Playing politics with the state’s business

Even as wildfires scorch Northern California communities and forests, California Democratic lawmakers have decided to postpone until after the September 14 recall election an oversight hearing into Gov. Gavin Newsom’s fire-prevention progress.

The timing is conspicuous, as a hearing promises to generate negative press for Newsom.

Newsom had travelled the state for quite some time patting himself on the back for treating 90,000 acres of forestland with fire-prevention methods, only to have the true acreage be revealed as somewhere around 12,000 acres. Hardly a typo.

When Capital Public Radio broke news of the exaggeration, Newsom administration officials scrambled to wipe the internet clean of documents highlighting the falsehood. All of this happened as the Dixie Fire was on its way to becoming the second largest fire in state history.

Democratic lawmakers had initially agreed it was important to look into the Newsom administration’s forest management efforts and were right to demand oversight. Unfortunately, the political reality of the recall made them reconsider.

According to a new report by Capital Public Radio, Democratic lawmakers said hearings would be put off “until after the wildfire season, in the fall or winter.”

But unless the lawmakers intend to leave Sacramento to fight fires themselves, it makes little sense why hearings and firefighting can’t be done concurrently.

What if there is a massive failure or issue that could be corrected now that would save lives? We won’t know until maybe fall or winter, or whenever.

Democratic lawmakers also postponed further oversight of the failures at the Employment Development Department,

which has been hamstrung by fraud, terrible or non-existent customer service and a backlog of unemployment claims anywhere between hundreds of thousands and a million.

Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs a committee that would have convened one of the EDD hearings, told Calmatters that no hearing would be successful without evaluating the effects of the end of boosted federal unemployment benefits that are scheduled to end in early September, adding that there have already been EDD oversight hearings.

True, but problems persist. Again, the timing seems all too convenient. EDD has suffered from severe incompetence since the beginning of the pandemic, and it’s unlikely the causes and conditions cannot be evaluated until after federal benefits end.

The failures at EDD and Newsom’s utter inability to address them have been a major political liability for the governor, as unemployed Californians suffered endless frustration and lack of benefits for months at a time. Meanwhile, the forest-treatment exaggerations could point to something more cynical. Why was Newsom projecting such inflated numbers?

For his part, Newsom has also delayed potentially damaging actions until after the election, such as a mandatory vaccine-or-testing requirement for indoor events of 1,000 people or greater. Newsom’s administration announced the new rule in midAugust, only to have it go into effect six days after Election Day.

It’s a deeply cynical game Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are playing if retaining power is more important than saving lives. Whether true or not, the perception there’s a game being played certainly shines a light on one of the reasons why the recall — which, again, our newspaper opposes — has gained so much traction.

Unless lawmakers intend to leave Sacramento to fight fires themselves, it makes little sense why hearings and firefighting can’t be done concurrently.