Newsom, Garcetti faces political difficulties as California shuts down again

SAN FRANCISCO – Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, high-profile California Democrats with even higher political aspirations, took four months and 7,000 deaths to move from vanguard to nearly defeated in the fight against Covid-19. .

Newsom’s early success in the Covid-19 crisis turned into a sobering change Monday after the state erupted at a deadly tipping point, prompting the governor to impose the nation’s most dramatic shutdown to contain the outbreak. alarming.

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Garcetti, also bragging about swift action in March, warned that the country’s second-largest city is now on the brink of a “red” state of emergency and could face yet another complete shutdown.

The two leaders have been hit during the crisis by countervailing lawsuits: businesses and local politicians clamoring to reopen, and health officials warning that too hasty measures would reverse months of painfully earned progress. But now, with the numbers exploding, a chorus of critics is questioning how the California governor and the mayor of Los Angeles reopened their businesses.

The resurgence of the disease has even deeper implications after the state’s two largest school districts announced they will keep the campuses closed when the academic year begins next month.

Many California Democrats blame President Donald Trump for lessening the dangers of the virus and focusing so much on the economy. But some here suggest that Newsom gave in too soon to business interests and allowed public pressure, rather than science, to dictate his movements.

“The desire for popularity gets in the way of making good decisions in a pandemic,” said State Senator Steve Glazer, a Democrat from the Bay Area who has repeatedly urged the governor to take “command and control” of the situation and Don’t trust a mosaic of local officials to solve it.

Newsom closed indoor bars and restaurants in California on Monday, the first time it has imposed a statewide shutdown since the economy reopened. In the hardest hit counties with a combination of 32 million residents, 80 percent of California’s population, the governor also closed barber shops, movie theaters, shopping malls, churches, and gyms.

Glazer wants even stricter public health controls, more testing, broader contact tracking, and tighter enforcement from corrupt companies, before loosening the reins further. That could be unpopular politician, but Glazer said “that bad political instinct for popularity is very dangerous when you need an adult in the room.”

During the first two months of the crisis, Newsom and Garcetti were regularly announced for containing the virus, while the Northeast saw dire waves of deaths and hospitalizations. The two were frequent guests on national talk shows, discussing the steps they were taking to avoid the same fate as the East Coast states.

In late April, Newsom came under intense pressure from a long list of business owners, as well as residents frustrated by limitations when the virus appeared to be under control. Rural counties in particular had avoided the virus more than heavily populated areas like Los Angeles, which emerged as the state’s hot spot but never suffered from the depths of the New York City crisis.

Newsom resisted the reopening as governors from other parts advanced. Its first set of reopening requirements was evaluated by local leaders and some lawmakers as too high a bar, with criteria such as the absence of deaths from coronavirus for 14 days.

However, in mid-May, he relaxed some standards and stuck his toe in the reopening by allowing dinner indoors and retail pickup in some counties. Then he opened churches. In a matter of weeks, a cascade of sectors arrived, up to bars, gyms and tattoo parlors, where social distancing is particularly challenging.

All along, he has said that he was guided by science. He has pointed out that counties are free to impose stricter rules. And he has described reopening as a “dimming switch” that turns off some sectors when infections and hospitalizations become problematic.

“The dimmer switch goes up and down based on changing conditions, depending on the context or what you’re trying to achieve,” Newsom said Monday. “So that’s what we’re doing.”

California Institute of Public Policy President Mark Baldassare, a veteran pollster, said Californians’ signal was clear: prioritize health and safety over revitalizing the economy.

Newsom in the early days of the pandemic enjoyed an approval rating of up to 83 percent in a survey. But now he may face a calculation from voters who perceive that “priorities have changed and that has been the cause of this increase,” said Baldassare.

The Governor and Garcetti may also face the pullback of key components: parents who were expecting to send their children to school in the fall. The state’s two largest school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, announced Monday that they will keep campuses closed due to the increase in coronavirus. A trending refrain has been that school children were less of a priority than reopening bars and other social activities.

Democratic strategist Garry South, who was a top aide to former Governor Gray Davis and has Newsom’s ear, said it was a mistake for both the governor and the mayor to reopen such establishments, allowing beachside bistro scenes. full of crowds of young people without masks. persons.

The application, while probably unpopular, would have been easy because “they are operating under a liquor license that the state has the power to withdraw,” he said. But not acting may not only have fueled the resurgence of infections, it has also sent a message to mockers everywhere.

Newsom’s team, however, insists that it has moved aggressively to tackle countless problems in the nation’s most populous and diverse state.

“We were the first to issue a home stay. We use science and data to do that, and to create a reopening process that takes into account the state’s diversity, ” said communications director Nathan Click. “But when the governor saw that the data was going in the opposite direction, he cracked down on turning the curve in the other direction.”

Political consultant Katie Merrill noted that “a governor, an elected official can only do so much if people are not going to follow the lead, and I think you have seen it in that because he has periodically begged the people of California: don’t ‘Don’t go to the beaches on Memorial Day, don’t crowd certain public spaces. ”

Like Newsom, Garcetti has been plagued by the pandemic among conservatives frustrated by his public health orders and progressives who believe he has not done enough. And the political climate Garcetti faces has been compounded by the protests following George Floyd’s death, with Black Lives Matter activists putting pressure on the Los Angeles Police Department and its boss, Michel Moore.

Garcetti, said Michael Trujillo, a Los Angeles political strategist who advised one of Garcetti’s opponents in 2013 mayor, is caught up in “this perfect sandwich with right-wing conservatives on one slice of bread and hardened progressives like the other slice. of bread. ” . “

As for whether those forces are reflected in the broader electorate, he said: “That is the question for which we do not know the answer.”

Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles, said he has seen no evidence that Garcetti is suffering politically from the pandemic. Like Newsom, he was praised for his early order to stay home, and has continued to provide regular updates at grim meetings.

“I think he is getting very high marks right now,” Sragow said. However, “there are risks” for Garcetti if the crisis worsens, potentially exposing him to “a lot of frustration and anger on the part of voters,” Sragow added.

The immediate effect of the resurgence on Garcetti’s political prospects is unclear. At least two private surveys are currently in the field in Los Angeles that will test their favorability, one that includes only part of the city, one city-wide.

Republican strategist Luis Alvarado, founder of a Latino-focused political consulting firm, and now an advisor to the Lincoln Project Republican group targeting Trump, agreed that Garcetti and Newsom have managed to walk the delicate tightrope amid public pressure. and the political collapse.

“I think the general feeling is that they are doing the best they can under the circumstances and pressures they are under, in opposition to the president,” with polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly believe that “all the blame is on him.”

However, when writing the story, Glazer warned, the actions of elected officials will be judged not on polls or popular opinion, but on factors that will stand the test of time.

“A political career should not be the engine of a pandemic. So you lose your reelection and save thousands of lives, ” Glazer said. “I would say it is hellish compensation for your political legacy.”