By Patrick Ruckert
July 25, 2021
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/Recall Bulletin %234.pdf?_t=1627336798
As several polls recently make clear, Newsom is no longer judged to have a smooth ride in defeating the recall on September 14. Now, with 42% of those polled favoring the recall, and 48% opposed, with 9% undecided, the San Diego Union on July 23 concluded that, “The recall of Gov. Newsom is more likely than we previously thought.”
Adding to the bad news for the governor is another question in the poll, asking voters if they would vote to re-elect Newsom in 2020. 58% said no.
All the more reason then to take the advice I gave in Bulletin #3 http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20210718%20Recall%20Bulletin%20%233.pdf?_t=1626830461&fbclid=IwAR26Rmi9ovc2fOWsxM8CwwnLK7uLNlz39DCG0HbLSVADkjD4Mm0lQfspaaA and to reach out to your Democratic neighbors with the ideas that can unify all the people of California. Of course, there are exceptions to “all,” especially with the most committed of the “woke” denizens among us.
Newsom’s vulnerability comes from three crises our state is in the midst of: Drought, wildfires, and a surging number of new Covid cases.
Remember, what gave the recall campaign a boost was the governor’s lock down and the misery that inflected on especially the poorer part of the population. If he dares to require new lockdowns, forces children to mask-up in the classroom, and once again pisses people off, it will give the recall a new boost.
As for the wildfires, that is a longer-term problem, but one that Newsom, being the governor, must own.
Now let us discuss the drought. Knowing damn well that whatever he does Newsom will be stepping on toes, so he does nothing decisive, which will provide nothing decisive, and piss people off anyway. His pathetic declaration of drought emergency in 50 of 58 counties, and his call for everyone to cut back their use of water by 15%, voluntarily, would be laughable, if so much was not at stake.
The California State Constitution echoes the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, especially the phrase there, “promote the general welfare,” in regard to the section in the state constitution on water (keep reading and you will get to it). Here is the Preamble, which also makes clear the principles that must be our thinking as we reach out to Democrats on the necessity of recalling Newsom:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Just two days ago the State Water Resources Control Board announced that while currently, water is unavailable for approximately 5,700 water right holders and claimants, regulators are planning to stop thousands of additional farmers from taking water out of the state’s major rivers and streams. The board will vote on this “emergency curtailment” order Aug. 3.
Responding to similar threats by counties, agalert.com wrote on July 21 a commentary, titled, “Growing food is essential, reasonable use of water,” in which, in addition to repeating the need for new infrastructure and water storage, makes the important observation that the California State Constitution, Article X, section 2, states that all the water of the state belongs to all the people of the state, and that the water resources of the state are also “put to the beneficial use to the fullest extent of which they are capable.”
The commentary then continues:
“If anything, the concept of reasonable use speaks to the need for balance in water use, against the backdrop of the need to make it productive. Yet we saw this doctrine used by regulators to constrain farm water use in the last drought, and we are now seeing a troubling expansion of this approach in the current drought.
“From a water rights standpoint, it’s a show-stopper. But there is nothing balanced about calling farm water use unreasonable. Not if you are expecting to resort to your local Safeway or farmers market in the way that all of us do.
“….How do we reconcile that representation to this new relegation of agricultural water use to an alleged “unreasonable” use?
“Is it reasonable to hamstring food production through unnecessary and expansive use of a legal doctrine that is amorphous at best, when the likely alternative sources for that displaced food supply will lead to worse environmental outcomes?
“Let’s be clear: There’s no doubt that, in many places, we are brutally short of water this year. That’s precisely where we look to our water rights system to go to work. However, while short-term curtailments based upon honest water availability analysis and solid administration of our water right priority system are one thing, wholesale, ham-fisted deployment of a subjective legal concept may leave us with a bell we can’t unring.”
Yes, the bureaucrats of Sacramento abuse the law, regulations and the State Constitution, and it is time for new leadership in the state that will promote the general welfare of all the people and their posterity. That begins with the Recall of Newsom.
