Newsom says vaccine bill flipflop is not a big deal
SACRAMENTO — Despite facing criticism for backtracking on his commitment to sign a mandatory vaccine bill without further changes, Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted Monday that the episode had “absolutely not” affected his relationship with the Legislature.
In June, Newsom negotiated with Sen. Richard Pan, DSacramento, a version of his bill to tighten the rules for medical exemptions to required childhood vaccines that the governor said he could sign. But as SB276 was headed to his desk earlier this month, Newsom announced on Twitter that he would be seeking additional amendments.
Opponents of mandatory vaccinations took that as a signal that he was open to vetoing the bill and flooded into the Capitol to protest, culminating in a chaotic final night of the legislative session Friday in which a vaccine opponent allegedly threw “blood” from the Senate gallery and was arrested. Even a second deal that cleared a path for Newsom’s signature earned a rare rebuke from Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, DSan Diego, who said in a statement that SB276 was “vigorously vetted and negotiated for months and deserves to be enacted on its merits in the form that was agreed to.”
Other lawmakers grumbled that the governor’s lastminute demands brought the issue back to life after they had disposed of it. Newsom brushed off those concerns at a news conference Monday, insisting that it is “the nature of the deliberative process” to ask lawmakers for changes to bills before they reach his desk.
“We’ve got a good working relationship with the Legislature,” he said. “It’s been extraordinary and I think it’s demonstrable in the success of this legislative session.”
The governor for the first time addressed his decision to call for changes in the vaccine legislation, which will give public health officials authority to review medical exemptions at schools with high rates of vaccine waivers and those written by doctors who grant more than five exemptions in a year. The changes, contained in the second bill, preserve existing medical waivers and start the clock to review new ones on Jan. 1, 2020.
Newsom said he had been working with his administration to figure out the implementation and “felt that we needed to clarify some additional points.”
“I do not believe that I would be criticized or critiqued for considering the same on a myriad of other issues, which we do often here in this building,” he said. “My job is not abstract, it’s not ideological. It’s the application of the rules that we set forth in this body.”
Newsom said that his thinking was not influenced by any personal experiences and that none of his four young children has a medical exemption for required immunizations. He declined to discuss whether his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, had weighed in on the bill. Opponents heavily lobbied her on social media to intervene.
“Everyone has opinions,” the governor said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Newsom also defended his announcement over the weekend that he would veto Atkins’ SB1, which would adopt into California law key federal environmental and labor protections as they existed when former President Barack Obama left office in 2017.
Atkins sought to guard against the Trump administration’s weakening of those regulations. But Newsom said the measure was unnecessary, given the dozens of lawsuits and other steps California has taken to push back against the federal government.
He also said the bill would undermine agreements that his administration is negotiating among environmentalists, Central Valley farmers and other major water users to potentially increase pumping from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. He said Atkins was aware of his concerns before she pushed through the bill on the final night of the session.
“I’ve taken a backseat to no one in my opposition to the Trump administration’s rollbacks on our clean air and clean water, endangered species,” Newsom said. “This bill wouldn’t advance any of those efforts.” Alexei Koseff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alexei.koseff @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @akoseff