nother election? Didn’t we just have one? But yes, it is election time yet again. This time, you’re being asked two questions on the ballot. Do you want California Governor Gavin Newsom to be recalled or kicked out of office before the next general election? Two, if you do, which one out of about 46, primarily Republican, candidates do you want to replace him as governor of California?
Why are we doing this, you ask? Well, in 2019, Orrin Heatlie, an Ex-Yolo County Sheriff, was scrolling through social media while recovering from a back injury at his home in Folsom when he saw a video he said showed Governor Newsom telling undocumented immigrants not to allow cops in their homes without showing them a warrant first… which is constitutionally correct… but the video got Heatlie so mad that he started organizing a petition to recall Newsom soon after.
Using Facebook, Heatlie connected with right-wing activists across the state and veteran organizers of California’s previous recall effort in 2003, when Governor Gray Davis was kicked out of the office. Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to take his place and organized a wide network of people with various grievances, including people against “free immigrant health care,” according to Heatlie’s official recallgavin2020.com website, people against mask mandates and COVID-19 mitigation regulations, anti-immigrant folks, pro-death penalty people, people against mail-in voting, anti-teacher’s union people, and people angry that they either haven’t received unemployment checks since the beginning of lockdown last year or had difficulties getting them and dealing with the EDD.
For the recall to make it onto the ballot, the organizers needed to get at least 1.5 million people to sign the recall position. Once the paperwork was turned in and the state vetted signatures, they ended up with more than 1.7 million signatures, starting only the fourth recall of a governor in U.S. history, which could cost California taxpayers an estimated $276 million.