The Newsom Recall & Labor: Candidates Joel Ventresca & Dennis Richter

WorkWeek interviews two candidates running in the recall for governor in California Joel Ventresca a Democrat in San Franciscoo and Dennis Richter who is with the Socialist Workers Party.
They discussed their program and issues in this program. The previous recall in California with Gray Davis was successful when David supported deregulation of energy and allowed Enron to run the state power system. The Democrats and Republicans both supported the deregulaton of the energy system.
Additional media:
Recall money wars: What do Newsom’s million-dollar donors want?
https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/07/newsom-recall-million-dollar-donors/
Additional information on Ventresca and Richter Campaigns
Joel Ventresca
http://www.joelventresca.com
Dennis Richter Campaign
socialistworker2021 [at] gmail.com
‭(510) 686-1351‬
WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
Labor Video Project
http://www.labormedia.net

Recall money wars: What do Newsom’s million-dollar donors want?
https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/07/newsom-recall-million-dollar-donors/
Recall money wars: What do Newsom’s million-dollar donors want?

BY BEN CHRISTOPHER JULY 29, 2021UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2021
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is receiving millions from key backers to fight off the recall effort.
Illustration by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters; Shae Hammond, CalMatters; iStock
IN SUMMARY
A new CalMatters analysis shows which of the governor’s big financial backers are coming to his rescue in his hour of need for the California recall election. They include the unions for teachers and prison guards.
Gov. Gavin Newsom may be fighting for his political life amid a fourth wave of COVID, a drought without modern precedent, another horrific fire season, a spiking murder rateand an increasingly credible-seeming recall.
But at least he has a lot of really rich political allies.
At last count, the main committee tasked with defending the governor against the Sept. 14 recall has raised some $39 million. Another allied committee and Newsom’s own 2022 campaign account, which state law allows him to draw upon this year, add another $4 million to that war chest.
That’s more than double all the cash raised by the committees campaigning for his ouster and the 46 candidates hoping to replace him, combined.
It also represents the generosity — or perhaps the strategic expenditure — of a broad coalition of some unlikely allies.
They include California’s largest teachers union and its most vocal charter school advocates; nurses and the hospitals they sometimes clash with; Realtors, developers, building trades unions and corporate landlords who have differing views on the housing crisis; defense contractors at Lockheed Martin; abortion rights advocates; new car dealers; and the financier-turned-liberal-megadonor George Soros. All have found common cause in keeping Newsom in his job.
A new CalMatters analysis of the donors to the main anti-recall committee found that organized labor threw Newsom the largest financial lifeline — roughly 45% of the total, including $1.8 million from the teachers union and $1.75 million from the prison guards this week.
Companies and individuals hailing from the state’s business community coughed up another 36% of the $39 million. The remainder came from an assortment of ideological interest groups, tribal governments, the California Democratic Party and small-dollar contributors. (CalMatters’ recall money tracker now shows where donations from a wide range of industries are going.)
A Flourish hierarchy chart
If political contributions are a vote of confidence, the votes of the well-heeled, powerful and influential are overwhelmingly in the incumbent governor’s camp.
Newsom’s current haul isn’t quite the $58 million that he raised during the 2018 race. And it’s dwarfed by recent corporate-backed ballot measure fights that have hit the 9-digit mark.
But if donations were votes, Newsom would defeat the recall in a landslide. The political reality could be far different: A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found pro- and anti-recall sentiment in a virtual dead heat among likely voters. That could provide Newsom’s allies with fresh incentive to pony up — and his campaign more reason to solicit money for the campaign ahead, especially to increase awareness and enthusiasm among Democrats.
The governor’s campaign seems to be taking the threat seriously. In a TV spot that hit the state’s airwaves Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive icon, implored the electorate to vote no “to protect California and our democracy.”
“This is a relatively painless way to strengthen your relationship with an incumbent governor.”
DAN SCHNUR, FORMER CHAIRPERSON OF CALIFORNIA’S FAIR POLITICAL PRACTICES COMMISSION
Neither a boatload of money nor a crowded roster of well-financed supporters, however, is a sure recipe of electoral success. Last year, a campaign to repeal state restrictions on affirmative action outraised the opposition nearly 17-to-1, while racking up endorsements from every corner of California power and influence. It failed by 14 percentage points.
But there’s another, even more important reason for many to give, said Dan Schnur, former chairperson of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a past strategist for Republican politicians: “This is a relatively painless way to strengthen your relationship with an incumbent governor.”
California campaign finance regulations cap the amount of money that gubernatorial candidates can raise at $32,400 per person — a limit that covers the challengers seeking to replace Newsom. But no such limits apply to committees raising money for a general cause — like the one defending Newsom against the recall. That difference is allowing individuals and groups to write million-dollar checks to help the governor.
A Flourish chart
Organized labor to the rescue
Just as the news of the surprisingly grim Berkeley poll was percolating through the California political universe, two more public employee unions — both political forces in their own right and conspicuously absent from the governor’s campaign finance filings — announced this week that they were opening up their coffers.
First, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association threw in $1.75 million. Then came the California Teachers Association with $1.8 million.
Just days after the check from the teachers landed in Newsom’s campaign account, he gave the closing keynote speech today at the union’s summer digital meeting. He applauded the union’s hard-fought legislative accomplishments, which, incidentally, served as a reminder to the teachers that the governor had helped secure them.
Though the teachers were the largest funder of Newsom’s 2018 campaign, that relationship got complicated last spring as Newsom and the union sparred first over when teachers would get vaccines, then how quickly schools should reopen.
But now, Newsom “is facing opponents who are funded by a network that wants to dismantle public education. The choice is stark and clear,” union president E. Toby Boyd said in a statement Wednesday.
Many of the top Republicans vying to take Newsom’s place in the governor’s office support bolstering charter schools, allowing families to spend publicly-funded vouchers on private education and making it easier to fire teachers deemed to be underperforming.
Newsom “is facing opponents who are funded by a network that wants to dismantle public education. The choice is stark and clear.”
E. TOBY BOYD, PRESIDENT OF THE CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, WHICH GAVE $1.8 MILLION
The teachers and correctional officers join a financial field fighting the Newsom recall that is crowded with other organized labor groups, including other public employees, construction workers, nurses and other health care workers and food pickers and processors.
Service Employees International Union California, one of the state’s most influential organized labor groups, has kicked in $5.5 million through its various locals. The largest single contribution came from Local 2015, which represents nursing home employees and other long-term care workers.
Local president April Verrett declined an interview request, but emphasized in a statement that the union’s support is more than just financial: “We plan to mobilize our predominantly Black, brown, and immigrant caregivers, who have been on the front lines of this pandemic, to make their voices heard as we go door to door, over the phone and online encouraging a vote against the recall.”
For many labor groups, supporting Newsom in his time of need is an investment in the future. One of the governor’s longstanding health policy goals is to implement what he has called a “master plan on aging” to beef up the state’s patchwork system of elder care. The idea is still in blueprint form, but the promised overhaul would require a massive increase in state funding for health care and long-term care programs.
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For other unions, supporting Newsom now looks a bit more like a thank you card. Prison guards, for example, aren’t reliable Democratic allies. But earlier this year, they scored a major pay hike from the governor and lawmakers over the objections of the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.
And the alternatives to Newsom on the recall ballot? For most labor groups, there are few appealing options: When he was mayor of San Diego, Kevin Faulconer made overhauling the pension system for former city employees a top priority. John Cox has repeatedly railed against the political influence of prison guards. And conservative radio show host Larry Elder opposes the minimum wage.
Familiar financiers
But unions make up less than a majority of the contributors to the Newsom cause. The rest of the list is full of regular large donors to California political campaigns, including special interests and more than a few billionaires.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings — a notable charter school advocate who supported Antonio Villaraigosa over Newsom in the first half of the 2018 campaign — gave the governor’s committee its largest single contribution of $3 million.
Other titans of Silicon Valley have lined up to back Newsom. In a public letter published in March, Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of the Emerson Collective and widow of Apple’s Steve Jobs; prominent Bay Area angel investor Ron Conway; and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt were among executives and venture capitalists to close ranks behind the governor. Since then donors from the tech sector have given nearly $1.4 million.
Another $1 million came from George Marcus, a Bay Area real estate mogul with a history of backing moderate Democrats and opposing rent control measures. More than $500,000 was donated by hedge fund heir Liz Simons, who in recent years has contributed millions to criminal reform justice efforts and progressive prosecutors, including Attorney General Rob Bonta.
And whatever Newsom’s conservative critics might say about his anti-business policies, there are plenty of proud capitalists on his roster of defenders. That includes typical big spenders such as the California Realtors, dentists and the building industry.
Unlike other sectors, which have largely consolidated in one camp or the other, developers are divided. While individual real estate titans including GOP mega donor Geoffrey Palmer support the recall, the California Building Industry Association, which lobbies in the state Capitol, is backing the governor.
Association President Dan Dunmoyer, who served as cabinet secretary to Arnold Schwarzenegger after he became governor in the 2003 recall, said that on policy, the governor has said many of the right things. Even if he hasn’t been able to deliver on those lofty goals, Dunmoyer said he wants to give the governor another year to “prove himself” before the next regularly scheduled election in 2022.
He said his group’s support for Newsom is also partly about timing. When so much is uncertain in California, a little stability might do developers good, he said.
Removing a governor, he said, is “just not really logical, especially in the middle of a pandemic, fire, housing, homeless crisis.”
CalMatters data reporter Jeremia Kimelman and editorial intern Danise Kuang contributed to this story.
Editor’s note: The Emerson Collective is a financial supporter of CalMatters. All major donors sign a policy to ensure they have no influence over editorial decisions. Find a full list of CalMatters’ major donors here.

Corrupt Demo Gov Newsom Privatizing Public Healthcare With No Bid Contracts For Cronies
Newsom's reliance on Big Tech in pandemic undermines public health system, critics say

In his first year as governor, the year before the pandemic, Newsom denied a budget request from California’s 61 local public health departments to provide $50 million in state money per year to help rebuild core public health infrastructure — which had been decimated by decades of budget cuts — despite warnings from his own public health agency that the state wasn’t prepared for what was coming.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Newsom-s-reliance-on-Big-Tech-in-pandemic-16161367.php

Angela Hart
May 8, 2021
FILE - In this March 17, 2020, file photo, California Gov. Gavin Newsom gives an update to the state's response to the coronavirus, at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services in Rancho Cordova Calif. At right is California Health and Human Services Agency Director Dr. Mark Ghaly. In November 2020, California is reaching an unwelcome coronavirus record: its 1 millionth positive test. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool, File)
FILE - In this March 17, 2020, file photo, California Gov. Gavin Newsom gives an update to the state's response to the coronavirus, at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services in Rancho Cordova Calif. At right is California Health and Human Services Agency Director Dr. Mark Ghaly. In November 2020, California is reaching an unwelcome coronavirus record: its 1 millionth positive test. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool, File)Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press 2020

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom has embraced Silicon Valley tech companies and health care industry titans in response to the COVID-19 pandemic like no other governor in America — routinely outsourcing life-or-death public health duties to his allies in the private sector.
At least 30 tech and health care companies have received lucrative, no-bid government contracts, or helped fund and carry out critical public health activities during the state’s battle against the coronavirus, a KHN analysis has found. The vast majority are Newsom supporters and donors who have contributed more than $113 million to his political campaigns and charitable causes, or to fund his policy initiatives, since his first run for statewide office in 2010.
For instance, the San Francisco-based software company Salesforce — whose CEO, Marc Benioff, is a repeat donor and is so tight with the governor that Newsom named him the godfather of his first child — helped create My Turn, California’s centralized vaccine clearinghouse, which has been unpopular among Californians seeking shots and has so far cost the state $93 million.
Verily Life Sciences, a sister company of Google, another deep-pocketed Newsom donor, received a no-bid contract in March 2020 to expand COVID testing — a $72 million venture that the state later retreated on. And after Newsom handed another no-bid testing contract — now valued at $600 million — to OptumServe, its parent company, national insurance giant UnitedHealth Group dropped $100,000 into a campaign account he can tap to fight the recall effort against him.
Newsom’s unprecedented reliance on private companies — including health and technology start-ups — has come at the expense of California’s overtaxed and underfunded public health system. Current and former public health officials say Newsom has entrusted the essential work of government to private-sector health and tech allies, hurting the ability of the state and local health departments to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and prepare for future threats.
“This outsourcing is weakening us. The lack of investment in our public health system is weakening us,” said Flojaune Cofer, a former state Department of Public Health epidemiologist and senior director of policy for Public Health Advocates, which has lobbied unsuccessfully for years for more state public health dollars.
“These are companies that are profit-driven, with shareholders. They’re not accountable to the public,” Cofer said. “We can’t rely on them helicoptering in. What if next time it’s not in the interest of the business or it’s not profitable?”
Kathleen Kelly Janus, Newsom’s senior adviser on social innovation, said the governor is “very proud of our innovative public-private partnerships,” which have provided “critical support for Californians in need during this pandemic.”
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly echoed the praise, saying private-sector companies have filled “important” roles during an unprecedented public health crisis.
The state’s contract with OptumServe has helped dramatically lower COVID test turnaround times after
a troubled start. Another subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, OptumInsight, received $41 million to help California rescue its outdated infectious disease reporting and monitoring system last year after it crashed.
“Not only are we much better equipped on all of these things than we were at the beginning, but we are also seeing some success,” Ghaly said, “whether it’s on the vaccination front, which has really picked up and put us in a place of success, or just being able to do testing at a broad scale. So, I feel like we’re in a reasonable position to continue to deal with COVID.”
The federal government finances most public health activities in California and significantly boosted funding during the pandemic, but local health departments also rely on state and local money to keep their communities safe.
In his first year as governor, the year before the pandemic, Newsom denied a budget request from California’s 61 local public health departments to provide $50 million in state money per year to help rebuild core public health infrastructure — which had been decimated by decades of budget cuts — despite warnings from his own public health agency that the state wasn’t prepared for what was coming.
After the pandemic struck, Newsom and state lawmakers turned awayanother budget request to support the local health departments driving California’s pandemic response, this time for $150 million in additional annual infrastructure funding. Facing deficits at the time, the state couldn’t afford it, Newsom said, and federal help was on the way.
Yet COVID cases continued to mount, and resources dwindled. Bare-bones staffing meant that some local health departments had to abandon fundamental public health functions, such as contact tracing, communicable disease testing and enforcement of public health orders.
“As the pandemic rages on and without additional resources, some pandemic activities previously funded with federal Cares Act resources simply cannot be sustained,” a coalition of public health officials warned in a late December letter to Newsom and legislative leaders.
Newsom has long promoted tech and private companies as a way to improve government, and has leaned on the private sector throughout his political career, dating to his time as San Francisco mayor from 2004 to 2011, when he called on corporations to contribute to his homelessness initiatives.
And since becoming governor in January 2019, he has regularly held private meetings with health and tech executives, his calendars show, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“We’re right next door to Silicon Valley, of course, so technology is our friend,” Newsom wrote in his 2013 book, “Citizenville,” arguing that “government needs to adapt to this new technological age.”
With California’s core public health infrastructure already gutted, Newsom funneled taxpayer money to tech and health companies during the pandemic or allowed them to help design and fund certain public health activities.
Other industries have jumped into COVID response, including telecommunications and entertainment, but not to the degree of the health and technology sectors.
“It’s not the ideal situation,” said Daniel Zingale, who has steered consequential health policy decisions under three California governors, including Newsom. “What is best for Google is not necessarily best for the people of California.”
Among the corporate titans that have received government contracts to conduct core public health functions is Google’s sister company Verily.
Google and its executives have given more than $10 million to Newsom’s gubernatorial campaigns and special causes since 2010, according to state records. It has infiltrated the state’s pandemic response: The company, along with Apple, helped build a smartphone alert system called CA Notify to assist state and local health officials with contact tracing, a venture Newsom hailed as an innovative, “data-driven” approach to reducing community spread. Google, Apple and Facebook are sharing tracking data with the state to help chart the spread of COVID. Google — as well as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and other platforms — also contributed millions of dollars in free advertising to California, in Newsom’s name, for public health messaging.
Other companies that have received lucrative contracts to help carry out the state’s COVID plans include health insurance company Blue Shield of California, which received a $15 million no-bid contract to oversee vaccine allocation and distribution, and the private consulting firm McKinsey & Co., which has received $48 million in government contracts to boost vaccinations and testing and work on genomic sequencing to help track and monitor COVID variants. Together, they have given Newsom more than $20 million in campaign and charitable donations since 2010.
Private companies have also helped finance government programs and core public health functions during the pandemic — at times bypassing local public health departments — under the guise of making charitable or governmental contributions, known as “behested paymentss,” in Newsom’s name. They have helped fund vaccination clinics, hosted public service announcements on their platforms, and paid for hotel rooms to safely shelter and quarantine homeless people.
Facebook and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization started by Facebook founder Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have been among the most generous, and have given $36.5 million to Newsom, either directly or to causes and policy initiatives on his behalf. Much of that money was spent on pandemic response efforts championed by Newsom, such as hotel rooms and child care for front-line health care workers; computers and internet access for kids learning at home; and social services for incarcerated people leaving prison because of COVID outbreaks.
Facebook said it is also partnering with the state to deploy pop-up vaccination clinics in hard-hit areas like the Central Valley, Inland Empire and South Los Angeles.
In prepared statements, Google and Facebook said they threw themselves into the pandemic response because they wanted to help struggling workers and businesses in their home state, and to respond to the needs of vulnerable communities.
Kaiser Health News writers Elizabeth Lucas and Samantha Young contributed to this report.
Angela Hart writes for California Healthline, is a service of the California Health Care Foundation produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.