Governor Gavin Newsom To Deliver State Of The State Speech Before Trump’s Inauguration

Each year, the California Governor gives an annual state of the state speech. For the first 90 years or so of California’s history, it was just a simple letter from the Governor to the state Legislature. But in the 1940’s, then Governor Earl Warren decided to make it a speech in front of the legislature. It remained this way into the Newsom era. However, Newsom changed it up and began giving the speech outside the legislature in locations around Sacramento, and later on, across the state.

But one constant has been the speech takes place in late January, February or March. Sometimes later, but it never, ever came before February. The reasons vary, but usually Governors want to make sure the legislature was in session, as well as to avoid conflicting with the Presidential state of the union, or the Presidential inauguration. In fact, throughout the state’s history, the state of the state speech was never before the Presidential state of the union, or the Presidential inauguration.

Governor Gavin Newsom, however, does not play by all the rules. Governor Jerry Brown was a stickler for the traditional timeframe, with his last state of the state occurring in late January 2018. Newsom initially fell in line. The 2019 and 2020 state of the state speech took place in February, and were given before the state legislature. But then came the huge changes. Taking advantage of COVID rules, Newsom’s 2021 state of the state took place in March and was given at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to help highlight that it was a major vaccination site. In 2022 Newsom was back before the legislature in Sacramento, but in March.

Then in 2023, Newsom decided not to give a speech at all. In late March of that year, he simply handed the legislature a letter like the pre-1940’s days, then proceeded to skip around California on a state of the state tour. This included Sacramento, San Quentin Prison, Downey, and San Diego. And then there was last year where he pre-taped his speech, not even bothering to give it in person. He also broke tradition and said he was supporting Joe Biden in the upcoming election. Oh, and he gave it in late June – by far the latest ever for a state of the state.

Different plans for 2025

And, for 2025, Newsom will be “innovating” yet again. On Wednesday, it was announced that the governor will be combining his state of the state speech with his annual budget presentation. But even more distressing is the date of the speech – it will be made sometime before Trump’s inauguration on January 20th. This will be, by far, the earliest state of the state address to date and will also break tradition by taking place before a presidential inauguration in an inauguration year.

“I thought I would perhaps do everybody a favor by collapsing them into one presentation which I’m looking forward to doing,” Newsom said of his plans.

As the state budget presentation is due by early January, this year falling on January 10th, Newsom found a way to give the speech earlier in the year while also avoiding questions about if he is upstaging Trump, and if he plans to make negative remarks against him once again during the address. On Wednesday and Thursday, many in California politics connected the dots and said the move up will allow him to do just that.

“By saying he wanted to combine the presentation and the address, he ended up giving himself a much earlier timeline,” said Dana, a Capitol staffer Thursday. “So he can take some cracks at Trump if he wants before the inauguration. What he can really do is highlight all the Trump-proofing he has done. The Trump administration is getting ready to go after a lot of California’s policies and mandates, so Newsom could be trying to give this moment as a ‘standing up to him’ sort of event too.

“No Governor has done this before, so even in the remote chance this was unintentional to go before the inauguration, it still comes out as very strange. But yeah. It’s not hard to see what he is doing here.

“I will say this. The state of the state used to be a constant. Agree or disagree with the Governor, you could always rely on the speech coming at roughly the same time in front of the legislature live. Newsom just broke that, and to many here, it wasn’t in a good way. Since the Dodger Stadium speech, he has alienated many people in the Capitol by throwing the speech around. It has made it not special and makes it feel unimportant now to many. You can’t imagine the President doing this. Newsom doing this feels very unprofessional in comparison. Again, these are just the general feelings of this.

“Even people who don’t like Trump agree that giving the speech before him is pretty low.”