Gavin Newsom

• 1. Introduction

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  Gavin Newsom, the governor of California since 2019, once fought San Francisco health inspectors over a $2,700 sink. The sink was meant for a carpeted wine shop he owned. The Department of Public Health classed wine as food and insisted the shop needed a place to rinse a mop. Newsom called this bureaucratic malaise. After he became a city supervisor, he told a local newspaper he would work through exactly that kind of thing.

  The man who resented that sink went on to run the city itself. He then served as lieutenant governor and won the top job in Sacramento. Along the way he survived a recall election.

  His path raises several questions. How did a boy with severe dyslexia and a mother juggling three jobs end up bankrolled into business? Why did a mayor defy state law in 2004 over marriage licenses? What did a governor do when a pandemic arrived, and how did one dinner at a famous restaurant nearly cost him his office? And how does a man once considered the conservative mayor of San Francisco, by his own account, end up feuding with President Donald Trump?

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• 2. Reading by Ear

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  Gavin Newsom was born on the 10th of October 1967 in San Francisco, to Tessa and William Newsom III. His father was a state appeals court judge and an attorney for Getty Oil. The family was prominent, and Newsom is a fourth-generation San Franciscan. His childhood was still far from comfortable.

  His parents divorced in 1971, when he was three. Tessa raised Gavin and his younger sister Hilary largely on her own, working as a waitress, a bookkeeper and a secretary, often all at once. Newsom has said she shaped his work ethic. She also opened the house to foster children. His father gave away much of his income, which tightened the budget further. In high school, Newsom washed cars and worked at a local deli.

  Hilary remembered lean Christmases, when their mother warned them not to expect gifts. The wealthy Gettys, family friends through his father, sent lavish presents anyway. In a later memoir, Newsom wrote that he and his sister pretended not to like them, so that Tessa could return them for store credit. The Gettys also took the children on expensive trips, including a hot-air balloon safari and a meeting with King Juan Carlos I of Spain.

  School was harder than any of that. Newsom has described his dyslexia as "pretty severe", and he still has it. It disrupted his reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic. He began at École Notre Dame des Victoires, a French-American bilingual Catholic school, for kindergarten and first grade, and a transfer followed. He attended the same school again for third through fifth grades, in remedial reading classes.

  Throughout his schooling he leaned on audiobooks, summaries and spoken instruction. As an adult he still prefers to take in documents and reports by ear. In a 2023 interview he said his dyslexia "forced me to find workarounds and think differently."

  At Redwood High School in Larkspur, he played basketball as a shooting guard and baseball as an outfielder. He graduated in 1985. Santa Clara University offered him a partial baseball scholarship. Recommendation letters from former governor Jerry Brown and a member of the university's Board of Regents supported his application. In late 1985, elbow surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament ended his hopes of playing varsity ball.

  He credits the Jesuit education at Santa Clara with shaping his worldview. During his junior year he spent a semester in Rome, which he later called "eye-opening" in a 2019 speech. He graduated in 1989 with a degree in political science. The generosity that once arrived as unwanted gifts from the Getty family was about to arrive as startup money.

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• 3. PlumpJack Years

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  On the 14th of May 1991, Newsom and a group of investors formed PlumpJack Associates. The winery followed in 1992, funded with help from Gordon Getty. PlumpJack was the title of an opera Getty had written, and he ended up investing in 10 of Newsom's 11 businesses. Getty told the San Francisco Chronicle that he treated Newsom like a son and backed the first venture because of that bond. Later investments, he said, came because of "the success of the first".

  The PlumpJack Café opened on Fillmore Street in 1993. More ventures piled up through 2000. There was an inn with a café at Squaw Valley in 1994. A Napa Valley winery and the Balboa Café Bar and Grill followed in 1995, then the MatrixFillmore Bar in 1998. A clothing retailer, PlumpJackSport, arrived in 2000. The wider group came to manage 23 businesses, and the enterprise grew to more than 700 employees.

  The numbers were healthy. His annual income topped $429,000 from 1996 to 2001, and by 2002 his holdings were valued at more than $6.9 million. He also had an unusual management habit. Each month he handed a $50 gift certificate to any employee whose business idea had failed. His reasoning was that there can be no success without failure.

  Politics forced a choice in 2004. When he became mayor, Newsom sold his share of the San Francisco businesses. He kept his stake in the PlumpJack companies outside the city, including the Oakville winery, the Cade Winery in Angwin, and the Squaw Valley inn. He is also president in absentia of Airelle Wines Inc., which is connected to the Napa County winery.

  In February 2006 he paid $2,350,000 for a home in the Russian Hill neighborhood, and he listed it in April 2009 for $3,000,000. Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in March 2023. It emerged then that at least three of his wine companies had banked there: PlumpJack, Cade and Odette.

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• 4. Rising at City Hall

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  Newsom's first taste of politics came in 1995, when he volunteered for Willie Brown's successful run for mayor. He hosted a private fundraiser at the PlumpJack Café. Brown repaid the favor quickly. In 1996 he appointed Newsom to the city's Parking and Traffic Commission, and Newsom was later elected its president. A year after that, Brown placed him on the Board of Supervisors, in the seat vacated by Kevin Shelley.

  Newsom was the youngest supervisor at the time, and his father swore him in. He promised to bring his business experience to the board. Brown called him "part of the future generation of leaders of this great city". Newsom described himself as a "social liberal and a fiscal watchdog". Voters elected him to a full term in 1998.

  In 1999 San Francisco abandoned at-large elections for the old district system. Newsom won reelection in 2000 and 2002 in the second district, which covers Pacific Heights, the Marina, Cow Hollow, Sea Cliff and Laurel Heights. It had the city's highest income level and its highest Republican registration. In 2000 he paid $500 to the San Francisco Republican Party to appear on its endorsement slate.

  He first gained attention by pushing to fix the city's municipal railway, known as Muni. His Proposition B, which required detailed customer service plans from Muni and other departments, passed with 56.6% of the vote. His signature achievement, though, was Care Not Cash, a voter initiative known as Measure N. It offered homeless people care, supportive housing and drug treatment in place of direct cash aid. Many homeless rights advocates protested. Newsom later said that progressives and Democrats, nuns and priests, advocates and homeless people were all furious.

  The measure passed, and it gave him volunteers, donors and campaign staff for a mayoral run. A 2008 city audit judged the program largely successful. Average cash payments per person fell from over $300 to $78, and the number of people receiving cash dropped from over 2,500 to about 640.

  The mayoral race of 2003 was tougher. In a nine-person field on the 4th of November, Newsom took 41.9% to Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez's 19.6%. The runoff on the 9th of December was closer, because many of the city's progressive groups backed Gonzalez. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Jesse Jackson campaigned for Newsom, while five supervisors endorsed Gonzalez. Newsom won with 53% of the vote to 47%, a margin of 11,000 votes. He ran as a business-friendly centrist, and some opponents called him conservative.

  He took office on the 8th of January 2004. Care Not Cash began on the 1st of July 2004, and he later launched outreach and placement efforts, including Project Homeless Connect. On the 27th of October 2004 he joined hotel workers on a picket line outside the Westin St. Francis, and he promised that the city would boycott struck hotels. In 2007 he signed the law creating Healthy San Francisco, the first city program in the nation to provide universal health care. That November he won a second term with more than 72% of the vote. Thirteen challengers entered the race, including a nudist activist and the owner of a sex club.

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• 5. Marriage Licenses

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  In 2004, Newsom directed the San Francisco city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. A state law passed in 2000 forbade it. The order made him a national figure.

  In August 2004, the Supreme Court of California annulled the marriages he had authorized, because they conflicted with state law. The act still strengthened his standing in San Francisco and among LGBTQ+ voters.

  The story did not end there. In the 2008 election, Newsom opposed Proposition 8, the ballot initiative to reverse the court ruling that found a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Supporters of the measure then released a commercial that used footage of him from a speech. In it he said: "This door's wide open now. It's going to happen, whether you like it or not."

  Some observers noted that polls moved toward Proposition 8 after the commercial came out. That led to speculation that Newsom had unintentionally helped the amendment pass. Years later, in September 2022, he signed Senate Bill 107, making California the first sanctuary state for transgender youth.

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• 6. The Lieutenant Governor Years

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  On the 21st of April 2009, Newsom announced a run for governor in 2010. State senator Alex Padilla chaired the campaign, and Bill Clinton endorsed him that September. The polls were brutal. He trailed Jerry Brown, the Democratic frontrunner, by more than 20 points in most surveys. That October he dropped out and ran for lieutenant governor instead.

  He won on the 2nd of November 2010 and took office on the 10th of January 2011, serving under Brown. In May 2012 he started hosting The Gavin Newsom Show on Current TV. The same month he drew criticism for calling Sacramento "dull". He said he was there only once a week, since "there's no reason" to be there otherwise.

  His interest in technology produced a book. Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government came out on the 7th of February 2013. He then worked with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, on the California Report Card. The mobile-friendly tool lets residents grade the state on six issues. In 2015 he teamed with California Polytechnic State University on Digital Democracy, which uses facial and voice recognition to help people follow legislative proceedings.

  He also took positions that were risky for a statewide politician. In 2014 he was the only statewide officeholder to endorse Proposition 47, which reclassified some nonviolent offenses valued under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors. Voters passed it. He backed a failed 2012 measure to end capital punishment, noting that California had spent $5 billion since 1978 to execute just 13 people. In 2016 he supported Proposition 62, another repeal attempt, which also failed.

  On cannabis, he co-convened a commission with the American Civil Liberties Union of California in 2013 and released its report in July 2015. He supported Proposition 64, which legalized adult use. In a February 2017 letter to the U.S. attorney general and the president, he argued against federal crackdowns, writing "Dealers don't card kids."

  Newsom won reelection on the 4th of November 2014 over Republican Ron Nehring, with 57.2%. On the 11th of February 2015, he opened a campaign account for the governor's race of 2018.

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• 7. Pandemic and Recall

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  On the 4th of March 2020, Newsom declared a state of emergency after California recorded its first death attributable to COVID-19. The declaration let state agencies buy equipment and services more easily. He also made it a priority to move the state's estimated 108,000 unsheltered homeless people indoors. Another order let officials commandeer hotels and medical facilities for patients.

  Schools were left to decide on closures themselves, but an executive order guaranteed that students' needs would be met either way. About 80% of California's public school students receive free or reduced-price meals, so families could pick them up at libraries, parks and other sites. On the 15th of March he urged people over 65 to isolate and asked bars and restaurants to close their dining rooms. The statewide stay-at-home order became mandatory on the 19th of March.

  By the 26th of April, he had issued 30 executive orders while the legislature was out of session. On the 28th of April, he joined the governors of Oregon and Washington in announcing a shared approach to reopening. He said reopening would rest on "facts and data, not on ideology. Not what we want. Not what we hope." California was also the first state to commit to mailing ballots to every registered voter for the November election.

  Cases rose again. He made face coverings mandatory on the 18th of June, and on the 13th of July he reinstated closures of bars and indoor dining. Vaccines were slow to start. By the 20th of January 2021, California had used only about 30% of its doses, among the lowest rates in the country. His approval rating fell from 64% in September 2020 to 46% in February 2021, with 48% disapproving. Over half the population was fully vaccinated by September 2021.

  Meanwhile, a recall effort took shape. On the 21st of February 2020, Orrin Heatlie, a Yolo County deputy sheriff, introduced a petition. It cited sanctuary state policy, homelessness, high taxes and other grievances. It was approved for circulation on the 10th of June 2020, and it needed 1,495,709 verified signatures. A judge named James P. Arguelles extended the deadline from the 17th of November 2020 to the 17th of March 2021, because of the pandemic.

  Then came The French Laundry. Newsom attended a dinner there on the 6th of November 2020, despite his own public health message. Between the 5th of November and the 7th of December, more than 442,000 new signatures were submitted and verified. Roughly 98% of the final total of 1,719,900 verified signatures, or 1,664,010, arrived between November 2020 and March 2021. Newsom said he should have modeled better behavior and not joined the dinner.

  Anger over closures and lost jobs fed the effort, and so did a fraud scandal at the state unemployment agency, put at $31 billion. In January 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that $11.4 billion in benefits had gone to ineligible claimants, with another $19 billion under investigation. California's auditor found that $810 million went to fraudulent claims filed on behalf of prison inmates. By the summer of 2021, California owed the federal government $23 billion for unemployment benefits.

  The recall vote was held on the 14th of September 2021. Only 38% voted to remove him. In 2022 he won a second term over Republican Brian Dahle with 59.2%. No Democratic nominee for governor had fallen short of 60% since 2010.

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• 8. Promises and Fights

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  On the 13th of March 2019, Newsom declared a moratorium on executions in California. It gave a reprieve to all 737 inmates on death row, then the largest in the Western Hemisphere. It also withdrew the lethal injection protocol and closed the execution chamber at San Quentin. In a CBS This Morning interview, he called capital punishment a racist system that he could not support in good conscience. In January 2022 he ordered the state to begin dismantling San Quentin's death row and turn it into a space for rehabilitation programs. Republican critics called the move defiance of the voters.

  Housing was a harder fight. In his first week in office, Newsom threatened to withhold infrastructure money from communities that blocked housing. In late January 2019 he announced a lawsuit against Huntington Beach, and a year later the city moved to settle. In 2022 he declared that "NIMBYism is destroying the state", and he signed 39 housing bills that year. One eliminated minimum parking requirements near mass transit, which UCLA professor Michael Manville called one of the biggest land-use reforms in the country. Yet the homeless population hit a record 181,000 in January 2023, and that October Newsom vetoed several bills meant to widen housing assistance.

  Some of his claims did not hold up. On the 23rd of June 2021, the NPR station CapRadio reported a problem with a January 2020 claim. Newsom and Cal Fire had said 90,000 acres at wildfire risk were treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns. The real figure was 11,399 acres, an overstatement of 690%. The fuel breaks were meant to allow quick evacuations and avoid a repeat of Paradise in 2018. There, at least eight evacuees burned to death in their vehicles.

  Donors also drew scrutiny. In February 2024, Bloomberg News reported that Newsom pushed for a bakery exemption in AB 1228. That law set a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. The exemption covered 24 Panera Bread cafes owned by Greg Flynn, who had given Newsom's campaigns $100,000 and $64,800. Newsom called it part of the sausage making. In September 2024, he signed AB 3206, which exempted the Intuit Dome from the state's last call alcohol law. Its owner is Steve Ballmer, whose wife Connie Ballmer gave his campaign $1 million in 2021.

  The sharpest fight was with Trump. In June 2025, protests broke out in Los Angeles after federal immigration raids. The president federalized up to 4,000 California National Guard troops and sent in Marines. On the 9th of June, California filed Newsom v. Trump, arguing that the deployment exceeded the president's powers under 10 U.S.C. § 252 and violated the Tenth Amendment and the Posse Comitatus Act.

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