The Antelope Valley Times

Your community. Your issues. Your news.

Coalition of ACLU California chapters announce opposition to Newsom recall

by •

Gov. Gavin Newsom [Facebook photo]
The executive directors of three American Civil Liberties Union California affiliates, along with the board chair of ACLU California Action, Thursday announced their opposition to the recall effort against Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The statement was issued by ACLU California Action Board Chair Connie Tcheng along with the ACLU Southern California, Northern California and San Diego & Imperial Counties chapters.

“We are united in urging California voters to say ‘NO’ to our state sliding backward to a time when constitutional freedoms and other legal protections were in effect only for select groups within our richly diverse population,” Tcheng said. “The ACLU’s California affiliates call upon our members and all Californians, to reject this ill-conceived recall.”

It is the first time that the ACLU in California, which was started in 1923, has weighed in on a recall attempt in the state. The groups say the recall’s organizers are using false claims about Newsom’s response to COVID-19 to reverse the results of the 2018 election.

“The pandemic is only a smokescreen,” said Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. “It’s the convenient hook that sponsors of this recall have latched onto. But there have been no less than five efforts to recall this governor, including one that was attempted just two months after he took office, long before the pandemic began.”

The ACLU also said that the recall effort is attempting to undermine Californians support for:

— immigrants’ rights by specifically attacking state laws limiting collaboration between local agencies’ collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement;

— criminal justice reform by specifically supporting the death penalty, which the ACLU calls a form of cruel and unusual punishment and should be considered a violation of the U.S. Constitution; and

— gender, sexuality and reproductive justice by calling California’s LGBTQ-inclusive sex education “controversial” and claiming that California limits parental rights.

In a statement to City News Service, recall organizer Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California, said, “No surprise here — the ACLU is just another Democrat front group that benefits from the dysfunction of the Sacramento Swamp.”

The ACLU denies that their opposition to the recall effort is partisan, noting that the issues at stake during the recall have been a priority of the California ACLU affiliates for a long time.

“In its 98 years in California, the ACLU has never endorsed or opposed a candidate during an election and is not doing so now,” ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties Executive Director Norma Chavez-Peterson said. “The ACLU opposes this recall effort because it aims to reverse advances in immigrants’ rights, gender equity, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, criminal justice reform and students’ rights. With so much at stake, we will not be silent.”

–

29 comments for "Coalition of ACLU California chapters announce opposition to Newsom recall"

  1. Having risen to high position he does not merit, through discipline, temperament, principle nor skill, Gavin Newsom is an archetypal cross section of America’s worst crop of democrats in U.S. history. Newsom demerits every recall vote California could muster.

    • Democrats could care not one iota who’s governor, just so long as it turns out to be someone moderates and conservatives are opposed to.

      • lol…you may have been asleep for a few decades, but the Democrats ARE the moderates. There are some fringe hard left folks, but for the most part the moderates control the party. They had to go somewhere when the GOP instituted “if you are not insane you are just a RINO” purity testing.

      • Hey, Esmirelda. Do you know Yolanda and Belinda?

        Your computer generated and misspelled names are a hoot.

        You must be those Russian bots who helped elect Trump in 2016.

        Yap away.

    • Democrat policy is about political payback. Nothing more, nothing less. Because inflation, high prices for food and gasoline, record illegal immigration, CRT mandates and baby killing are issues which infuriate conservatives and moderates. Democrats like it. They like rubbing our faces in it.

    • Here’s to ignorance.

      Gerald says

      August 1, 2021 at 5:09 pm

      Having risen to high position he does not merit, …..

      Uh, Gerald. He was ELECTED by California voters. That’s how it works. Look at who voters voted for president in 2016, the most corruipt and ignorant prez ever. Then they/we voted him away in 2020 to spend the rest of his life in court or prison.

    • … what’s wrong with the guy? What’s his major malfunction? What beef’s he got with cosmetologists? What did we ever do to him? Every cosmetologist in California must have signed that recall petition –

  2. National Socialist Democrats of the ACLU oppose America’s right to recall corrupt, incompetent democrats.

    • Whoever else you vote? Fine. At this point, anyone but Newsom is acceptable. We’ll settle on another democrat. But, Newsom has to go.

      • Right on Fran. Give me any Dem over Newsom. He is a handsome bag of hot air who only reached where he is due to his connections. A terrible leader with poor judgement. Recall Newsom.

      • Our state is under seize. Things are so bad here in California, our governor is under recall. And, things are so bad here in America, democrats at our ACLU decree Californians devoid our fundamental constitutional right to redress or relief, from incompetent leadership.

        • lol…this is a democratic republic, and as the minority political group the majority is obligated to protect your rights, but they are not obligated to just go along with your fantasy driven demands for “redress or relief.” The fact is that because you are a minority and the liberal democrats do have significant authority in government you and the rest of California’s conservatives are getting a better government than you deserve, or could manage for yourselves.

        • Lawremnce? Check out the COVID disasters now in Texas and Florida. Their Trump kissing governors make things worse.

          The red/orange states are the welfare states needing federal funds to make it while California and New York have to subsidize those backward states where you belong, not here.

          For the past 50 years, Democrats have outperformed Republicans by nearly every economic measure, GDP, unemployment, inflation, etc.

          Republicans have presided over all the recessions and Wall Street crashes.

          Republicans simply can’t govern. They don’t know chit about governing. Look at Lancaster. It’s a microcosm of how Republicans run the country when in charge.

          Democratic presidents have to do clean up and recovery after the Bushes, Trump, and Republicans lie about being good at anything. They aren’t.

          So, what you wrote is bullchit and you know it. Go work for Fox News, your source.

        • The ACLU’s 5 main priorities (in any order you please):

          1). civil rights of ANTIFA looters –
          2). aborting helpless unborn children –
          3). electing democrats; sticking it to moderates and conservatives –
          4). overturning our 1st and 2nd amendment privileges –
          5). making America great, again, for organized crime, illegal immigrants, and the gay way –

      • It’s a bitch trying to run a country or a state with Republicans constantly doing whatever they can to throw sand in the gears. They obstruct just to obstruct even if it were to benefit their constituents.

        And, then there is the INSURRECTION led by your hero the Orange Mess, headed for prison soon.

        You were conned by Trump weren’t you Fran?

        So, now you go after Newsom. He won’t be recalled and you will continue to suffer being you.

    • Well, Smarta$$.

      Let’s here you to tell the joke.

      Do the set up.

      Do the punchline.

      This will test your abilities such as they are.

      What you thoughlessly wrote wasn’t funny.

      Try. Try. Again.

      Example:
      “What has an orange face and is all lit up a month before the November election? Then, is a burned out mess and is tossed out?”

      • That should read “Let’s hear…” but, then again, let’s hear it here.

    • That was a trick joke.

      There are 2 answers and both are good.

      One is obvious. True and hilarious.

      The other is funny because what seemed obvious wasn’t the correct answer.

      [These 3 replies were “Under investigation by the moderator” so they may show up out of order.

    • The 21st century brown-shirts of Nanzi Pelozi’s national socialist democrat movement:

      1). the FBI and the NSA (the Clintons)
      2). Mainstream & Social Media
      3). the ACLU
      4). ANTIFA (George Soros)
      5). BLM (the Obamas)