Hard to believe I’ve now lived in California long enough that I can be nostalgic for the recent past. But something just happened that made me wonder if Golden State Democrats are at a turning point, as I suggested at New York:
Governor Gavin Newsom and many other California Democrats hoped that their state could serve as a defiant alternative to the reactionary bent of the second Trump administration, one that proudly stands up for their party’s values. But fiscal realities (including many under the influence of their enemies in Washington) still matter, and a new announcement from Newsom, as reported by the Associated Press, illustrates the limits of state-based progressivism in the Trump era:
“Gov. Gavin Newsom wants California to stop enrolling more low-income immigrants without legal status in a state-funded health care program starting in 2026 and begin charging those already enrolled a monthly premium the following year.
“The decision is driven by a higher-than-expected price tag on the program and economic uncertainty from federal tariff policies, Newsom said in a Wednesday announcement. The Democratic governor’s move highlights Newsom’s struggle to protect his liberal policy priorities amid budget challenges in his final years on the job.
“California was among the first states to extend free health care benefits to all poor adults regardless of their immigration status last year, an ambitious plan touted by Newsom to help the nation’s most populous state to inch closer to a goal of universal health care. But the cost for such expansion ran $2.7 billion more than the administration had anticipated.”
The steady expansion of Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, which is being at best “paused” right now, reflected two different but mutually reinforcing progressive values: a slow but stead crawl toward universal health-care coverage in the absence of a national single-payer system, and a concern for the needs of the undocumented immigrants who play so prominent a role in California’s economy and society. In particular, California Democrats have embraced the argument that health care should be a right, not some sort of earned privilege, in part because health insurance helps keep overall health-care costs down in the long run by promoting early detection and treatment of illnesses while avoiding expensive emergency-room care. Because federal Medicaid dollars cannot be used to provide services for undocumented immigrants, California (like six other states that cover significant numbers of adults, and 13 others who cover children) has used state dollars to pay for them.
California Democrats were in a position to expand Medi-Cal thanks to the legislative supermajorities they have enjoyed since 2018, which is also when Newsom became governor. But the latest expansion has proved to be fiscally unsustainable as statewide budget shortfalls loom. Newsom has been quick to attribute the latest budget woes to revenues losses caused by Trump’s tariff policies. But the broader problem is that, unlike the federal government, California must balance its budget, even though many of the factors influencing spending and revenues are beyond its control. And the problem is likely to get worse as the Trump administration and its congressional allies shift costs to the states, a major part of their strategy for reducing federal spending (to pay for high-end federal tax cuts).
There’s a specific emerging federal policy that probably influenced Newsom’s latest step: Congressional Republicans are very likely to adopt a punitive reduction in Medicaid matching funds for states that are using their own money to cover undocumented immigrants. The details are still under development, but the provision could hit California pretty hard.
Numbers aside, this episode represents a potential turning point in California’s progressive political trends, reflecting Trump’s better-than-expected showing in the Golden State in 2024 along with the passage of a ballot initiative increasing criminal penalties for drug and theft offenses and the rejection of an increase in the state’s minimum wage. There’s even some optimistic talk among California Republicans about breaking their long losing streak (dating back to 2006) in statewide elections next year. That’s pretty unlikely given the high odds of an anti-Trump midterm backlash, but the fact that the heirs of Ronald Reagan are even dreaming dreams is a bit of a surprise.
It’s also possible that the ever-ambitious Newsom doesn’t mind calibrating his own ideological image toward the perceived center in his final days as governor (he’s term-limited next year). He and other California Democrats can only hope that economic trends and what happens in Washington give them a choice in the matter.
When I studied in France in the 1970’s, what amazed me was the lack of a centrist party. It was a subject I discussed with Jean-Louis Servan-Shreiber (the brother of Jean-Jacques Servan-Shreiber who founded the “radical” or centrist party in France). In every French election approximately forty percent of the population voted for right-wing parties and forty percent voted for left-wing parties and the “centrists” made up less than twenty percent of the popular vote. I have the distinct impression that the U.S. is following that pattern. Those in the center are being shut out by those on the left and right – possibly because those on the left and right have more passion. Of course, the French concept of right and left is much more broad than the American concept – in school in Paris (L’Institue d’Etudes Politiques) we had people who were die-hard communists and die-hard royalists (and some who would not deny being fascists). Free speech has always been much more “free” in France and other European countries than the U.S. – but we are getting there – gradually.
Eddie – So you do remember me? It’s only been 37 years since we last talked. I assume you’re not going to be at Emory for our 35th alumni reunion next weekend? Nice to see a classmate do so well. My opinions have not changed one bit in the interim. When we last argued, I was working for McGovern and you weren’t. My political participation since then has been off and on.
John
John:
I’ve been pretty much in the same place politically for a quarter century or so, but yeah, I went through all sorts of changes before that. And for the record, I worked for Zell Miller before his bizarre apostasy.
I’m still no radical, but what’s happened to the Right in this country tends to make one get a mite intemperate now and then.
Hope you are well,
Ed
Well, I’ll tell you what: I was one proud Democrat today, listening to the President’s Cincinnati speech. High energy, down to earth, eloquent, funny, youthful, spirited, smart and wise. I was enormously encouraged. It reminds me of 1917, when the European powers were bogged down in a war of attrition. Then America jumped in, and all those rested young doughboys came to the battlefield. It seems to me that if Obama is now rolling out his biggest weapon — himself — it won’t take long to eclipse the images of shrieking retirees with too much time on their hands and swastika signs, demanding the the government not get involved in health care for anybody younger than 65 and not to cut one dime out of their Medicare. And the sorry, daily parade of parochial, dishonest, vain, dumb, ill-intentioned, pandering and deeply dishonest politicians (some of them on the Democratic side of the aisle) is going to look like a tub of fishbait by comparison.
Testing this out.
When I was a boy at Emory University in 1971, I made friends with a fellow student, we didn’t get along at first because he was somewhat conservative and I was not. Then he changed (or became more honest) and we began to seriously discuss political theory and I thought I had met my political twin, left-wing to the core and violently anti-Vietnam war. Then I went to study in Paris (where I ran into his girlfriend) for a year and when I came back this boy had become a Catholic Republican and we ceased to talk. Last thing I heard he was working for Zell Miller. I went on to Mercer Law School and we lost tract entirely. I’m still the radical that I always was, although not for the reasons he suspected. It looks like he came back to the fold. Right?