Recall effort singles out novice legislator
FULLERTON — Sitting in an Orange County cafe a few blocks from his home, state Sen. Josh Newman appears remarkably calm, often funny, for someone who is likely facing a recall less than a year after being elected.
Then again, little fazes the Democrat. He’s not a career politician. The Yale graduate served in the Army and is a veterans advocate and a former tech worker. Perhaps most telling, he’s a guy who dressed up in a bear costume during his campaign and danced around Orange County intersections holding a sign that said, “Newman.”
“I knew I had tapped something when I saw a UPS driver coming down the street waving at me and smiling like he was a little boy,” Newman said.
Hey, when you’ve got no name recognition and less money, and your party is ignoring you during the primary because it thinks you haven’t “waited your turn” to run for a seat, you get creative.
But now Newman has to get creative again. Even though he’s got a great attitude, he is
in a bad political spot that could affect statewide politics.
Republicans want Newman gone not just because he’s a Democrat or because he did anything nefarious or illegal. They want him gone because he voted in favor of SB1, which will raise $52 billion over the next decade to fix California’s infrastructure.
Their objection: The money will come from raising the gas tax 12 cents a gallon starting Nov. 1. Plus, next year vehicle registrations will bump up between $25 and $175, depending on the value of the vehicle.
They also want him gone because of the political version of the gazelle theory, as recall leader and San Diego talk show host Carl DeMaio calls it. Newman won his race by 2,498 votes — less than 1 percent of the ballots cast — so he’s the easiest gazelle to pick off from the pack.
So why should anyone north of the OC care?
If Democrats lose that seat, they lose their twothirds, near-bulletproof majority power in Sacramento, which this year has enabled them to pass bills aimed at easing the housing crisis, declare California a “sanctuary state” and pass that infrastructure bill.
For Republicans, winning back a seat that had been in GOP hands for more than four decades is all about breaking that supermajority.
“The recall is about winning an election so that the Democrats cannot jam another tax on the people of California,” Scott Baugh, an Orange County resident, former GOP Assembly leader and former leader of the county party, told me. “(Republicans) feel betrayed because this was never put on the ballot.”
Just as important, Baugh said, is that winning back the seat would be a rallying cry to California Republicans, who hold no statewide offices and whose party registration is dwindling.
“It provides a pathway to relevancy, like their voice matters,” Baugh said. “If you change a state senator — you’re an impact organization again.”
But this isn’t personal, Baugh told me. “In order for it to be personal about Newman, we would have to know who he is.”
And that’s the problem with this recall — that it’s not about Newman. For Republicans it’s about winning back one seat so they can become slightly less of an afterthought in Sacramento. But the premise of the recall campaign just feeds a deep cynicism about politics that turns off an increasing number of people. Especially Millennials.
The turnout for a recall election is likely to be 15 percent. Twenty percent would be huge. Only the people motivated to turn out — as in, the people who want the supermajority broken — are likely to show up.
The Democratic Party is now fully behind Newman — since he delivered them a surprise victory and the supermajority — to fight the recall, as is Gov. Jerry Brown. They have assured Newman that he will not lack for money in his battle. Recall supporters have gathered more than enough valid signatures for a recall — only 63,593 are needed to trigger it — but that’s not the end of it. Voters still have a few more days to remove their names from the petition if they feel that they were misled into signing it, and the state must certify the recall.
In recent weeks, Democrats have bombarded OC voters with TV and online ads and mailers informing people who signed recall petitions that they have until Oct. 10 to withdraw their names — and potentially prevent it from reaching the ballot.
But here is where Baugh is right — and Republicans have an advantage. With less than a year in office, not many people have gotten a chance to know Newman. I went door to door with some antirecall canvassers in La Habra, a city in his district. The canvassers would patiently explain why Newman was being targeted, what he has done in his short time in office and why recalling a legislator would have a chilling effect on all legislators.
People at the door would nod and smile and agree. But few had heard of Newman.
Despite facing long odds should the recall be approved, Newman refuses to play the cynical game. That’s not his style. It wasn’t when he was asked to vote on the gas tax. Other legislators who were on the fence received promises of new investments and other goodies for their districts as an inducement to cast a yes vote. Why didn’t he?
“That’s why people hate politics,” Newman said. He voted for the tax because he thought it was good policy. He wasn’t in office during the decades that legislators ignored the state’s crumbling roads. He was just around for the opportunity to clean it up. “I can’t think of anything I would have done differently.”
He’s concerned about the recall, comparing it to Brexit or the election of President Trump.
“It’s about ‘How angry are you?’ ” Newman said. “Do you want to break something just to see what happens after you break it? Or do you want to consider that there are a whole bunch of negative consequences to this kind of political strategem?”
If he’s recalled, he said he will find a way to contribute to the public discourse.
“I wasn’t a politician before I did this. It might happen — by no choice of my own — that I won’t be a politician for some time after this,” he said. “But it won’t be the end of the world.
“I’m pretty sure my wife will still love me. Pretty sure,” he said and smiled. “I’m sure my kid will still love me. And I’m really sure my three chihuahuas will still love me. They don’t vote. And they, apparently, don’t read the papers, so I think we’ll be cool.”
“Do you want to break something just to see what happens after you break it?” State Sen. Josh Newman, the focus of a recall campaign