If voters think that Newsom is right to spend $250 million on a partisan referendum when tens of thousands of people in cash-strapped California are still displaced by wildfires, they deserve what they get — or won’t.
A vote for Proposition 50 — the gerrymandering resolution — virtually guarantees that California will not see a single dollar of the $40 billion that Newsom has asked the federal government to provide for fire relief.
Since asking for that money months ago, Newsom has been attacking Trump in every way possible, even using his official press office social media account to post parodies of the president and to slander him.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who represents the area hit by the Palisades Fire, argues that Americans should still help California, despite political differences — just like California spends to help pro-life Louisiana in hurricanes.
That argument might be more convincing if the governor of Louisiana had been obsessively attacking Democratic presidents and leaders, mocking them and suing to undermine their policies.
It also might be more convincing if California had actually taken steps to mitigate natural disasters. The Palisades Fire began on state land, where Newsom has failed to clear brush (but has lied about doing so).
Newsom and local authorities also failed to make sure that there was water in the reservoir above Pacific Palisades. On January 7, when the fire hit, the 117-million-gallon reservoir, built for wildfires, was empty.
Since the fire, Newsom has tried to take credit for the rapid pace of debris clearance in the area — but that achievement belongs almost entirely to the federal government, which moved in with record speed.
With most lots in the Palisades and Eaton Fire areas cleared, the task of rebuilding has begun — and it is a task Newsom is doing nothing to help. The state has run deficits for two years, after squandering a surplus.
Private donors pitched in $100 million through the Fire Aid concert. While some of that money went to worthy organizations, very little of it found its way directly to individual homeowners who lost everything.
Many residents — despite the relative wealth of the area — cannot afford to rebuild, because many lost their insurance policies before the fire, thanks to Newsom’s policies, which pushed insurers to leave the state.
Newsom could take the $250 million he is spending on the “special election” and use it to help rebuild areas devastated by fire instead. But his focus is on partisan politics, and his own likely presidential ambitions.
Arguably, he does not even have the power to hold this election. The state constitution is clear: districts are to be drawn, after a Census, by an independent commission. If Newsom wanted to change that, he needed a referendum first before drawing a new map, not afterwards. He calls his power grab “defending democracy.”
Newsom is relying on his ability to rally Democrats around him — just as he did in 2021, when he faced a recall election after violating his own coronavirus restrictions to dine with lobbyists at the “French Laundry.”
Back then, Newsom was lagging in the polls — until he, and the left-wing media in California, convinced loyal Democratic voters that his likely replacement, Larry Elder, was a black, California version of Donald Trump.
Newsom is trying the same trick again, trying to hide his own failures by attacking Trump and Republicans.
It may work again. Then again, there are lots of Democrats who lost their homes in the Los Angeles fires — and who saw that President Trump was one of the few public officials to help them in the aftermath.
The referendum is about Newsom, not Trump. He is betting that California voters would rather see their state burn than see Republicans continue to run Congress.
California voters have a chance to prove him wrong.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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