Is Gavin Newsom a Tyrant or is he Capable of Democracy?

I am frequently asked why I am so earnest about exposing Gavin Newsom’s record, leading many to question how he can be stopped.

Newsom continues to fail up, never having had any close challenges for public office – not for San Francisco County Board of Supervisors (1997-2004), not for San Francisco Mayor (2004-2011), not for Lieutenant Governor (2011-2019), and not for California Governor (2019-). Well, to be fair, Gavin did announce a run for Governor in 2010, but was told to wait his turn by Jerry Brown, who was elected in 2010 for a third term, and a fourth term four years later, with Newsom as Lt. Gov. having to wait an additional 8 years.

Gavin Newsom’s true test of governing approach was solidified during the COVID era. Newsom was the first governor to lock down an entire state, shut down “non-essential” businesses including churches, while allowing cannabis businesses, marijuana dispensaries, bars and strip clubs and big box stores to remain open. A Democracy is a government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state – thus we have democratic elections in a representative republic.

The Globe questioned Newsom’s shutting down any business in the over broad decree of “public health,” especially since the very definition of “essential” and “non-essential” businesses and employees makes no sense to a business owner – all businesses and all employees are essential to business owners. And, along with many immunologists and epidemiologists, we said that the most vulnerable communities and people needed the most medical attention and care.

Again, think back to just the first year of California’s full lockdown in 2020. The Globe reported:

Millions of Californians filed for unemployment benefits during Newsom’s government-ordered business shutdowns.

Hundreds of thousands of small businesses have permanently closed.

Public schools have been closed since last Spring. The SAT exam was cancelled. High schoolers have lost college opportunities, academic scholarships, and sports scholarships.

While other states have allowed athletics to return, California sports teams remain benched.

But remember, you were just doing your part because “we’re all in this together.” Only we weren’t.

It was that bad, and Newsom’s lockdowns lasted just shy of three years. Very undemocratic. Very authoritarian, autocratic, oppressive and tyrannical. California was even named the most restrictive state of 51, with the most COVID restrictions (lockdowns, mandatory masking, mandatory vaccines) in a survey of all of the states (including the District of Columbia).

It was in March 2020 that Newsom issued his executive order (N-25-20) stating, “All residents are to heed any orders and guidance of state and local public health officials, including but not limited to the imposition of social distancing measures, to control the spread of COVID-19.’”

By December 2020, the Globe reported:

“Gov. Newsom and California Department of Public Health Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly have failed to provide the ‘science’ and/or ‘data’ they are using as they claim activities like outdoor dining, bars, and hair and nail salons are responsible for spreading coronavirus.”

“’We want to nix mixing. Full stop.’ Newsom said at his press conference Thursday. The governor claims ‘Our ICUs are climbing quickly toward their capacity. Our death rate is rising…’ says the governor who only weeks ago attended a swanky dinner in Napa Valley with 22 other people. He obviously didn’t believe that ‘more lives would be lost’ by his attendance at the dinner.”

As TabletMag reported in August 2022 about Dr. Deborah Birx’s autobiography, “The lockdowns that Xi pioneered and Birx so zealously advocated for reportedly led to over 170,000 non-COVID excess deaths among young Americans while failing to meaningfully slow the spread of COVID anywhere they were tried. It would have been impossible for an enemy agent armed with anything less than nuclear weapons to have inflicted so much damage on America’s economy, social fabric, and historical freedoms in such a short period of time.”

And Gavin Newsom was leading the charge in California – a one-man-band – locking down 40 million people, and sending COVID patients in to nursing homes, condemning an untold number of seniors to their deaths. Newsom was not the only governor to do so: “Several U.S. Governors ordered COVID-19 patients into nursing homes during the pandemic in 2020. But it was only Democrat governors in blue states: Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, and California’s Governor Gavin Newsom,” the Globe reported. “The result was deadly for thousands of vulnerable, elderly nursing home patients in these Democrat-run states.”

At the time, California Globe contacted the California Department of Public Health and specifically asked, “Is the CDPH suspending the very regulations that keep patients safe from abuse and incompetence?” and “Does this mean COVID-19 patients may be sent to nursing facilities?”

While the Public health department did respond to some of our questions, they did not answer our very specific question: “Does this mean COVID-19 patients may be sent to nursing facilities?” However, the bottom line is that the California Department of Public Health directed skilled nursing facilities to be prepared to take in COVID-19 patients, but why, and at what cost? CDPH acknowledged that the elderly patients already in skilled nursing facilities are “California’s most vulnerable,” so why would they send any COVID-19 patients to facilities with the most frail and vulnerable patients?

In August 2020, the Globe reported that COVID patients are worth $800 per day, compared to the $200 per day for long-term patients with mild health concerns or dementia. It is not a stretch to see that COVID patients are a money maker for nursing homes. And then, just like that, the Biden administration dropped the DOJ investigation into the Democrat governors.

During the COVID lockdowns, Gov. Newsom didn’t let any grass grow under his feet – he issued more than 58 Executive Orders, including requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035, citing the “climate CRISIS” as justification. 

People were locked in their homes with their businesses destroyed, and school children were left twisting in the wind because their schools were shuttered, ostensibly because of a virus, and Gavin Newsom thought an executive order mandating zero-emission vehicles by 2035 was a good idea. What a lout.

Gov. Newsom does not have the authority to make laws – only the Legislature does. And, he did not evoke emergency powers for that specific Executive Order.

In September 2020, California Republican Assemblymen Kevin Kiley and James Gallagher filed a lawsuit against the governor for illegally making laws: They cited:

“A California Governor is constitutionally forbidden from doing the very thing Gov. Newsom has done here: exercise legislative powers;”

and:

“Contrary to the Governor’s claim, the Emergency Services Act does not and could not inaugurate an autocracy in the State of California. Such a wild misapprehension of his own authority is precisely why this case demands a resolution on the merits.“

Kiley and Gallagher asked the court for two things: (1) “a judgment that the Executive Order so issued is null and void”; (2), a court order stopping the Governor from further exercising any “legislative powers in violation of the California Constitution.”

Their brief explained the unprecedented authoritarian abuses during the first year of Newsom’s lockdowns:

“California has entered its seventh month of the COVID-19 pandemic, with no apparent end in sight.  In addition to sweeping ‘guidance documents’ that close schools and shutter businesses, Governor Gavin Newsom has issued 53 Executive Orders that span 15 different California Codes and change over 400 state laws.”

And here is the crux of the legal argument: the Emergency Services Act does not authorize Newsom’s unconstitutional actions.

“Contrary to the Governor’s claim, the Emergency Services Act does not and could not inaugurate an autocracy in the State of California. Such a wild misapprehension of his own authority is precisely why this case demands a resolution on the merits.“

Two California lawmakers, both attorneys, called Gavin Newsom out for being authoritarian and a tyrant, when it should have been all 120 members of the California Legislature. Kiley and Gallagher won at the state level when the Trial Court Judge ruled that the Governor’s Executive Orders are limited in scope. Newsom’s legal team appealed. Eventually, the California Supreme Court refused to hear the case allowing an appeals court decision to stand, authorizing Newsom to continue as a one-man Legislature.

But there were more lawsuits.

In August 2022, three California courts in a week ruled in favor of the people of California and the United States Constitution, against the government over state ordered Covid lockdowns. California courts ruled that the government may have overstepped its authority when they followed Gavin Newsom’s shut down orders.

Somehow Gavin Newsom skated on all of these very serious lawsuits. But his record is clear – and it is tyrannical.

Here is a list of 58 of Newsom’s Executive Orders.