Newsom faces big challenges

New governor will have to learn to budget political capital

Gavin Newsom starts his gubernatorial career as the political equivalent of a trustfund baby. He’s been given a ton — a budget surplus of more than $14 billion and a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature — before his term even begins.

But despite that head start, Newsom will face many challenges after he is sworn in as California’s 40th governor at 12:02 p.m. Monday. One of every 5 Californians lives in poverty, and 3 million don’t have health insurance. Skyrocketing prices are putting homeownership out of reach for many, and the homeless population is spreading from cities to small towns. The public school system is among the most poorly funded in the country. Increasingly lethal wildfires threaten broad

swaths of the state.

Given what Newsom has been endowed with, and the entrenched quality of many of those problems, his biggest challenge could be focusing his energy and political capital.

Those Democrats who dominate the Legislature are itching to spend after eight years of being held back by a tightfisted Gov. Jerry Brown. Newsom has promised not to stray from his predecessor’s fiscal responsibility. But he’s also promised to back universal health care, expand state funding for preschools, make community colleges free and build 3.5 million housing units by 2025.

“He may have set expectations higher than what reality will allow,” said Kim Nalder, a professor of government at California State University Sacramento.

Among the incoming governor’s tasks:

Paying for big ideas: Newsom says housing, homelessness and prekindergarten education are among his top initial priorities. None comes cheap.

Start with Newsom’s desire to have free preschool for all children whose families don’t make enough to afford private alternatives. Expanding the program that now pays for preschool for 175,000 children could cost the state about $1.3 billion over three years to cover an additional 100,000 children, according to Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, who has proposed legislation to do just that.

Then there’s health care. Early in the campaign, Newsom told the California Nurses Association convention in San Francisco that “you have my firm and absolute commitment as your next governor that I will lead the effort to get it done. We will get universal health care.”

The powerful nurses union has in mind a system in which the state would be the sole organizer of health care delivery, also known as the singlepayer model or Medicare for all. But that idea died in the Legislature in 2017 when no one could figure out how to pay its multibillion-dollar cost, and Newsom later tempered his enthusiasm for the approach, telling The Chronicle it would take years to get there.

“It is not an act that would occur by the signature of the next governor,” he said.

Instead, look for Newsom to start talking more about universal health coverage as an intermediate step toward a single-payer plan. It would be a cheaper option to implement, because it would involve covering the 3 million uninsured Californians, half of whom are undocumented immigrants.

Crafting homeless policies could be equally tricky. Newsom has promised to appoint a homelessness czar, but hasn’t said anything about creating an agency for that person to run, let alone how to pay for one.

Anti-homelessness strategies “are usually handled by counties and cities,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. “We need to try to figure out productive ways that the state can get involved. Is there anything we can do besides provide funding?” And lawmakers will have their own priorities. They’ve introduced bills packing more than $40 billion in new spending in just the first few days of the new legislative session, far exceeding the expected $14.8 billion surplus.

“There will be some tension there,” said Anthony Reyes, a top aide to former state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León. Legislators “will feel emboldened after eight years of Gov. Brown reining them in.”

Working with the Legislature: Newsom knows policy backward and forward, but he isn’t as adept at the schmoozing, back-slapping part of part of politics. Those who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when Newsom was mayor commonly described him as aloof.

Newsom did little during his eight years as lieutenant governor to build alliances in the state Capitol. He spent much of his time working out of a shared space in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, 90 miles from Sacramento.

Newsom says he’s close to Ting and two other San Francisco Democrats, Assemblyman David Chiu and state Sen. Scott Wiener, as well as to state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. And Ting said Newsom has worked harder getting to know legislative Democrats in the past couple of years.

“It is something he was criticized for — not having a strong relationship with the Board of Supervisors — but he’s definitely made a signif-

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2018 Incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been described as aloof, has lately made an effort to get to know state legislators.