Newsom to forgo State of the State address
Gov. Gavin Newsom will not give a traditional State of the State address this year and instead will hold a series of news conferences announcing new policy plans at different locations throughout the state.
The announcements will touch on some of the governor’s top priorities for his second term, including housing, homelessness, affordability and mental health, Newsom spokesperson Anthony York said.
The events will take place March 16 through March 19. They will begin in Northern California and end with appearances near Los Angeles and San Diego, where the state’s two top legislative leaders are from. After he finishes touring the state, Newsom will fulfill his constitutional requirement to update the Legislature on the state’s condition in a written letter, York said.
This will be the first year Newsom will not give a formal State of the State speech.
Newsom has said he finds preparing for big speeches grueling because of his dyslexia, which makes it difficult for him to read prepared remarks. He typically prefers to memorize his talking points and give more impromptu speeches using slides, as he has done for his budget presentations and COVID-19 briefings.
Newsom, a Democrat, gave his first two State of the State addresses the way most governors traditionally have: in the California Assembly chamber in the state Capitol building before an audience of lawmakers. The second he devoted entirely to California’s homelessness crisis, although that speech was soon overshadowed when Newsom locked down the state just one month later to slow the spread of COVID-19.
In 2021, he gave his address to an empty Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, with the 55,000 vacant stadium seats an allusion to the 54,000 Californians who had died from COVID-19 at that point. In that speech, he defended his coronavirus record in the face of a looming attempt to recall him from office, which he went on to defeat later that year.
Last year, he gave his speech from an auditorium in Sacramento, during which he promised to give Californians a tax rebate to offset high gas prices and to create a new program to get mentally ill people off the streets. He made good on both those promises later that year, working with the Legislature to include a rebate in the state budget and persuading lawmakers to pass his CARE Court plan to get mentally ill people into treatment.
Legislative leaders are not taking issue with Newsom’s decision to break from tradition.
“It’s always interesting to watch the governor find new ways to share his ideas and goals with Californians,” Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, said in a statement. “This is a good way for his perspective about how our state is doing to reach even more people.”
Republican leadership did not critique the governor’s decision to forgo a traditional State of the State address, but used the announcement as an opportunity to criticize his record.
“The format of his message is less important than its contents,” Assembly Republican Caucus Chair Tom Lackey, RPalmdale (Los Angeles County), said in a statement. “Under Gov. Newsom’s leadership, inflation, crime and homelessness soared, wildfires got worse, and we made almost no progress on water storage. Hopefully the governor uses this opportunity to reflect on those issues.”