(Los Angeles) California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom admitted Tuesday that he was “concerned” about the petition launched to seek his dismissal, a measure under California law that he believes has opportunities to obtain the required signatures soon. The first step.
Like twenty other US states, California allows voters to run a “no-confidence ballot” to replace the governor. For this, they need to collect the signatures of at least 12% of the voters in the previous election, in this case approximately 1.5 million.
However, the organizers of this initiative, which was launched last year and particularly fueled by dissatisfaction with the management of the epidemic and containment measures issued by Mr. Newsom, recently claimed to have collected nearly two million signatures.
Governors are elected by universal suffrage and are the heads of the executive branch of the states. They have great powers in the budget, as well as over local legislation.
The petition officially ends on Wednesday and election officials have yet to verify the authenticity of the signatures. But observers believe they will meet the threshold required to start the next phase of the process: a referendum in which Californians will be asked to say whether or not they want Gavin Newsom to be fired and who they want to replace him.
Newsom himself now expects such a possibility. “I’ve been on the job for 25 months. In just 25 months, there have been six attempts to run the recall ballot. It looks like he has the required number of signatures,” he said Tuesday at the show. the view From ABC.
The governor said, “I am concerned … We are taking this matter very seriously.” The initiative, which QAnon says plotting far-right activists are linked to, aims to fight the “Democratic Party’s values” about immigration, climate change or the death penalty more than its person, says Gavin Newsom.
Among the initiators of this recall are supporters of former President Donald Trump, since then the Republican Party and a number of wealthy conservatives who funded the petition have rallied.
Such a referendum was already fatal for a Democratic governor in California.
In 2003, Gray Davis, who had become unpopular after lack of energy and the signing of laws limiting small arms, was ousted and replaced by a Republican celebrity: Arnold Schwarzenegger.