Gavin Newsom was denied permission to put his Democratic Party affiliation on the ballot voters in the upcoming recall elections. This is an upset for Newsom since the voters will be deciding if they want to remove him or not. The California governor and his campaign team missed a deadline to submit his affiliation to California Secretary of State Shirley in preparation for the elections. The Sacramento County Superior Court Judge brought the sad news to Governor Newsom’s despair.
In its defense, Newsom’s campaign team noted that the delay was not intentional or purposefully done, but it was due to other uncontrollable circumstances. The campaign requested and assigned Weber to tackle the task of allowing the affiliation to appear. But Weber cited that the task needed a court intervention before the judge and governor Newsom filed a lawsuit. His Republican opponents despised his lawsuit and viewed it to challenge the rules that everyone abides by.
His elections attorney Thomas Willis and Weber’s attorney formed the legal team that sought to rectify this wrong. This legal team laid a defense for about an hour arguing at the hearing on Friday. The attorneys tried to show how weightless the case against Newsom was since he only missed just filing on a given deadline, and that should not be held against him. According to them, the voters have a right to know their party preference to make an informed decision in the upcoming elections [Source].
Gavin Newsom is a popular politician in his state who has served in various state-wide offices for over a decade. Before his current position as a governor for California, he was once a lieutenant governor and served as San Francisco’s mayor for six years, so he has earned enough credit in the political arena.
In a court filing, Weber highlighted that the election officials are not yet done with all procedures of gathering information intended to be placed on the ballots. Hence they have enough time and space to include still Newsom’s party preference on the ballot paper among the other parties which seek to snatch the throne from him. On the opposing side was attorney Eric Early. He represented all the recall supporters and encompassed leaders such as Orrin Heatlie, Mike Netter, and the California Patriot Coalition. In laying down his argument before the court, Early contended that the government should abide by the deadline regulation because he signed on it during his tenure in office.
Judge James Arguelles decided while assessing if there were any reasons to overlook the law that required governor Newsom to submit his party affiliation by February 2020 to the state’s top election officials. He clearly stated that the law “unambiguously precludes party information from appearing on a recall ballot where the elected officer fails timely to make the designation.” Thus the governor was now being ruled by a law he assisted in putting in place. One of Newsom’s Republican opponents Caitlyn Jenner, a reality TV and former Olympian, took the lawsuit case into a broader spectrum of the public after announcing she was intervening in the lawsuit at her first news conference.
Jenner welcomed Judge Arguelles’s ruling, and she immediately tweeted “thrilled that the rule of law prevailed.” Jenner also placed much value on her move to join the lawsuit, which she believed is political progress in Sacramento considering how “special interests and political cronies” were being “placed above the people’s good.” Early expressed much joy after the ruling and had this to say about judge Arguelles: “He followed the law, and that’s all we can ask for. No one is above the law, and this ruling makes clear that includes Gavin Newsom”. The governor’s campaign spokesman Nathan Click called this occurrence a “Republican power grab” [Source].
Newsom’s actions are to blame for the recall elections because he went against the covid-19 lockdown orders after attending a party while urging other residents to stay indoors. Historical facts show that he becomes the second governor to be recalled after governor Gray Davis was in 2003.
According to the election officials, the voting process will be carried out on 14 September, but the ballots will be mailed earlier to the voters. The ballot is divided into two parts, with the first part asking the voters if they wish to remove Newsom from office, and if one says ‘yes, then the second part will require that voter to choose a replacement candidate. But the underlying rules state that answers to the second question of a new candidate will only be counted if more than 50% of the voters say ‘yes to the first ballot question [Source].
Governor Newsom’s main threat to the throne comes from former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Caitlyn Jenner, and Republican businessman John Cox. It promises to be an intense election with strong politicians battling it out.
