California’s constitution requires the governor to “report to the Legislature each calendar year on the condition of the state and may make recommendations.”
For the past seven years, Gavin Newsom has reluctantly and minimally honored that command, usually eschewing the traditional January address to a joint legislative session in the Capitol.
But today, entering the final year of his governorship, he delivered a 64-minute, no-script paean to legislators that catalogued his achievements and portrayed the state as a model for the world, while interspersing harsh criticism of President Donald Trump as an autocrat who is undermining democracy.
Thus it was not only a celebratory swan song but a platform of sorts for Newsom’s all-but-certain campaign to succeed Trump in 2028 — implying that a prosperous, inclusive and generous California could become a model for the nation should he occupy the White House.
Newsom only mentioned Trump by name twice, once while denouncing cutbacks in federal child care funds and near the end, excoriating his refusal to send billions of dollars in relief for the deadly wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County exactly a year ago.
Newsom termed it “a complete failure to act” and added, “It’s time for the president of the United States to act like the president of the United States.”
During the speech, Newsom also dropped a few hints about what he wants to happen during his final year as governor — particularly about putting the state’s finances in order. Ever since Newsom erroneously proclaimed in 2022 that the state had a $97.5 billion surplus and he and the Legislature ramped up spending, the budget has been plagued with multibillion-dollar deficits that have been papered over with accounting gimmicks, off-the-books loans and transfers from emergency reserves.
The Legislature’s budget advisor, Gabe Petek, has projected another $18 billion deficit for 2026-27, perhaps growing to $35 billion thereafter.
Newsom told legislators that his proposed budget, which will be unveiled Friday, anticipates an additional $42.3 billion in revenues, based on recent increases in tax payments. It will, he said, close the gap and provide money to restore reserves, pay down the state’s pension debt and finance increases in some programs, including a jump in education support. The $42.3 billion is expected over three years, a spokesman from his finance department later clarified.
Were the Legislature to embrace Newsom’s rosy fiscal scenario, it would allow him to end his governorship a year hence with a budget that, at least on paper, would be in the black.
However, recent history implies that Newsom’s projected revenue windfall should be viewed with skepticism. His Department of Finance quietly acknowledged later that his 2022 claim of a $97.5 billion surplus was based on a $165 billion overstatement of revenues over four years.
All in all, it was arguably the most cogent address that Newsom has delivered as governor, even if it ignored, downplayed or rationalized some of California’s most vexing issues, such as the nation’s highest rates of homelessness, unemployment, poverty and living costs, not to mention the budget deficit.
It was clearly aimed, Newsom suggested, at refuting a “California derangement syndrome” that sees the state as a hellhole of crime and squalor, with taxes and regulations that suffocate business and drive people to other states.
It’s a clever play on the “Trump derangement syndrome” that those on the political right often tout. Wordplay notwithstanding, if and when Newsom makes his presidential ambitions official his most daunting factor will be simply that he’s from California.
Reality lies somewhere between the exalted view of California that Newsom peddles, claiming “we simply have no peer,” and the dystopian image that dominates right wing media.
Someone once observed that truth is the first casualty of war. By the same token, reality only rarely drives political campaigns.
Dan Walters is one of most decorated and widely syndicated columnists in California history, authoring a column four times a week that offers his view and analysis of the state’s political, economic, social and demographic trends. He began covering California politics in 1975, just as Jerry Brown began his first stint as governor, and began writing his column in 1981, first for the Sacramento Union for three years, then for The Sacramento Bee for 33 years and now for CalMatters since 2017.
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