Last November, Assemblyman James Gallagher and I won our trial against Gavin Newsom. The Superior Court ruled Newsom has repeatedly abused his emergency powers.
But a few weeks ago, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled against us. We are now immediately seeking review by the California Supreme Court.
It’s an odd opinion. The Court sided with me and James on almost every issue, recognizing that our case raises “matters of great public concern regarding the Governor’s orders in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic emergency.” The Court also rejected several far-fetched statutory arguments Newsom made to enlarge his emergency powers.
Yet the Justices still found a way to avoid reining the Governor in, latching on to a 2011 case out of Houston that not even Newsom considered relevant. Jarringly, it became the first court to ever say a Governor has “the power to legislate.”
This intermediate court was always Newsom’s preferred forum. All three Justices worked for prior Governors; two also worked for the Attorney General. Yet we still won almost every argument. It appears the Justices saw that the Constitution requires striking down the Emergency Services Act but wanted to leave such a momentous action to the California Supreme Court.
So yes, we’re taking our case to the high court. But we’re not waiting for judges to restore our free society. We the People have taken matters into our own hands. Yesterday the Secretary of State announced the final tally of verified Recall signatures: 1,719,943. Almost a quarter million to spare.
For a year we’ve fought Newsom’s corrupt autocracy in every way possible. We’ve had the totality of state power arrayed against us. We’ve been on the receiving end of abuses we never thought possible. We’ve been attacked in the most vile of ways.
But our efforts haven’t been in vain. Applying constant pressure, we’ve cut through tangled webs of corruption and cleared out an opening for sweeping change. We’ve readied our broken political institutions for a root-and-branch overhaul. We’ve built a citizens movement the likes of which this state has never seen.
Now, we seek justice at the ballot box.