a pan-seared reduction of single-family zoning, served over a bed of Medi-Cal expansion and paired with two free years of community college … I can’t listen to him without taking Advil first.
But we Californians should not allow our collective cognitive overload to erase a record upon which we can profitably build. When you force yourself to examine the administration’s achievements (see Newsom’s own list, “Priorities & Progress”), it reads less like one governor’s record and more like a generation’s accumulated output.
On education, Newsom engineered the broadest restructuring in 100 years, created a new grade of school (universal transitional kindergarten), implemented universal free school meals, and launched college savings accounts for low-income children.
On health, he orchestrated a massive expansion of the social safety net, granted full Medi-Cal coverage to all income-eligible undocumented residents, and started CARE Court. On corrections, he became the first governor to close a prison in a generation — and thenclosed four more.
On climate, he mandated that all new cars sold in California be zero-emission by 2035 and renewed the state’s cap-and-trade market through 2045. On housing, Newsom broke the back of single-family zoning (SB 9) and backed lawsuits against cities for failing to build.
I haven’t even touched on his manufacturing of state-branded insulin (CalRx) to bypass pharmaceutical price-gouging. Or gun safety legislation modeled, with clever vindictiveness, on Texas’s abortion ban. Or codifying abortion access in the state constitution. Or minimum wage increases for fast-food and healthcare workers. Or expanding CAL FIRE’s civilian aerial firefighting fleet, the world’s largest. Or creating the first digital platform for deliberative democracy in an U.S. state. Or his righteous fights against Trump administrations.
To find anything close in scale to Newsom’s record, you have to look at two Austrians: the relentlessly risk-taking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. And the 18th century Habsburg Emperor Joseph II, who issued 6,000 edicts and 11,000 new laws in 10 years of rule — including abolishing serfdom and instituting universal education and religious tolerance. Indeed, Joseph II’s laws overwhelmed his people and produced bitter resistance. To avoid rebellion, he rolled back most reforms on his deathbed.
It's possible that many Newsom’s accomplishments could be reversed under a new governor.
To prevent that, let’s get serious about evaluating Newsom, instead of giving him a letter grade, as media and gubernatorial candidates have done. Assigning a single letter to his dense record is like summarizing an encyclopedia with an emoji.
Which is why I feel sorry for his likely successor, Xavier Becerra, whose small team of advisors lacks the agility to run with all Newsom’s batons. Becerra should beg Newsom’s best staffers to stay on and help him figure out what should be kept, and what should be dropped.
The Great Gavini has filled the California with many spinning plates. We must not let them drop just because we understand his tricks.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Is Gavin Newsom too accomplished? | Mathews
