But a very high-profile veto message this past week quickly had both critics and some supporters asking if the proud progressive governor has suddenly started weighing how his decisions in Sacramento will go over with more moderate voters in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, the first stops on any presidential hopeful’s road to the White House., which would have allowed Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles to open supervised injection sites for drug addicts.
“We are incredibly disappointed and heartbroken that Governor Newsom has put his own political ambitions ahead of saving thousands of lives and vetoed this critical legislation,” Jeannette Zanipatin, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement after the veto. “This was definitely the biggest obstacle on the road to New Hampshire,” said veteran political analyst Dan Schnur.
“Particularly when it comes to crime policy, he has to reflect on what happened to Michael Dukakis,” Pitney said. Brian Dahle speaks at the De Sabla Fire Hall in October 2017 when he was the state Assembly Republican leader. Dahle, now a state senator, will face off against Gavin Newsom for governor in November. , which in its early language would have decriminalized possession of hallucinogenic drugs by adults 21 and older including LSD, Ecstasy, mescaline and psilocybin mushrooms. The current version of the bill would merely require a study on doing that.
Newsom ordered the first statewide stay-home order in March 2020, oversaw the most extensive school closures and some of the longest-lasting face mask mandates, and called for California to be the first state to require COVID-19 vaccines for children to attend school.