California is still in the Recall Era

Twenty years ago, the L.A. Times sent me to Sacramento to interview anti-tax activist Ted Costa, who had filed a petition that would lead to the recall of California’s governor.

“The recall is about freedom,” said Costa. “Here, the people are showing the world that they can kick the rulers out anytime they like.”

I thought of the recall while watching Gov. Gavin Newsom give his inaugural speech this month. Newsom and Costa occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum. But Newsom, like recall supporters once did, couldn’t stop talking about California as an alternative American republic demonstrating what real freedom might look like.

“More than any people, in any place, California has bridged the historic expanse between freedom for some, and freedom for all,” Newsom said, adding: “California will continue to lead out loud, by advancing a far-reaching freedom agenda.”

Outside the Golden State, such messianic thinking is mocked. Inside California, political cognoscenti dismiss Newsom’s rhetoric as advancing national political ambitions. And they recall 2003 as a bizarre sideshow.

These cynics are wrong. Our pretensions and ambitions have been repeated so long that they have acquired real weight.

In retrospect, the 2003 recall looks the beginning of an era. The recall was an international event that elected a world-famous movie star as governor. Since then, state leaders have acted as global agenda-setters, as if they were United Nations diplomats or Vatican cardinals.

While Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, and Gavin Newsom are very different characters, they all increased the power of an office that functions as a second American presidency. And they all talked in world-historical terms of California as a place apart, a model for America and other countries.

Schwarzenegger pursued internationally minded policies, especially on climate change and political reform, at odds with those of the U.S. “We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta,” said Schwarzenegger in his fourth State of the State address. “Not only can we lead California into the future ... we can show the nation and the world how to get there.”

Brown was less messianic. But he approved protections for immigrants — in the face of an anti-immigrant wave in Washington — that constituted a new, California form of American citizenship. And he traveled the world like a president to build a “network of the willing” of governments eager to prevent climate apocalypse and nuclear holocaust.

Newsom portrays California as a free nation, providing protection against an America descending into fascism, hatred, gun violence, and restrictions on the rights of immigrants, women, and LGTBQ people. His second inaugural connected his family history to the idea of California as a bastion of freedom that is “giving shape to the future” and “molding the character of the nation.”

“Whether your family came here for work, or for safety, California offered freedom to access it, not contingent on you looking a certain way, talking a certain way, thinking a certain way,” he said.

“California lights the territory for the rest,” he concluded.

Newsom acknowledged that the state’s own problems — especially the struggle to be housed — undercut the power of the state’s example. The question for California now is: can California go beyond progressive policies to making bigger improvements in the lives of its people?

California’s outdated governing system — first designed in the 19th century — stands in the way of major changes. And leaders have been reluctant to take on the project of restructuring our governance

But there are signs of hope. Civic groups are meeting quietly to talk about rewriting the state constitution, which dates to 1879. Last week, a new organization, the ProRep Coalition, announced a proposal, endorsed by smaller political parties, to establish the sort of modern multi-party system of proportional representation that advanced democracies have.

Such efforts, if they succeed, could help transform California’s global ambitions of the last 20 years into reality.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: California is still in the Recall Era