FILE – California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., on March 16, 2023. Newsom announced Thursday, June 8, 2023, that he is proposing an amendment to the United States Constitution that would enshrine into law gun regulations including universal background checks and raising the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, his latest foray into national politics. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) Rich Pedroncelli/AP
Gavin Newsom’s case against electing Democrats to the White House
Washington Examiner August 31, 12:01 AM August 31, 12:01 AM Video Embed
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) unwittingly made a compelling case this week why voters should not elect a Democrat to the White House again.
Responding to tweets from Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, complaining about “the disaster that is downtown” San Francisco, Newsom admitted that Musk “has touched on a key issue” and touted the $15.3 billion California has spent on the problem. Then Newsom tried to shift blame to “federal courts” that have blocked “local efforts to clear street encampments.”
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“Courts must also be held accountable,” Newsom went on. “Enough is enough.”
It is true that federal courts have made it harder for San Francisco and every other city and state covered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (including Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) to maintain public health and safety.
In 2018, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit struck down an anti-camping statute passed by Boise, Idaho, to address a growing homelessness problem. Just as Democratic-appointed justices once invented a right to privacy not in the text of the 14th Amendment to create a right to abortion, this 9th Circuit panel created a public right to camping by citing the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments.
Never before had the Eighth Amendment been used to invalidate a criminal statute entirely, but that didn’t slow the 9th Circuit judges. They held that unless a city can prove it has enough shelter beds to house every homeless person, not a single citation for illegal camping may be issued.
It was this decision in Martin v. Boise that a federal judge in San Francisco cited when she issued an injunction preventing the city from clearing its homeless camps last December. Another 9th Circuit panel heard arguments in the appeal of that case last week.
When conservatives were outraged by the creation of a right to abortion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, they, like Newsom, vowed to hold judges accountable. But federal judges have life tenure. They cannot be voted out of office. The only way to hold the judiciary accountable is to vote for the presidential candidates of the party that rejects the activist judicial philosophy of judges making bad rulings.
Guess which party appointed every judge responsible for Martin v. Boise and every subsequent appeals decision upholding its ruling? Yes, the Democratic Party.
Of the three judges who heard Martin v. Boise, two were appointed by President Bill Clinton and the third by Barack Obama. When the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, challenged Martin v. Boise this year, the two judges who ruled for the homeless were appointed by Clinton. The lone dissent was written by a nominee of President Donald Trump.
San Francisco’s homeless problem was not created entirely by Democratic judges — Newsom has made plenty of policy errors of his own — but to the extent that federal courts have been a hindrance and not a help, the Democratic Party is wholly to blame.
If you are a voter who wants good, commonsense judges who will enforce the law and not create fantasy rights out of thin air, you should vote Republican. Just ask Gavin Newsom.
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