California’s Post Recall Future Part 1

In a few days voters will decide whether or not to Recall California Governor Gavin Newsom. In this episode we take a closer look at the recall process and how ongoing droughts will impact the State.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You crack open a doctor pepper. You know it'll only
make you more thirsty in the long run, but you
need some liquid in your mouth, and you're saving your
remaining fifteen gallons for a quick shower. The ew hall
is finally almost packed up. You may be able to
make it down to San Francisco in time. Living in
Redwood Valley has been nice the last few years. It's
a beautiful place, but in August of twenty twenty two,

(00:22):
the drought became too much. Late last year, California's new
far right governor lifted all water restrictions on farmers. This
sparked a new state wide race to use what water
was available before it ran out. Lake Mendesino was already
low at the beginning of the year, and for the
first time in your memory, it is now completely empty.
San Francisco isn't doing great either, but it's much better

(00:43):
off than where you live. The Russian River Watershed relies
almost entirely on rainfall and is isolated from state and
federal aqueducts. After the governor lifted water restrictions, new almond
and pot farms started sucking up ground water, and by
the end of the summer, they'd started pumping from the
river to feed their thirsty crops. By mid July, your
town implemented a twenty five gallon limit per person per day.

(01:05):
That's about as much water as you go through during
a five minute shower. The first thing you sacrificed was
your garden. Then you stopped flushing after you peid. These
tweaks added up, though, and without water, the lifestyle you'd
loved just stopped being possible. Your brother in San Francisco
offered to let you move in with him. You weren't
a fan of the big city, but at least you'd
be able to shower again. And so you find yourself

(01:26):
sipping an empty soda can and loading up your last
few boxes into the U haul. You give your brother
a quick call saying you're all packed up and about
to head out. He sounds worried and mentions something about
his school letting new teachers go do to budget cuts.
You can't really afford to think about that. Now, you
just need to leave. Since you're all sweaty from loading
the U haul the last few days, you decide to

(01:46):
hop into the shower one last time. You knew it
wouldn't last long, but you still seemed surprised when the
water turned off after what felt like only two minutes.
You quickly dry off and grab some clean clothes from
your backpack and throw your damp towel into the passage
your seat of the truck. You say goodbye to your
home of ten years and to your old succulent plants,
and begin the three hour drive down to San Francisco.

(02:13):
Water scarcity is a problem you're probably already familiar with,
especially if you live in the Southwest. California has dealt
with particularly brutal droughts over the last twenty years, and
the Golden States water problems could be about to get
much much worse, because in just a few days, California
might find itself helmed by a far right governor with
a near religious hatred of water conservation. Electoral politics are

(02:34):
not generally a big focus on this show, but what's
going on in the state of California could have serious
implications for many people, including those outside the West Coast.
The ongoing recall campaign against Governor Gavin Newsom started out
in June of with Republican politicians and activists unhappy with
Newsom's handling of the pandemic. Newsom's opposition to President Trump's

(02:56):
cracked down on undocumented immigrants also played a role. This
is actually the fifth recall attempt against Newsom since he
took office in twenty nineteen, but it's the first one
to gain traction. It's fueled in part by Newsom's own
hypocrisy and hubris. On November six the recall effort gained
court approval for a signature gathering extension, and later that night,

(03:16):
Governor Newsom went to a birthday party for a Sacramento
lobbyist and friend at French Laundry, a pricing Napa Valley restaurant.
Soon after, photo surfaced of Newsom mingling maskless at the
packed restaurant. He faced heavy criticism and apologized, but the
damage was done. Republicans latched onto this as an opportunity
to finally push the recall effort through. The recall petition,

(03:37):
which had only fifty five thousand and five signatures on
the day of the dinner, had nearly half a million
a month after the November sixth incident. California's recall process
is probably the least democratic one in the United States.
Gathering signatures to authorize a recall election is a pretty
standard thing, but California has among the lowest signature requirements

(03:57):
and states that allow for the recall of an official.
Most states require that the recall campaign must gather signatures
equal to twenty five percent of the votes cast in
the last election. California requires just twelve percent for executive officials.
The li Times notes quote that might have been a
high bar in nineteen eleven, when the population was scattered
across the seven hundred and seventy mile length of the state,

(04:18):
But is it too low in twenty one when petitions
for ballot measures are gathered and moss by paid staff
and parking lots. And that's not the only questionable aspect
of California's recall process. On recall election day, voters will
face two questions on the ballot. First, yes or no
on whether to recall Governor Gavin Newsom from office. Second,
and this one is technically optional, If so, who among

(04:40):
the forty six candidates do you want to take his place?
The first question is decided by a simple majority, just
like other ballot measures, but when it comes to the
second question, the percentage requirements change. The replacement candidate doesn't
need more than fifty percent to win, So if more
than fifty percent of the voters say yes on the
recall question, Governor knew Some must step down, even if

(05:01):
he has more overall support than any other individual challenger
on the ballot. The replacement question is determined by who
gets the most votes among the challengers on the ballot,
which Newsom cannot be on. So forty nine point nine
percent of the voters can back Mr Newsom and he
can still lose to someone who is supported by only
say of the electorate or even a smaller fraction. For

(05:22):
other California elections, including special elections triggered by the death
or resignation of an official, a candidate cannot win without
the support of a majority of voters. If a candidate
doesn't win over fifty outright, then the top to compete
in a runoff election. Not the case for California's recall process.
Organizers of the recall campaign submitted two point one million
signatures by the March seventeenth filing deadline. One million, seven

(05:46):
hundred nineteen thousand, nine hundred signatures were ultimately determined to
have been valid, which was enough to trigger the recall.
The deadline for casting your vote is September. If the
recall succeeds, the new governor would be in office for
the remainder of Mr. Newsom term through January, and that
leaves a lot of time for executive factory, especially considering

(06:07):
the new front runner. Far right radio talk show host
and frequent Fox guest Larry Elder, has emerged as the
likely candidate to replace Newsom in the event the recall

(06:27):
goes through. Elder, who was sixty nine, jumped into the
race relatively late in the game during mid July. At
that time, it was more of a toss up between
Republican candidates Kevin Falconer, a former San Diego mayor, and
businessman John Cox, who lost badly to Newsom in the
gubernatorial election. Assemblyman Kevin Kylie and former athlete in media

(06:48):
personality Caton Jenner pulled less well. But as Larry Elder
entered the race, he almost immediately became the front runner
in polls and raised lots of money from small donors,
and the three weeks after he announced his campaign raised
nearly four and a half million dollars according to fundraising disclosures.
That's more than every other Republican challenger sans multimillionaire businessman

(07:08):
John Cox, who's largely funding his own campaign. Elder has
been a central figurehead of the right wing radio talk
show scene since the nineties, but has always been hesitant
to run for public office, deeming the state of California
ungovernable due to its liberal supermajority, But after talking with
his friend and mentor Dennis Praeger of the neo fascist
propaganda outlet Praeger You, he figured it might be worth

(07:30):
a shot, and has expressed desire to use the emergency
powers of the governor to push the state right words.
Elder was born in Los Angeles, but moved to Cleveland
to attend law school and opened his own firm in
nineteen eighty. Elder's career began as a bit of an accident.
He'd been invited on a Cleveland station as a guest.
He did so well on air that when the regular
host went on vacation the following week, the program director

(07:52):
asked Elder to fill in. Soon enough, Elder had his
own weekly time slot on the Cleveland station. In the
early nineties, a guest most from Los Angeles, Dennis Prager,
visited Cleveland. Elder quickly impressed Praeger with his on air
wit and talent, coupled with the uniqueness of a black
man openly expressing extreme conservative views. Praeger persuaded his home
station KBC in Los Angeles to give Elder a shot.

(08:15):
Quoting the l a Times, Elder returned to his hometown
in nineteen ninety four, two years after the civil unrest,
following the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King,
and in the midst of the O. J. Simpson murder case.
The program director at rival k f I, David G. Hall,
felt KBC made a creative move bringing on this guy
from South Central who swung the other way on race.

(08:37):
Almost from the beginning, the self proclaimed sage from South
Central whipped up a fewer. He mixed sound bites from
Representative Maxine Waters with a recording of a barking dog.
He said, Blacks exaggerate the significance of racism, while women
did the same in regards to sexism. For nearly four years,
Elder has slapped many members of his own race in
the face on radio, belittling them as whiners or losers,

(08:59):
holding himself up as a model of African American excellence.
He's become a darling of white listeners, who seemed to
almost gush when they telephone him on k ABC Talk radio.
They are astonished to find a black man who not
only isn't going to chastise them, but who also often
agreed with them, a black man who declared that race
was no longer a significant factor in American society. Elder

(09:20):
also doesn't believe that racial profiling exists. This is despite
telling The Times editorial Board that police pulled him over
between seventy five and a hundred times the first year
he had his driver's license. Elder's regressive, provocative content angered
mine Angelinos and black citizens of California led a boycott
of advertisers on the show. It worked, and by the
late nineties the show had begun losing millions in ad revenue.

(09:43):
But thanks to syndication, changing networks, podcasts, and TV appearances,
Elder has been able to remain a central figure of
the right wing content sphere. He most recently starred in
a video series for far right propaganda organization and literal cult,
The Epoch Times. According to Elder's campaign, the central recall issues,
he is focusing on our rampant crime rising homelessness, out

(10:04):
of control costs of living, water shortages, disastrous wildfires, rolling
brown outs, and repressive COVID restrictions. For this show, we'll
be focusing on the last three as they relate to
the rapidly shifting and hostile climate. For the past thirty years,
Elder has been a classic conservative climate denier. He had
a whole section of his website devoted to debunking the
Gore bull warming myth like Al Gore bullshit warming myth. Yeah,

(10:29):
it's a bad pun. In a CNN interview prior to
the two thousand eight election, Elder called global warming a
false myth, while disparaging and making fun of both John
McCain and George W. Bush for discussing global warming is
a serious issue. However, more recently, Elder has shifted his
rhetoric around the climate. In an interview last month, he
expressed belief that some warming is taking place, but by

(10:49):
using old soft denialist talking points climate is always changing.
Of course, the climate is changing. The question is what
do we do about it? Do we deal with the
effects of it, or do we force feed renewables based
economy down the throats of people jacking up the price
of energy a disproportionate pain for poor people. But of
course there's climate change, and the climate is getting warmer,
and maybe about a degree or so in the last
several years, and it will likely continue. He adds, what

(11:10):
I don't believe in is climate change alarmism. He also
said that he was not sure whether climate change is
making wildfires worse. Quote fires have gotten worse because the
failure of this governor to engage in sensible fire suppression.
Elder also blames California's rising housing costs on environmental extremists
that jack up the cost of housing so that developers
have to wait and wait and get sued over and over.

(11:31):
Agains that finally, when the home is built, it's way
more expensive than otherwise it would be without these environmental
rules and regulations. Despite the slight back pedaling on climate
for better media optics, his potential policies on the topic
are just as horrendous as one might assume. In a
recent video news conference, Elder declared that he would in
the war on oil and gas and the attack on
the logging industry, will also reducing regulation on fracking and

(11:53):
stopping California's growing efforts to expand when in solar power,
which he calls not very efficient. Elder did not men
and climate change during his news conference. Water scarcity will

(12:14):
be an increasingly severe concern for California in the coming years.
Drought is already a major political talking point among voters
and politicians, and it creates another rift between city folk
and rural farmers. Farmers are having a harder time growing
crops and feel threatened by water rationing. They're frustrated by
the thought that the Democrats running cities will always prioritize
pumping extra water into population dense areas. Meanwhile, people in

(12:36):
cities are concerned they will be forced to cut back
on personal water use, as almond farmers suck up tons
of water to feed their droops. Just building more dams
and water catchment systems or aquifers may seem like a
solution and have done property. Some of those things might help,
but they can't make up for a lack of rainfall
and snow melt. Relying on river water has its own problems.

(12:57):
Pulling too much from fresh water that flows through rivers
allows for extra salt water to intrude from the bay
and ocean salinity in the water negatively impacts local ecosystems
and dirties what is supposed to be a freshwater source.
Drought is simultaneously pushing migratory fish species like chinook salmon
and steelhead trout closer to the brink of extinction. Large
numbers of fish are dying off because the rivers they

(13:18):
rely on as spawning habitats are too warm or too low.
Anxiety around water, droughts, and crops as among the issues
driving some people to vote yes on the recall. A
poll conducted last July by the Public Policy Institute of
California found that residents sited drought and water supply as
their top environmental concern, with about twenty calling it their
chief concern, which makes it pull well above the related

(13:41):
problems of wildfires, air pollution, and climate change. Republican politicians
have been using anxiety around drought to drum up support
for the recall by blaming the current situation on Newsom.
The original recall petition against Newsom from early warned that
the governor quote seeks to impose additional burdens on our state,
including rationing our water use. Last April, Governor Newsom did

(14:03):
declare a drought emergency into northwest California counties. The order
allowed state officials to restrict the amount of water diverted
from the Russian River and authorized the relocation of fish
stranded in drying puddles. The local county government asked residents
to use no more than fifty gallons per day per person,
but Newsom himself hasn't mandated water rationing for individual consumers,

(14:25):
though he has asked Californians to voluntarily cut consumption by
fifteen percent and has suggested that statewide restrictions could be
on the table if conditions worsened heading into the fall,
Newsom in the Department of Water Resources as a whole
do have ideas in mind for tackling this issue. Last year,
Newsom authorized an eleven billion dollar water infrastructure project building

(14:45):
a single thirty mile tunnel under the Sacramento, San Joaque
and River Delta. The project, which has been discussed for years,
is being pushed forward in hopes that it will protect
the delta's existing wetland ecosystem and supply enough fresh, clean
water to be diverted south for the rest of the
state eight but the tunnel concept has faced opposition both
locally and from conservation minded folks. Some residents in the

(15:06):
Delta regency it is just a water grab to meet
the demands of southern California and the agriculture industry, while
the needs of those up north are being ignored. Ecologically
focused critics say it could still increase salinity in the
Delta and result in notable harm for the ecosystem. Newsom
has more recently discussed other action and legislation to help
mitigate the continued drought, quoting the San Francisco Chronicle. In July,

(15:29):
the governor signed a state budget that includes five point
one billion dollars over four years for new water infrastructure
and drought preparation projects, including money to repair delivery canals,
help farmers irrigrate crops more efficiently, and start water recycling projects. Still,
Newsom's recent actions have done little to quell anger among
many farmers who stay the state's failure to plan for
another major drought just a few years after it exited

(15:50):
the last one has put them on the brink of ruin.
Ernest Buddy Mendez, a lifelong farmer in Fresno County and
Republican county supervisor, said he was forced to let hundreds
of acres where he used to grow cotton and wheat
dry up this year after his allotment of river water
was slashed to zero. He's relying on groundwater pumped from
wells to keep his grove of almond trees alive. Mendez
said he hasn't decided whom to support as a replacement candidate,

(16:13):
and the recall just that he will vote hell yeah
to remove newsom. Let's face at Newsom. Damn is a
four letter word, Mendez said, we haven't done anything in
twenty years about building storage. California already does have one
of the most extensive damn systems in the country, with
nearly fifteen hundred reservoirs. Building new on river dams would
cost billions of dollars if such efforts even survive legal challenges,

(16:35):
which are all but guaranteed. Amid the struggle to save
endangered fish species, there are not many areas left that
would make sense or be sustainable to build a new
large reservoir. One other, more cost effective solution could be
to store more water collected during wet years and underground aquifers.
One of the solutions to this problem is the same
as the solution to a number of other climate related problems,
which is that we simply have to cut the amount

(16:57):
of resources we're consuming, whether that means using our energy
use or cutting down on wasteful water use. You can
only build so many dams. The trend of California farmers
growing thirstier crops has made an existing problem much worse. Today,
the state produces three times as many acres of almonds
as it did twenty five years ago. With California most
likely entering a third straight year of disappointing rainfall and

(17:19):
snow melt, anxiety around drought and increased severity of water
restrictions won't get any better, and if the Lenina weather
pattern hits the West coast, as it's poised to, that
would mean the western US will have a drier and
hotter winter than average. Last August, water regulators made an
unprecedented move to begin cracking down on water use in
the sprawling Sacramento River in San Joaquin River watersheds, ordering farmers,

(17:43):
water districts, and other landowners, including the City of San Francisco,
to stop drawing water from the basins of the river
or face penalties of up to ten thousand dollars a day.
The city has enough water in its reservoirs to meet
demand for at least a couple of years, and stored
water is not affected by the state restrictions. Water agencies
also can seek an exemption from curtailments of human health

(18:03):
or safety or compromised. This does hit rural areas and
agriculture the hardest because most cities have alternative supplies and
stored water to tap into. Looking to attract voters, Larry
Elder and other Republican challengers to NEWSOM have made it
a recurring point to say that farmers should not have
to endure such cuts, but they don't really give any
perspective solutions to prevent rationing. When water levels at reservoirs, lakes,

(18:25):
and wells are all plummeting. Larry Elder said drought is
not inevitable and said he supports building more reservoirs and
dams to store runoff, but he has also voice support
for permitting to salinization projects. The salinization devastates ocean life,
costs much more than other alternatives, and uses tons of energy. Also,
soon it will be made obsolete by increasing focus on

(18:47):
water recycling, explaining to salonization quickly ocean water is collected
and run through pipes to remove the largest solids, and
then pump through reverse osmosis filters to remove salt, while
fish and other creatures die upon being sucked in or
just from the four of the water flow. In a
report studying it is salinization plant in the early two thousands,
it was found that on average over a five year period,

(19:07):
nineteen point four billion larva were caught up at intakes
and about two point seven million fish, along with marine
mammals and sea turtles, were killed by intake equipment. For
every gallon of drinking water, desalinization leaves another gallon of
salty brine behind. The plants then just mix that with
two parts ocean water before pumping it back into the ocean.
These measures can negatively impact the environment for this generation

(19:29):
and generations to come. This type of resource extract of
thinking reflects how we got into the problem in the
first place. Battling over water allotments will only get us
so far when dealing with lackluster rainfall. What can help
is permaculture programs to help farmers learn ways to irrigate
more effectively and cultivate healthier soils that retain water. Moving
away from water heavy crops like almonds and towards more

(19:51):
sustainable and moisture efficient crops must also be done if
we want to stave off the worst effects. Putting Larry
Elder in office won't make it rain, but it will
put the state least another year further behind on taking
the kind of action necessary to ensure California remains habitable.
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(20:12):
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