California’s next governor will have a long “want-list.”
On Day One of his new administration, Gavin Newsom or John Cox will enunciate his vision for California, and call on the Legislature to implement it, whether it’s spurring more housing, increasing school funding, eliminating the new “sanctuary” law, cutting taxes or “resisting” the Trump Administration.
He will set the agenda for how to spend tax revenues, where the weight of regulations will fall, and how our pioneering state will be perceived and emulated worldwide.
Then reality will intrude.
A Governor may control the levers of state government, but even larger forces out of his control or set in motion by predecessors will elbow in for attention. Here are the predictably unpredictable wild cards I guarantee will ambush the next Governor: