These days, it is hard to figure out what California’s ambitious governor, Gavin Newsom, is up to. One day, he is hosting MAGA stalwarts and shocking his progressive allies by agreeing with their stoke-the-base contention that transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports. The next day, the old, liberal Newsom crows about California having “more EV stations than gas pumps” while criticizing the Trump administration for its campaign against electric cars.
All of this has his allies and supporters scratching their heads and wondering what position he will jettison next in the effort to position himself for a 2028 presidential bid. And as Cal Matters, a California news outlet reports, “The shifting tone and positions without explanation has undermined Democrats’ trust.”
What Newsom is doing has resurrected old concerns that he is a “say anything, do anything” kind of politician whose only core value is promoting himself. He’ll have some explaining to do if he hopes to avoid being tarred with the label “king of the flip-floppers.”
The governor better be aware of the possibility that he is being set up by MAGA-nation, which sees him as easy pickings if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. He should be wary of newfound admirers such as Steve Bannon, whom Politico calls a “MAGA flamethrower.”
“When asked if Newsom could give Republicans problems,” Politico reports, Bannon “said simply, ‘Hell, yes.’”
Whether or not he is being played, as Newsom enters the stretch run in his term-limited governorship, he faces an important test of conviction involving the issue of capital punishment. Here is what comprises that test.
What will he do with the 591 people who, as of January 1, were under a sentence of death in California? That is more than any other state in the country, far outstripping Florida, which ranks second among death penalty states with 283.
Will he follow the example of other governors who have emptied their state’s death row, or as much of it as they could, before they left office or of former President Joe Biden, who commuted 37 of 40 federal death sentences in the waning months of his term? One might have thought that he would, given his prior anti-death penalty positions.
Based on his behavior of late, it is now harder to predict what Newsom will do.
If he wants to seek the White House, will he think that tacking left on capital punishment is more beneficial (especially in the Democratic primaries) or is it an impediment in the general election (if he is nominated) where it would give his opponent more ammunition to paint him as another crazy, California leftie?
Meantime, one can hope that when the time comes, Governor Newsom will heed what he has said in the past about capital punishment.
For example, in 2019, when he imposed a moratorium on executions in his state, Newsom could not have been clearer about his death penalty views. “The intentional killing of another person is wrong, and as Governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual.”
He added:
Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It’s irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.
In 2022, Newsom announced that California’s death row would be dismantled within two years. At the time, as the Death Penalty Information Center notes, he said ,“I think premeditated murder is wrong, in all its forms and manifestation, including government-sponsored premeditated murder. I don’t support the death penalty, never have.”
“The prospect of your ending up on death row,” Newsom continued, “has more to do with your wealth and race than it does your guilt or innocence. We talk about justice, we preach justice, but as a nation, we don’t practice it on death row.”
Newsom deserves a lot of credit for pushing back against capital punishment. Both the moratorium and dismantling death row are remarkable achievements.
But there is more to be done.
That brings us back to the clemency question. To this point, Newsom’s opposition to capital punishment has not led him to issue any commutations to people with death sentences.
Nonetheless, The Sacramento Bee reports that in December 2024, “advocates including the California Catholic Conference of Bishops, the American Civil Liberties Union, and groups opposing the death penalty urged Newsom to convert the sentences of condemned inmates in the state.”
California’s commutation process for death-sentenced prisoners is complex and not entirely within Newsom’s control.
As the Sacramento Bee describes it, “Under California’s Constitution, Newsom has the power to immediately commute the sentences of all condemned inmates who had no prior felony convictions when they were sentenced to death, and he can commute the rest with concurrence of four members of the seven-member California Supreme Court.”
The Bee says that “About a third of the…people condemned to death in California prisons are eligible for immediate commutation.”
So, the ball is in the governor’s court.
His spokesman has said, “‘The idea of commuting death row sentences has long been under consideration.’ In a nod to the fraught politics around the death penalty, she said future actions would be respectful of the needs of victims and their families.”
For Newsom, the time will soon come when the consideration must turn into action. He is right to think about the needs of victims and their families.
But he should also remember that the spouses, children, or grandchildren of people condemned to die experience profound loss when a loved one is incarcerated and faces the possibility of execution.
“Each person sentenced,” the journalist Sophia Laurenzi observes, “has a constellation of family members who must navigate the unique, overlooked, and isolating challenges of their loved ones’ death sentences. Some are estranged, while some are in daily contact. Some uproot their lives to be a car ride away from where their loved one is incarcerated. Others spend thousands of dollars to visit every few years.”
All are “relegated to the shadows due to social stigma and capital punishment’s long history as a notoriously secretive institution.”
Every day that Newsom waits is one day longer that that stigma endures.
Moreover, some death penalty opponents are convinced that “A mass commutation [by Newsom]… would serve as a powerful statement, would save hundreds of lives, and could act as a catalyst, potentially setting in motion a movement that, for the first time, presents the prospect of achieving total abolition of the death penalty in the United States.”
Whether that is right or wrong, Newsom has a choice to make. Whatever he chooses, he will pay a political price.
One thing seems certain. Natasha Minsker of the California Anti-Death Penalty Coalition gets it right when she says, “If Governor Newsom commutes 600 death sentences, effectively, that’s the end of the death penalty in California.”
