SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — During the several crises of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first term, devastating wildfires, the bankruptcy of the nation’s largest utility, the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, surpluses State budget records were always there to smooth things over.
Now, as Newsom moves to build his national profile for political aspirations beyond the governor’s office, looming multibillion-dollar deficits could threaten to unravel the things he’s staked his reputation on, including free kindergarten for every 4-year-old child and free health care for low-income residents, regardless of immigration status.
On Monday, after signing a budget that cut, delayed and borrowed to cover a $31.5 billion deficit, Newsom summoned hundreds of agency officials, department heads and lawmakers to an all-day meeting to emphasize the importance of protecting these commitments.
“I have an expiration date, three and a half years. The clock is ticking,” the Democratic governor told The Associated Press in an interview the next day. “I’m a milk carton, you know? And I don’t want to get bitter.”
Newsom spoke extensively about his plans to address the state’s challenges during his second and final term, which runs through January 2027, with deficits that could reach a total of $81 billion over those four years.
How Newsom steers the nation’s most populous state through the budget meltdown may serve to bolster or diminish his credibility on the national stage. Newsom has repeatedly said he will not run for president in 2024. But he is increasingly moving beyond California as President Joe Biden’s replacement, and the Democratic Party’s future standard-bearer. He’s burnishing those credentials by raising money for Democrats in red states and casting himself as a political and cultural counter to Republican rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Newsom told the AP that California’s budget woes will not change his agenda or prevent him from making big policy changes, such as overhauling how the state spends money and treats people with mental illness and faster building energy projects clean and water
He indicated that he supports legislation that would allow more people to be held against their will for mental illness or drug addiction, although he did not commit to signing it.
The bill, by Democratic state Sen. Susan Eggman, has the support of mayors in California’s largest cities, who say they need it to better serve the nation’s largest homeless population.
“We’ve made it very clear to him privately that we support the direction he’s going,” Newsom said. “That said, you know, it depends on what comes out.”
Newsom said he wants to be sensitive to the concerns of some mental health advocates about the potential to deprive people of fundamental rights.
“I’m very sensitive that we don’t want to go back to the old ways,” he said. “I am sure that in his bill he will also be sensitive to these wider concerns.”
More broadly, Newsom wants voters to approve a $4.6 billion bond to build 10,000 new hospital beds and homes for people with mental illness. He has also proposed changing the way the state spends money from a nearly two-decade-old ballot measure that raised taxes on millionaires to fund mental health services.
Newsom doesn’t see his second term as a defense game to avoid cuts to some of his priorities. Instead, he said, his job is to fulfill the promises he made in his first term. But some adjustments are inevitable.
Newsom has pledged to spend more than $50 billion on climate projects and protections over the next few years, an unprecedented amount of environmental spending. But this year he reduced that commitment by several billion dollars to balance the budget, prompting criticism from some environmental groups who accused him of backsliding.
This year, Newsom combined climate spending with an overhaul of building and permitting codes to speed up the time it takes to put up things like wind turbines and solar farms. Newsom said the changes were necessary because climate spending “didn’t mean anything unless we could meet it.”
However, some environmental groups initially opposed it, seeing it as a ploy to benefit projects they say have no ecological benefit, such as building new reservoirs. Over the years, they have become increasingly critical of Newsom’s environmental policies, with one advocate calling him the worst governor in the state on water and endangered species issues.
The dispute is personal for Newsom, who said he bonded with his father, a California judge who died in 2018, from an early age over support for environmental causes.
“You find a governor in the country with a track record like ours, and yet (environmental groups) still rush to criticize. I don’t know how that advances the cause,” he said. “I don’t think they’re building any more confidence around here.”
Newsom still has his eye on national politics, including plans to pressure other state legislatures to pass an amendment to the US Constitution that would impose a waiting period on all gun purchases, ban assault rifles assault, would require universal background checks and raise the minimum age to buy. a pistol at 21.
To fuel this effort, he is using money from a political action committee that began raising money for candidates and causes in Republican states. He recently met with Democrats in Idaho and Utah, and has received invitations to other state party conventions.
“I’m not just raising money, I’m writing checks,” Newsom said. “I’m not surprised they get calls.”
