The recall: when democracy attacks
Nonprofit’s work pays off in houses for young people in Oakland, Berkeley
Befitting its position at the edge of a civilization, California has a habit of taking things too far — especially good things, like exercise, environmental regulations and IPAs. The headlong momentum toward a gubernatorial recall election, which could force Californians to render a verdict on the same politician as many as three times in four years, is an example of another great idea the state is doing to death: democracy.
Granted, this may not be the best time to besmirch an election or stick up for Gov. Gavin Newsom. This is a fraught moment at which American democracy is ceasing to be a matter of bipartisan consensus, so we might as well hail a case of oldfashioned Republican enthusiasm for voting. And the governor has earned his critics through uneven handling of the pandemic, neglect of the housing crisis that led his prepandemic agenda, inability to right wayward bureaucracies such as the state unemployment agency, and insistence on using words like “intentionality.”
Other than the last, however, these are complicated problems for which Newsom’s responsibility, albeit substantial, is partial. None of it amounts to the sort of buckstopsthere debacle that justifies the rare and radical remedy of a de-election — a prospect previously faced by only three other governors in the entirety of American history.
Newsom should be judged on all these issues, perhaps harshly, in the general election taking place just a year or so from the date of any recall. But it’s difficult to imagine that the last year of the governor’s term would be just what any of the people angling to replace him needs to make a dent in any of these challenges — especially when one of those people is John Cox, the Midwestern carpetbagger politically murdered by the governor two short years ago.
And yet the recall marches on. That’s partly thanks to the undeniable populist appeal of taking the finedining, syllable-proliferating governor down a notch. It’s also because the recall is the next available repository for a vast pool of rightwing money with nowhere else to go — political finance’s answer to cryptocurrency.
The Newsom recall is only one nationalattentiongrabbing symptom of a systemic malaise. Last fall alone, California voters were forced to sort through no fewer than a dozen state ballot questions. Half of them were rehashes or revisions of previous ballot measures, and two were unreconstituted reruns of propositions rejected by voters just two years earlier.
That doesn’t include the teeming local measures. San Francisco voters faced another dozen questions about how to run the city in the same election. Voters around the Bay Area considered over 60 different local tax measures at the same time, while three times that many went to voters in counties and cities across the state. The sheer volume of this microdemocracy threatens to reduce state legislators and county supervisors to glorified administrators of a dreaded semiannual pop quiz of the electorate.
Then there are all the officials we bother electing to handle ministerial minutiae. Bay Area voters elect people to run regional commuter trains and East Bay buses — and they’re not even the same people. It’s no wonder the political talent pool is all dried up once we get down to the likes of the San Francisco school board.
Even when we’re filling major offices, Californians have a habit of cheapening elections by hardly testing the seriousness of the multitudes of causes and candidates that overpopulate every ballot. In 2018, Newsom and Cox were joined by 25 other candidates in the primary election.
Gubernatorial recall attempts have become routine here because they’re easier here than in any other state. The effort that reported collecting the needed 1.5 million signatures this week is the sixth against Newsom alone. Compared with the nation’s last approved gubernatorial recall election, which Wisconsin’s Scott Walker survived in 2012, the organizers of the Newsom recall will have nearly five times as long to gather half as many signatures as a proportion of the electorate. Running to replace a recalled governor, as 135 candidates did when Gray Davis was recalled in 2003, is easier still.
California’s hyperdemocratization reflects good principles and bad practice. No one in his right mind is eager to express misgivings about our increasingly endangered power to rule ourselves, but exercising democracy carelessly does it no favors.
Sean WilliamsMcCreary, 20, gazed at the rows of brightly colored tiny homes on a onceempty lot near Oakland’s Coliseum, elated that the nearly fouryear project was ready for its first residents.
WilliamsMcCreary worked on the project at 633 Hegenberger Road as part of his involvement with Youth Spirit Artworks, an art and jobs training program in Berkeley. He wanted to create a place where homeless young people felt safe and supported, and on Friday, he was one of 15 people who moved into the homes. The village eventually will house 26 young people from Oakland and Berkeley ages 18 to 23.
Youth Spirit Artworks started work on the village in 2016 with the help of more than 100 young people enrolled in its programs, 32 religious groups and 2,000 other volunteers.
As Oakland and Berkeley struggle with steep increases in their homeless populations — up nearly 47% from 2017 to 2019 in Oakland and 11% during the same time period in Berkeley — nonprofit providers are intervening with innovative and lowercost solutions to meet the demand. Meanwhile, the cities are working on their own projects. Oakland recently purchased a dormitory for nearly $15 million for homeless families and Berkeley has been in talks to open a citysanctioned encamp
ment.
WilliamsMcCreary joined Youth Spirit Artworks when he was 16 after spending nearly five years couch surfing with his mother and brother. No longer homeless, he will now work as a residents’ assistant at the site.
“I’ve come almost every Saturday and labored my blood and my sweat into this project,” he said. “It’s a full circle. I was housing insecure and now I’m helping folks that are housing insecure. It’s so surreal.”
Youth Spirit Artworks raised nearly $1.3 million to build the homes from scratch and operate the site. Each one cost $12,500 to build. Oakland leased a 2acre cityowned property to the nonprofit for free.
The 8footby10foot homes have electricity and heated floors. Each has a bed that can fold into the wall and become a desk. WilliamsSonoma donated rugs and sheets. And artists painted murals on the tiny homes.
“Each house has its own quilt that matches the paint, matches the curtain (and) all goes together,” said Sally Hindman, executive director of Youth Spirit Artworks and a Quaker. “Every house has just been given incredible care and love.”
The property also has gardens and two yurts — one that is a communal kitchen and another that is a living room. Bathrooms and showers are also onsite. The city of Berkeley is providing case management to residents.
Ernesto Sandobal, 22, was kicked out of his house at 18 and has lived on the streets since.
When he heard of the Youth Spirit Artworks program, he immediately applied. He said the organization said it would help him get into film school. Sandobal said he wants to work on Marvel movies in the future.
On Friday, Sandobal sat on a couch in the living room yurt waiting to move into one of the tiny homes that day. He said he had his heart set on the home with baby blue walls and pink curtains.
“Blessed, I feel blessed, I really do,” he said with a smile.