Two of the most prominent California Democrats—Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass—are in the biggest fight of their political lives over the fallout from the response to the wildfires that have engulfed the greater Los Angeles area.
Firefighters made progress on containing the blazes over the weekend, but forecasts for more extreme fire weather this week threaten new populated neighborhoods, from Brentwood to Encino. With at least 24 dead and thousands of structures destroyed, the fires have become not just a physical catastrophe for residents, but a political crisis for city and state Democrats.
Critics argue that officials not only fumbled the response to the blaze, but were ill-prepared for the inferno to begin with — with hydrants running dry and at least one state reservoir sitting empty amid an unusually hot, dry and windy fire season in Southern California. The state’s water and forest management policies have also been the focus of some of the blowback, particularly from Republicans.
The criticism being lodged at the governor and mayor — including from members of their own political base of support in deep-blue L.A. — combined with California’s penchant for recalling politicians who have fallen out of favor with the electorate, has led to murmurs from Sacramento to Beverly Hills about whether either Bass or Newsom will retain their jobs once the fires are controlled.
Newsom, who is term limited, will leave the governor’s mansion in January 2027, while Bass is in the second year of her first four-year term. She has announced her intention to seek reelection in 2026.
But in California, any elected public officer can be recalled by voters before their time in office expires. This includes state officials like the governor and local officials like the mayor.
One formal recall effort has already been launched against Newsom, while more than 100,000 signatures have been attached to an online petition demanding Bass’ resignation.
Citing Newsom’s comments about rebuilding the Pacific Palisades, Randy Economy, who is leading the recall effort against Newsom, told Newsweek it’s not the governor’s to rebuild.
“How dare he? It’s up to the 10,000, 15,000 homes that have been destroyed,” he said. “It’s up to the people.”
“This is emblematic of who he is as a leader, and I think this is emblematic of who he is as a politician, and he has no depth,” Economy said in an interview Monday. “So therefore we are taking the extraordinary steps to officially recall him.”
Economy said his group had already been planning to initiate a recall against Newsom before the fires erupted, but that the recent devastation “shortened our time frame and changed things.” He plans to officially serve the governor recall papers as early as this week.
In a statement sent to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Newsom said the governor is “100 percent focused on the fires, ongoing rescue efforts and the recovery process – not politics.”
“Readers still should have the context that the same group of far-right Trump acolytes have launched six different recall attempts against the governor since he’s taken office, each of which have failed spectacularly,” spokesperson Nathan Click told Newsweek on Monday.
“Even Republican Party leaders have criticized these repeated attempts as a brazen campaign finance ‘grift,’ and the recall organizers have been sued by their own donors for pocketing funds raised previously.”
Economy said Newsom is the main focus of his newly-formed coalition Saving California, but that the group is “not opposed” to a recall effort against Bass. He said he has taken a few initial steps to lay groundwork for a challenge to the mayor, but that no official decision has been made to launch a bid to unseat the mayor.
“We are taking it upon ourselves, and I’m taking it upon myself to lead this charge and to oversee this recall against Governor Newsom,” he said. “We will explore every option in regards to seeing the viability of recalling Mayor bass as well, and maybe we’ll get a two-for-one.”
“This is about making sure that the people are reminded that they are in charge of democracy, and that people like Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom, they work for us.”
Newsweek reached out to Bass’ office for comment.
How Do California’s Recall Elections Work?
Recall processes in California are initiated after a notice for intent to recall is filed by an individual or group seeking to oust a public official. Proponents of the recall then need to collect a required number of signatures from registered voters within five months.
For the governor’s office, those signatures must equal at least 12 percent of the votes cast in the previous election. More than 10 million Californian voted in the last gubernatorial election, so about 1.3 million voters would have to sign onto the recall effort.
“It’s about 9,000 signatures a day,” Economy said. “That should be no problem.”
It is unclear exactly how many signatures would be required to trigger a recall against Bass because that number relies on the size of an electoral jurisdiction, and specific registration figures for Los Angeles are not available.
But given that the city represents a significant portion of Los Angeles County, which has more than 5.6 million registered voters as of July, recall proponents would likely need some 99,000 signatures in the same five month period (California’s election laws requires signatures from at least 10 percent of voters if there are more than 100,000 registered voters in a city).
After the required signatures are collected and verified, a recall election is scheduled, allowing voters to decide whether to remove the official in question from office and if so, who should replace them. If the majority votes in favor of the recall, the official is removed and a successor is elected.
What Happened Last Time Californians Tried to Oust Newsom?
Despite being a rising Democratic star, Newsom has faced a recall challenge in the past. Californians voted in a special recall election in August 2021 after an effort to oust the governor over Newsom’s personal behavior and leadership during the pandemic gained enough support. More than 60 percent of voters opposed the recall.
This time, because fewer people voted in the last gubernatorial election than the one before, Economy, who was a senior advisor and media spokesperson for the 2021 recall against Newsom, will also have a lower bar to meet, needing about 200,000 fewer signatures less than in 2021.
“This governor is not capable of governing the fifth largest economy in the world, and he’s not capable of governing California in the time of a crisis,” Economy said. “He has been a poster boy his whole career, but when challenges arise, it’s like the Peter principle, he can’t rise to the occasion. And everybody has known that in California for a long time.”
How Long Has Gavin Newsom Been Governor?
Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, was first elected to the governor’s office in 2018, succeeding term-limited Jerry Brown, a Democrat. He defeated Republican John Cox with 62 percent of the vote.
He was reelected in 2022 with 59 percent of the vote. Still, more than four million residents cast a ballot for his Republican opponent, then-state Senator Brian Dahle.
How Likely Are Newsom and Bass to Survive a Recall Effort?
John Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former Republican National Committee official, told Newsweek that while recall efforts may not be top of mind for those most impacted by the fires that are still raging, it could become a focal point for them to take their anger out once they reach the other side of the immediate disaster. The full containment of the wildfires is also likely to coincide with the signature collection window for those challenges.
“At the moment, most people in Los Angeles County are focusing on the effects of the fire: loss of life and property, evacuations, power outages, and insurance worries,” Pitney, who lives a few miles form the Eaton Fire, said. “Politics is not at the top of the agenda for ordinary citizens.”
The Eaton Fire has burned more than 14,000 acres as of early Monday and remains 33 percent contained, according to CAL FIRE data.
“There are two kinds of Angelenos right now: those who have suffered a personal catastrophe and those who are scared that they will be next,” he said. “When the crisis is over, people here might have more time to think about recalls.”
Pitney doesn’t believe Newsom would be in much danger at that point, since he already survived the last recall effort and will be term-limited by the next gubernatorial election, but “Mayor Bass might have more to worry about.”
“Her absence at the start of the fire is the kind of thing that people remember,” he said.
Why Did Karen Bass Go To Ghana?
When the first blazes broke out in the foothills of the Pacific Palisades last Tuesday, the mayor was in Ghana, where she was part of a delegation sent to the inauguration of a new president at the invitation of President Joe Biden. She returned to Los Angeles from West Africa on Wednesday via a special military flight.
The trip, and her absence from the city at a time of crisis, have been widely criticized. Many of her critics have resurfaced comments Bass made during her mayoral campaign in which she pledged to not travel abroad if elected.
“Not only would I of course live here, but I also would not travel internationally — the only places I would go would be D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco and New York, in relation to LA,” Bass told the New York Times in October 2021.
A Times review of her daily schedule revealed the mayor has traveled out of the country at least four other times in recent months on taxpaers’ dime, including once to Mexico for the inauguration of President Claudia Sheinbaum and three times to Paris for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.
What Do Angelenos Think About Newsom and Bass’ Response?
Dave Wasson, an executive producer of Netflix‘s “The Cuphead Show!” who lost his $1.5 million home in Altadena in the Eaton Fire, told Newsweek he doesn’t blame Newsom or Bass for failing to prepare or effectively respond to the wildfires.
“I don’t know how anybody could be prepared for this,” Wasson said Monday. “The scale of this thing is so vast, so devastating. I don’t think anybody could be prepared for it because Los Angeles hasn’t seen anything on this scale before.”
“We lost everything,” he said, including drawings, paintings and other artwork from his 35-year career in animation. “Everything that I ever did as basically in that house. That’s the thing I’m most sad about, that stuff is definitely irreplaceable.”
An online fundraiser for Wasson has eclipsed $51,000 as of midday Monday. He and his family are currently looking for temporary housing in Pasadena as they figure out their next move.
“When they investigate this and look back, I’m sure they’re going to find things that maybe could’ve been better or, you know, if they had only done this instead of that, something might’ve happened differently,” the 58-year-old said.
“But I’m not really looking to blame anyone for this. Global warming or climate change, that’s really what’s happening here.”
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