California Governor Gavin Newsom must assume Californians don’t care about his political history if he thinks he can be the Golden State’s savior from PG&E’s, as he calls it, “corporate greed.”
According to a Washington Post article published in November, PG&E has given Newsom and his wife more than $700,000 to support Newsom’s ballot initiatives, political campaigns, inauguration festivities and his wife’s foundation, the Representation Project, which funds her films.
Newsom has no authority to hold PG&E accountable or protect California from its incompetence after receiving so much funding from the company.
Over the past three years, PG&E has allowed wildfires to run rampant in California by not upgrading its infrastructure, causing 85 deaths and billions of dollars in damages, according to The Washington Post.
PG&E responded to recent fire danger by cutting power to thousands of its customers across California, affecting 50,000 customers in 11 counties on
Nov. 20 after initially telling 150,000 Californians they would lose power, according to the Mercury News.
The first of these emergency shut-offs began months earlier, when PG&E cut power to more than two million Californians on Oct. 9, according to USA Today.
In a press conference on Oct. 24, Newsom responded to PG&E’s behavior accusing the company of mismanagement and selfishness.
“As it relates to PG&E, it’s about dog-eats-dog capitalism meeting climate change,” he said. “It’s about corporate greed meeting climate change.”
In a Sacramento news conference on Nov. 1, Newsom said he wants to accelerate PG&E’s ongoing bankruptcy case and talked about a future where the state of California controls its citizens’ power.
Newsom’s criticisms of PG&E’s handling of California’s fire crisis are completely unfounded and hypocritical, given that the company has helped fund his career.
In fact, Newsom completely compromised his authority in this matter by staying in PG&E’s pocket for years.
At least $227,000 of the funding for Newsom’s campaigns and committees have come from PG&E, according to The Washington Post.
These donations make the corporation at least partially responsible for his rise to the office of governor.
To Newsom’s credit, he has slightly distanced himself from the company in recent years by no longer accepting political donations from PG&E since taking office as governor.
However, PG&E was listed as one of the main sponsors of an annual gala held by his wife’s foundation, a week after he was elected as governor in November 2018.
This connection demonstrates that PG&E is still influencing Newsom, even if the company no longer funds his campaigns.
Despite Newsom’s past claims that PG&E’s funding has not influenced his political decisions, it is impossible to believe that someone so indebted to the company is the qualified defender to save California from its dangerous management.
In fact, Newsom has no right to criticize “dog-eat-dog” capitalism at all, given how from its beginning, his political career has been largely funded by California business moguls.
According to the Los Angeles Times, eight prominent and wealthy California families are responsible for $2 million of the $61 million donors have given to his campaigns and independent committees backing those political efforts.
Many of those families gave money to Newsom while he was a political newcomer, according to the Los Angeles Times, giving him a significant head start in his career.
Because Newsom owes his success to those who made their fortunes through industry, his critiques of corrupt capitalism come off as laughably deceptive.
Even if Newsom admits and fully addresses how heavily PG&E’s funding has affected his political career, the best option at this point is for him to completely step back from the situation.
If he is forced to address the issue publicly, he should stick to the facts without indulging in self-righteous rhetoric and leave the process up to members of state government who are not so heavily influenced by PG&E’s financial backing.
As PG&E struggles to provide power without setting the entire state on fire, stay informed and keep the company accountable however you can, because you cannot trust Governor Gavin Newsom to do it for you.
