Tag: Gray Davis

The Story: California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) defeated, and by a wide margin, an effort to remove him from that position with the vote Tuesday,...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) officially kicked off a potential 2020 White House bid by forming an exploratory committee for the campaign. USA TODAY While 2018 has been a pivotal year in California’s political history — particularly the Republican Party’s losing half of its congressional seats — 2019 may be even more significant. The state’s politics will likely be dominated by two rolling events: the beginning of Gavin Newsom’s governorship and California’s bid to become a factor in presidential politics. That, coupled with not having to deal with a severe budget crunch on inauguration day like most other new governors, gives Newsom the luxury of easing into the job. Dan Walters: Outgoing Gov. That’s what happened to Jerry Brown when he became governor in 1975 and 14 months later, was campaigning for president. Even if Newsom’s not in the mix for 2020, California will be, thanks to moving its presidential primary from June to March. She’s said she’d make a final decision over the holidays. Californians are likely, therefore, to be treated — or subjected — to full-blown presidential campaign efforts in California this year because mail-in ballots for the March 2020 primary will be distributed about 13 months from now.

Mayor London Breed picked the right time and the right governor to ask for clemency for her imprisoned brother. The San Francisco mayor said the attorney for brother Napoleon Brown suggested that “Jerry Brown would probably be more open” to the request because it was his last year in office. In his first stint as governor, Brown issued 400 pardons and just one commutation. This time around, he has pardoned 1,100 and commuted 152 sentences. So Breed would never have a better opportunity to make the case that her brother, who has served about half his 42-year sentence for a 2000 robbery and involuntary manslaughter, received an excessive sentence and deserves another chance at freedom. She has received legitimate criticism over the way she highlighted her title — “MAYOR LONDON BREED” in block letters at the top of her correspondence to the governor — as well as disclosures that she testified as an alibi witness, claiming she saw her brother sleeping on a couch on the night the robbery went down. We thought about it, we discussed it, we even weighed it: Should we do this because this could be problematic?” The decision was that attaching the prefix “Mayor” to her name did not really matter, in her view. The reason I got into politics and the first place, and doing the work that I’ve done even before I was an elected official, had everything to do with what happened to my family growing up in the city, and the challenges we experienced.” I can’t begrudge Breed for wanting to free her brother, and I respect her putting herself on the line to assure the state that she would help provide the support to allow him to succeed outside the prison walls. These are among the questions a governor must consider. The easy way out — see: Gray Davis — is to pretend the justice system always gets it right, and that every inmate who remains in prison, however unfairly, is one less potential Willie Horton to crop up at election time.