The “Strike Out Newsom” sign-up site in California. (Courtesy of Volunteers)
On Tuesday, April 20, California’s incumbent Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman, who was removed from office in 2018, withdrew SB633, which he authored to publicly remove supporters from office, amid a chorus of opposition.
Earlier this month, SB 663 had gone through its first round of hearings in the state legislature and was scheduled to go to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing on April 20, but Newman, the sponsor, moved to cancel the hearing on short notice.
According to Newman, he decided to temporarily withdraw SB663 because the civil opposition was too strong, especially from the voters of the campaign to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom, so he would not move forward with the proposal in the state legislature this year. But he’s not giving up, and may try again in the next session of the Legislature.
SB663 would require that in any future recall campaign with more than 50,000 voters, the recallee would be entitled to the names, addresses, and other personally identifiable information of all voters who signed on to support the recall.
The proposal would also give the recallee the power to contact and persuade voters to change their minds and withdraw their recall signatures based on the voters’ personal information they have obtained. In addition, the proposal also calls for extending the period of validity of “withdrawal of recall signatures” from 30 days to 45 days after the filing of the recall petition.
The proposal was immediately met with civil resistance. California voters, including Orrin Heatlie, one of the founders of the “Recall Newsom 2020” campaign, Republican lawmakers and various groups believe that this is a mafia-style tactic used by the left to violate voters’ constitutional rights and intimidate public opinion.
For this reason, on the day Newman withdrew SB663, the California Republican Party said that Newman had no choice but to withdraw it due to pressure from people who supported a special election to recall Newsom, thus showing that public opinion is very important. “Let’s keep the momentum going.”
Republican state Rep. Kevin Kiley tweeted, “The proposal to expose the names and addresses of voters who signed recall petitions has been withdrawn. Thank you to all who have spoken out against this latest abuse of power.”
While happy, Southern California voter Tom Yu (D) cautioned that we should not take this lightly. He said, “SB663 was grayed out under strong public pressure, but as is always the case with the left, it’s just a reprieve.”
He said, “Yesterday if this proposal had been heard as originally planned, a lot of our constituents, both in Northern and Southern California, and also a lot of organizations were ready to call into the meeting to oppose it, a lot of people really. As a result (SB663) was surreptitiously pulled down. When we all let our guard down, I guess the left will come back with a vengeance and add it to other proposals to pass together. The left is going to expose the voter message and is simply ignoring the Constitution, so we must all be vigilant.”
California Assembly Republicans (CA) said, “It’s good to see that the California Democrats’ vindictive proposal to intimidate voters has died. It was a bad idea from the start and, like many other proposals in Sacramento, completely unnecessary. Common sense has prevailed and sanity has prevailed.”
SB663, as proposed by Newman, is said to be related to the current recall movement being advanced by California citizens to remove the governor. The process of certifying more than 2.1 million signatures for the “Recall Newsom” campaign is now in its final stages and is expected to be completed next week. At that time, a special recall election will be held if 1,497,000 valid voter signatures support the recall of Newsom.
Newman is considered a political ally of Newsom, who himself became one of the few politicians to be removed from office in California in more than a century for supporting a gas tax increase in 2018.
Carl DeMaio, the sponsor of the referendum to repeal the gas tax increase that year (Yes on 6) and chairman of the California Reform Commission, noted that if Newman’s proposal is unfortunately passed, the public will never be able to remove an incompetent politician from office.
Recent Comments