It’s likely he made the concession, though, only because he’s convinced he won’t be held accountable. But even if he’s not the Democrats’ 2028 presidential candidate, he still should be made to answer for his authoritarian decisions.
Newsom says his most regrettable COVID policy was keeping schools closed too long. California’s public school closures lasted longer than most other states’ educational disruptions, with state restrictions and decisions by major local districts keeping millions of students out of classrooms. This, says PRI’s Lance Izumi, “had a devastating effect on students who were already achieving at low levels prior to the pandemic.”
In 2019, the year before policymakers panicked and shuttered schools, 29% of California eighth-graders were proficient on the NAEP math exam. Three years later, that fell to 23%. The most recent NAEP scores show the share had recovered to 25% — “not significantly different from that in 2022” — while the average score dropped from 270 to 269, below the national average of 272.
Newsom’s “policies produced academic disasters,” said Izumi.
Hard to argue with that. Schooling took a significant step backward. Yet even after classes resumed, Newsom kept an iron fist over the state, refusing to give up his emergency powers until February 2023, almost three years after he granted himself virtually unchecked authority over private and personal matters.
He was not the final governor to surrender his emergency powers, but while his rules were in place, they were so harmful, inconsistent and even puzzling they were challenged in court and by legislators.
Under Newsom, California closed beaches, which he acknowledges in hindsight “was insane;” ordered gyms to lock out their members; and told the saints they couldn’t gather in their churches.
The French Laundry’s most famous diner decreed that “all individuals living in the state” were to “stay home or at their place of residence” except for those who were “needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors.” His Thanksgiving 2020 message through the California Department of Public Health in October of that year offered guidance that holiday gatherings should not include more than three households, encouraged hosts to collect guests’ names and their contact information, suggested that gatherings last no more than two hours and “strongly discouraged” “singing, chanting, shouting, and physical exertion.”
Even though it was known early on in the pandemic that outdoor transmission of the virus was low, a number of outdoor activities were banned during the outbreak. Newsom was sued for restrictions on placed on “cultural ceremonies such as funerals” weddings, and church services, yet he allowed the film and TV industry to resume under industry safety protocols. He was often rebuked for his favoritism and contradictions.
The economic damage was also substantial. Initial job loss in some parts of the state due to government policy reached an incomprehensible 20%. A recovery followed, but it was incomplete. Four years later, “clusters of job deficits” still persisted in California, says the New York Federal Reserve.
And then there was the loss of life. Newsom “recklessly” pushed “to place more coronavirus patients in nursing homes and assisted living facilities,” the Mercury News editorial board wrote in May 2020, turning “housing for the aged” into “death traps.”
Last month was not the first time Newsom attempted to minimize his egregious actions. He tried to make a similar case on “Meet the Press” in 2023, arguing that he wasn’t the only offender. Other states had restrictions, too.
But not all governors followed his course. A few quickly realized their mistakes. Gov. Brian Kemp began to liberate Georgia in April 2020. Several other southern state governors followed while Newsom was releasing a reopening plan with benchmarks that were, surely by design, unreachable.
The governor’s second admission of guilt is a welcomed development, but Newsom has much to answer for. It’s unlikely, though, that he will have to pay for his mistakes and unnecessarily aggressive liberty-smothering policies. Elected officials have a way of smoothly moving on and often upward even as they leave wreckage in their wake.
Sure, a few other governors also gagged and bound their states, but none has been running for president since they day they took office. Only Newsom has had to the audacity to do that.
Kerry Jackson is the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute and co-author of The California Left Coast Survivor’s Guide.