SACRAMENTO, California — By the time Gavin Newsom slipped into the California Capitol building at 7 p.m. a couple days before the end of the legislative session, a sweeping, controversial package of energy legislation was already largely baked.
For weeks, the California governor had been dispatching aides to lean on Democratic lawmakers and negotiate the finer details of a suite of bills designed to shore up the state’s utilities and refineries. He privately threatened a special session if lawmakers didn’t go along with his priorities. Many Democratic lawmakers grumbled, but they ultimately went along — their votes reflecting the expanding power in Sacramento of a leading Democratic contender for the presidential nomination in 2028.
In a dynamic not unlike the one his rival Ron DeSantis exploited in Tallahassee in the run-up to his own, unsuccessful presidential campaign — where DeSantis leaned on Republican supermajorities in Florida to supercharge his policies — Newsom is tightening his grip on the Democratic governing class and getting results in the nation’s most populous state in service of his aims.
“When the governor weighs in personally, it can be quite impactful,” said Sen. Josh Becker, who was deeply involved in the energy negotiations. Newsom, said another state lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak freely, “goes on calling sprees to members for the things he really cares about.”
Newsom has had an up-and-down relationship with the Legislature over his seven years in office. Just last year, he tried, but failed, to get lawmakers to agree to an alternative to a tough-on-crime ballot measure that voters ultimately approved despite Newsom’s opposition.
But longtime Sacramento observers say Newsom has learned over his seven years in office how to more effectively engage with individual lawmakers, in part by understanding what they wanted out of a negotiation.
“The governor’s empathy towards the Legislature increased exponentially over time,” said Nick Hardeman, a former chief of staff to the president of the Senate. “His approach in 2019 was significantly different than his approach this year, and you see that reflected in the outcomes.”
In his first year in office, for example, he fumbled negotiations on a contentious vaccine bill by asking for more policy changes via Twitter post, sowing mistrust with lawmakers.
Newsom’s tactics now include leveraging the budget and coming in late in the process, sometimes with mere days before final voting deadlines. That has allowed him to muscle through sweeping policies, from keeping the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant online to overhauling an environmental permitting law in the name of more housing — a long-elusive goal that Newsom achieved after threatening to veto the budget if he didn’t get his way — while giving political cover to the more progressive members of his own party who would have fought the changes in a more drawn-out process.
That’s a change from Newsom’s predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown, who typically chose one or two monumental priorities a year and worked on them for months. Newsom prefers many. “Gov. Brown’s priorities were more narrow,” said Sen. John Laird, who served as Brown’s Natural Resources secretary for eight years. “Gov. Newsom has a much broader portfolio.”
Another senator granted anonymity to speak freely called Newsom “less approachable, less accessible.”
“But when it comes to an issue he’s got a passion about, or he’s very focused on, or it catches his attention, he can be very engaged,” the senator said.
The relationship with the Legislature can be enormously consequential for a governor with national ambitions. With a compliant legislature, Newsom will have another year to pass headline-making legislation — and to squash bills that could be politically problematic. The carry-over to 2028, when he will be termed out and, likely, running, may benefit him, too, especially if his friend and rival Californian, Kamala Harris, who has not ruled out another campaign, runs again. Both would be competing for California’s bounty of primary delegates, a pool that typically includes state lawmakers and other professional Democrats with business in Sacramento.
“If he does end up in a presidential primary, he’s going to want to start from the strongest position possible in the state with the largest amount of delegates,” Hardeman said. “That strength will be displayed based off the support that comes from the state.”
Newsom has displayed ideological flexibility in recent years, at times frustrating Democratic allies as he hosted conservative luminaries on his podcast — and broke with California law on trans athletes. He’s also pivoted from demanding the Legislature crack down on oil companies to cajoling them into propping up California’s wobbling refinery system.
If Newsom’s record strains his relationships with lawmakers to the point that they “call him out for being all over the place” or endorse a presidential rival, that could damage Newsom’s prospects, said Sean Walsh, who was a senior staffer for then-Gov. Pete Wilson during his short-lived presidential campaign in 1996.
“If someone from North Carolina or Kentucky or Indiana decided to run in the primary against Newsom and they picked up half a dozen to a dozen California Democrats, then that impacts and hurts a guy like Newsom,” Walsh said.
But Walsh said it’s unlikely Democratic lawmakers thinking about their own careers would break with Newsom, particularly in a state dominated by a sprawling Democratic infrastructure with Newsom at the top. Democrats swiftly coalesced behind Harris’ presidential bid in 2019.
“There will be some Democrats who will be craven enough to say, ‘he may just win and I could be secretary of, ambassador to,’ so they’ll play a bit of a nicer game with him,” Walsh said.
Newsom easily united California Democrats in the Legislature last month to launch his largest foray into national politics yet: his campaign to redraw congressional maps to give Democrats more seats. Voters will decide on Prop. 50 on Nov. 4.
The near unanimity for Newsom’s gerrymandering push contrasted sharply with a year earlier, when Newsom unsuccessfully sought to broker a criminal justice deal that would have neutralized a sentence-upping ballot initiative. That 11th-hour collapse frustrated many lawmakers and spurred chatter about whether the lame-duck governor’s influence was ebbing.
But now, Newsom is the face of a national Democratic priority, bolstering his clout at home. And he has one more year before his term runs out to get other legislative priorities through.
“It’s been remarkable, and I hope to have one more bite at the apple, one more at-bat, as they say, next year,” said Newsom at a press conference following his signature of the energy package last month.
Noah Baustin, Rachel Bluth, Tyler Katzenberger and Lindsey Holden contributed to this report.
