Newsom Moves to Clear Death Row

[00:00:01] Tonight California voters killed the wealth tax. Gavin Newsom commuted 548 death row inmates. Texas turned blue last week and I'm going to show you how the playbook and how it could possibly work here in California. And the governor elect Xavier Becerra said don't play this game with me to reporters. Sounds pretty standoff as we're gonna get into all that and more on tonight's episode of the California Underground starting right now. What's going on everybody thanks for tuning in to another episode of the California Underground. I am your host Phil. We have a ton of stuff to

[00:00:46] get into tonight one week after the midterm election so we have a lot of races to break down and stuff like that. But first, if you haven't already during this video if you like make sure you like shares comment review all of that stuff helps with the algorithm and as always I want to let you know that my one of the topics we're gonna be covering tonight is in my book The Gilded State in fact the exact story leads off the chapter about crime. So we're going to talk about death row inmates we're gonna be talking about Polly Klaus who was one of the most notorious

[00:01:16] one of the most famous stories when it came to a death row inmates we're gonna talk about that as well. Also, new thing tonight if you want to reach out to the show go to inbox at California Underground dot live again that is inbox at California Underground dot live if you want to send a message to be heard on the show to be read on the show kind of like a electronic voicemail or something like that you want to send in something to be read on the show reach out anything like that inbox at California Underground dot live love to connect

[00:01:46] So before we get started with tonight's first story as always make sure everybody who is tuning in live make sure you let me know where you're tuning in to love to see where everybody is tuning in from all over the Golden State. Do you want to go over a couple things as of yesterday this is breaking news Prop 40 the billionaires tax is officially defeated they called it it is defeated there is not going to be a billionaires tax all you billionaires can safely come back to California now people like Mark Zuckerberg

[00:02:16] and Sergei and all these people who moved out because of the billionaires tax you can move back now whether they move back or not might be a completely different issue but as of last night Prop 40 has been defeated which is always a strange thing because it's one of those things that in California you think of course if you were an outsider who looked at California look at the elections and you saw wealth tax something like that a lot of people from the outside would go yeah California is absolutely going to vote for that but in reality California does vote

[00:02:45] conservatively on a lot of conservatively on a lot of propositions so raising taxes doesn't for some reason always go well with Californians on propositions they always actually vote a little bit more conservatively which is an interesting point that's always interesting to keep in mind when it comes to Republican versus Democrat or why are people still voting for Democrats when they still vote for lower taxes or to vote for turning down taxes.

[00:03:09] So as of today is the last day for mail ballots that can arrive as of right now there are 4.8 million votes that are still not counted as of November 5th.

[00:03:19] So what has passed the Prop 1 which was the housing bond has already passed Prop 2 is the rainy day fund Prop 3 which is the permanent high income tax for more affordable housing whether any of this actually does end up becoming affordable housing who knows Prop 37 which we should probably get to in another show there's a little bit more to explain to this this is really interesting. The state is going to be loaning.

[00:03:42] The state is going to be loaning people money the 17% so all you have to do is put down 3% and the state will be loaning you 17% of your down payment so you can pay them back so you can put down 20% on a home supposedly making that more affordable even though you're gonna have to end up paying both those back. We should get into that next episode maybe next week I can get into that.

[00:04:06] So as of right now the recall changing the recall is actually ahead by 51% so if you don't remember that that's to change the that to change the recall process. Also another thing that we went over in a previous episode Nithya Rama won over Bass we talked about last week on the episode is actually breaking news.

[00:04:28] Some of the races in Congress not very good Democrat Vias won over Valadeo 66-33 Richard Pan Dr. Richard Pan beat Kevin Kiley in District 6 which is terrifying because Dr. Richard Pan was as you remember from COVID he was one of those people who passed all of the vaccine requirement bills on his way out of the legislature and basically wanted people to be fired wanted people to be punished for not taking the vaccine.

[00:04:59] California won. California won Maguire beat Gallagher which is sad as well. California 48 which is down here in San Diego Von Wilpert won that seat. And then Calvert versus Kim as of yesterday Ken Calvert won there's two Republicans versus each other they pitted two Republicans against each other so that one of them would have to lose. So there's your update as of right now. Now as I said Prop 40 has lost that has gone down.

[00:05:27] So don't have to worry about the billionaire's tax anymore. California actually got some good news. There's not going to be a billionaire's tax. All right. Let's get into tonight's first story and I want to talk about this because I wrote a sub stack article on this a couple days after the midterm election. I thought about this. So Texas turned blue as of right now turned blue. I don't my gut feeling is that Texas won't be blue very long.

[00:05:53] I think it'll be a little bit of a shock to the system for people in Texas. It's kind of hard to fathom that they actually turned it blue and they're going to buy into a lot of these progressive ideas overnight. I don't think that's going to happen necessarily. You have the new governor who's already talking about whether she wants to nationalize the electric grid. So that's Gina Hinoza. She's already done about nationalizing the grid. She said it worked great in Cuba. Everything's going great in Cuba. Just look at Cuba. That's a great example.

[00:06:22] So she wants to nationalize the electrical grid to help lower prices. Let's see how that goes in Texas. Now, it's not like all the Republicans and conservatives just disappeared in Texas. There's still enormous amounts of kind of conservatives and Republicans in Texas. So they didn't go anywhere. I think a lot of this had to do with the dissatisfaction with what was going on with the Trump administration, the Iran war and the affordability crisis.

[00:06:48] We're going to get into how this was like a perfect storm of Texas and how it actually, I think, applies to California. That should be a lesson that should be taken and applied here in California. So I don't think Texas will stay blue very long. I think this might be a one-time thing in terms of the governor being a Democrat. I think there'll probably be another Republican who will come along, be a little bit more conservative, be more appealing.

[00:07:15] I don't think Republicans are just going to give up Texas without a fight. I think they're going to go back to the drawing board, try and flip Texas back. Who knows? There's going to be a lot of things going on. But as of right now, you've got four years of this new governor. You've got six years of James Tallarico. The Texas House flipped to Democrats, Democratic control. The Texas Senate is still held by Republicans.

[00:07:39] So it's going to be interesting how they govern because with the Texas Senate held by the Republicans, there's a lot of gridlock that could actually happen. So all these bills and ideas that HINOSA has probably won't really go into effect. Again, one thing I mentioned on NBC last week, and I mentioned this on the show, Democrats are now going to have to own every single one of their campaign promises, which is, okay, if you think Republicans didn't deliver on affordability and getting inflation down and all those issues,

[00:08:08] and you campaigned on that basically being like, well, Republicans didn't do what they were supposed to do with affordability and the cost of living, then, okay, you now have to do it. And if you don't, if you go right in and start slamming that impeachment button, there's going to be a lot of voters who are not going to be super happy about that because impeachment doesn't really change how much it's going to cost for them to go and go to the grocery store, fill up a tank of gas. So they own that right now.

[00:08:37] So I think there is a little bit of a perfect storm. It doesn't mean that it just happened overnight. There was a lot of things that happened for Texas in terms of how they actually flipped these many seats out of nowhere. And a lot of people going into this, a lot of social media comments where people were saying, well, okay, then, you know, they were saying, well, Texas will never go blue. It's always going to be red. Things happen. Things happen in politics.

[00:09:05] So let's take a look at this. I want to show you, this is an article from the Texas Tribune. And again, I'm going to get to how this applies to California because if you're tuning in and you're going, well, this is California underground. I thought we were going to talk about California politics. I'm going to get there, but I want to set this up properly so that you know what I'm talking about here. So this is from the Texas Tribune, which says the Texas Democrats won big with little known underdogs. Here's how they pulled it off. Because it is interesting how they pulled it off.

[00:09:35] And there's a lot of lessons that we could take here in California. I don't want to go over the entire article. You can go read it for yourself. Go to Texas Tribune. Go look this up. So here's what it goes on to say. These candidates benefit from a blue wave that routed Republicans across the country and specific factors in each race tilted the scales in their favor. So there was a national dissatisfaction with Republicans. That happens in midterms. Usually people are kind of upset with the incumbent and they kind of make them pay for it.

[00:10:04] But for the first time in a long time, Texas Democrats had also built the sails to catch the wind when it comes. Catherine Fisher, the executive director of the Texas Majority Pack, a Democratic group, said Wednesday, Democrats ran someone in every seat, creating a reverse coattail effect to get the word out about the whole ticket. Even in districts where local candidates were sure to get walloped.

[00:10:28] They made significant investments in voter turnout, especially in purple counties, and they went all in behind the ticket that they had, even if it was not the star-studded list they had originally imagined. I want to stop right there on that paragraph. There's going to be more I want to stop right there on that paragraph. Democrats ran someone in every single seat that they could. Basically, they got a Democrat in every single seat that they possibly could.

[00:10:58] That might be a little different here in California with the jungle primary, but a lot of the times what happens is a lot of Democrats just run completely unopposed in California. They run completely unopposed because there's a lot of Republicans who just don't want to run against them. And maybe there is something to the fact that there are a lot of races that are highly skewed one way or the other. But that doesn't mean that the Texas Democrats actually gave up and just stopped running people.

[00:11:26] They were still running people whether or not they were likely going to win. And what that did was created a sense of that there were Democrats up and down the ticket. So that any time such as this where there was a national wave of enthusiasm for Democrats, they got picked up and they were able to get carried to victory. Why is that different than here in California? It's because California, nobody who wants to flip California really wants to invest in flipping California.

[00:11:57] I wrote this in my Substack article about how Colorado, as a good example, went from red to purple in the matter, well, red to blue, basically red, purple to blue in the matter of six years, right? Before Barack Obama was elected, when he flipped the state and he won it, I think it was in 2008, Colorado was a red state and red Republican governors, they had a red state legislature.

[00:12:26] But slowly but surely, there was a gang of four of billionaires who got together and said, we're going to flip Colorado. And they invested in the infrastructure and the machinery that created the change to change Colorado from red to blue. And I bring this all up because I'm going to tie this together. There was about how many tens of millions of dollars invested in this Prop 45?

[00:12:49] Probably between Prop 41, Prop 42, Prop 43, and Prop 40, I think it's around $190 million. And a lot of this was billionaires who were fighting it. And I'm not going to sit here and bootlick for billionaires. I'm saying that the resources are out there. There's more than enough money that went into these races for Prop 40, Prop 41, Prop 42, and Prop 43. When there is a will, there was more than enough money to go around to fund these races.

[00:13:18] If you were anti-Prop 40. Now, imagine if the amount of money that they put towards Prop 40 alone, which I think was like $32 million just for the anti-Prop 40 campaign alone. Imagine if that had gone into a well-funded machine that actually sat down, organized, recruited candidates, and recruited and went out and registered voters. Now, you're talking about a political machine that is akin to what they did in Colorado and the same that they did in Texas.

[00:13:47] But there seems to be no interest to even try this in California. California. You're never going to get the golden prize of California if you don't even try. And I'm sure there's going to be people out there who say, well, the Republicans are trying. There's a lot of Republicans. I'm not saying that individually there aren't Republicans who are trying. I know that there are Republicans who are trying. I know that there are county Republican and GOP who are trying to change things.

[00:14:13] And this isn't a rah-rah that we all want just Republicans to win. I'm saying that we need to tilt the scale one way or the other to make this a little bit more of an even state. Again, progress to purple. Not necessarily red, but progress to purple is the first step, just like Colorado. There are other counties, like the county I live here in San Diego, which is why I'm not involved in doing anything with the San Diego County Republicans anymore.

[00:14:37] Because it's just completely ineffectual and it's basically the propaganda wing of a certain individual. I'm not going to name names because people actually really like this guy and think he does a lot of good work. Whole story there. You can go back and check out our old past episodes. But the point is, is that a lot of the Republican Party here in California just doesn't really put the work in. And to their credit, they're working with what they got, which is not the greatest funding. And they need more of it.

[00:15:05] But when you look at how much billionaires were willing to pump into Prop 40 to try and get rid of a billionaire's tax. And yeah, sure, it's mostly selfish. They don't want to pay a 5% tax on all of their net worth. The money is there. The money is there. And wouldn't it behoove billionaires or big money donors if they're going to put all this money into Prop 40 and 41, 42, and 43? Wouldn't they have a vested interest if they want to stay in California and they want to keep their companies in California?

[00:15:35] Wouldn't they have a vested interest in supporting candidates and politicians who are more business friendly to high net worth individuals? Wouldn't that make sense? So where's the money? Where's the support? So that's where, that's what I'm getting at here is that Texas and Texas Democrats and in Colorado, they actually put the work in. They put the work in and they spent money.

[00:16:00] And they understood there were going to be election cycles where they did not win. Right? There were going to be elections. I remember Beto, Beto O'Rourke. Remember the skateboarding senator who was challenging Ted Cruz? He only lost by 2.6 points. It was close. It was very close between Beto and Ted. Ted barely pulled it out. But that was the beginning of it.

[00:16:27] That was the beginning of the momentum of getting these big names out there, getting more and more people involved. And they knew that they were going to lose. But they tried anyway. And they invested in these races because I always say this every single election. And I don't really want to hammer on this too long because we've got a lot of other stories to get to. But every election shows you tea leaves of what is to come or what is happening on the ground.

[00:16:54] So people always look at elections and go, did we win or did we lose? And that's a fair question. That's absolutely a fair question to say, did we win or did we lose? But I always like to look more granular. If you're looking for change, are you seeing more people switch to a different party? Are you seeing a shift in the Hispanic vote? Are you seeing a shift in the suburban women vote?

[00:17:23] These are things that you look at and a lot of political consultants who make a lot of money who do this. Look at these little tea leaves and go, what can we glean from this? What can we glean from this? Kind of like in 2024 where there was a bunch of counties that went red and voted for Trump over Kamala Harris. And there was more of a shift by Hispanic voters to Trump. You look at the tea leaves and go, okay, what did you do right? How do you keep doing that? How do you keep moving forward?

[00:17:51] Sadly, I think this election kind of undid all of that progress under 2024. But you look at that and go, there was a point in time where California was actually going more red. If you looked at the counties and if you looked at the makeup and you looked at the voters, there were gains up and down the state. And those are the tea leaves you look at. But the Texas Democrats, they knew this.

[00:18:16] They knew that if they just kept hammering away and there was a perfect storm, like they said, they built it so that they built the sails to catch the wind when it comes. You're not going to flip California overnight just by the grace of God. That's not going to happen. These things happen because there was a groundwork and machinery and a foundation put into place.

[00:18:43] And when that happens, one election cycle can change everything. One star can come along and change everything. In Colorado, that was Barack Obama. You know, he buoyed the prospects of Democrats in Colorado based on his star power and flipped the state. And now it hasn't gone back to a Republican since then. All right. I want to keep going over this just to show you Democrats swept Texas major statewide races.

[00:19:09] We all know Senate governor, lieutenant governor, railroad commissioner, attorney general, comptroller, agricultural commissioner, and land commissioner. I want to go over a little bit, a couple more things that I found. I think I highlighted here. It says, but this time, it says, Texas Democrats had had opportunities like this before to be sure.

[00:19:33] In 2008, 2018, they watched jealously as Democrats across the country see state houses and statewide offices from GOP control trying to take comfort in their smaller wins. But this time was different. Democratic organizers and candidates say, and not different in a way Democrats always promise things will be. Actually, actually different. The Texas Democratic Party worked closely with the Texas majority pack to field candidates in every seat, covering campaign startup costs and helping them staff up.

[00:20:00] They also undertook what they are calling the largest coordinated campaign in Texas history, opening field offices, sharing voter files and vendor agreements, and sending more than 30 million mailers. Bottom line, you have to give them credit. Texas Democrats did the work. And they didn't stop doing the work. It's been about 13 years they've been doing the work. And how many elections did they lose? And how many elections did they come up just short?

[00:20:30] A lot. And they kept running. And Republicans laughed at Texas Democrats and said, oh, you know, every year they think they're going to get close and they're going to flip Texas blue. And every year the Republicans win. But this was different. This was absolutely different because they actually did. And they were making incremental gains and they were catching up. And I think Republicans kind of took granted for that. They took for granted that they could just hold on to this.

[00:20:56] And I think when one thing that was really important in this story is when Republicans started to freak out, they went to the culture war. And I've said on this show again and again and again, kitchen table politics really moves the needle. Culture war is one thing.

[00:21:19] Kitchen table politics moves the needle, wins election, because independents or undecideds don't really care about culture war stuff. As much as many people think they do, they care more about the fact of whether or not they could put food on the table or they can fill their gas tank and get to work and maybe have a little extra money at the end of the week. That's mostly what people care about. And when you go with the pocketbook, you do very well. Steve Hilton ran his campaign on that. I mean, that was his whole thing.

[00:21:48] Affordability, lowering taxes, making it better, $3 a gallon gas. Those are great issues. And I think you had Republicans who were trying to use culture war, and instead Democrats were talking about pocketbook stuff. So here's some other things that they did. So here's some seven lessons. As we said, run someone in every seat. Here in California, you don't see that.

[00:22:17] I can't remember the last time we had a Republican candidate for mayor here in San Diego. Scott Sherman, I think that was the last person. They kind of threw him in at the last minute just to try and kind of put a little bit of a race to talk Gloria. Didn't work out. We did have a Republican mayor not too long ago in Kevin Faulkner. Republicans don't run people in every single seat. Don't wait for the dream ticket.

[00:22:46] Basically, don't wait for one star to show up to change everything. Run people and run them continually. Rebuild the base you lost. So they went after a lot of voters, low propensity voters, 90,000 doors were knocked, and they increased border turnout. So they went to areas where they saw purple counties where they could win and they could be competitive. California Republicans don't really do that.

[00:23:13] They don't look at purple counties and go, we could probably pick up a seat here or there. We could probably get a little gain or assembly seat or something like that. They don't really do that. Let's see. Spend where they aren't. Spanish language ads. GOP spent very little in Texas. For some reason, I don't understand why here in California, Republicans are scared of using Spanish language ads.

[00:23:39] Are they afraid that they're going to scare their base off because they have ads in Spanish? I don't know. But it doesn't really make sense to me why in a state where Spanish is so prominently spoken by a lot of people in their households and among their families, why would you not do a lot of advertising in Spanish? I already talked about this. Pocketbook, not culture war. And obviously, the overreach of ICE was something that didn't help there in Texas.

[00:24:08] And just for a little context, back in 1994, Prop 187 here in California passed with 60% of the vote. If you were around to remember that, I was actually not here. But it's, again, subtle plug. It's actually in my book. There's a whole chapter about the leftward lurch, about how California went from red to blue. And Prop 187 is a big part of that. So it passed with 60% of the vote.

[00:24:33] And then Latino voters registered from 1.4 to 4 million by 2019. And then in San Diego County in 1994, Republicans led 606,000 to 512. And then by 2019, Democrats led 664 to 490. So as you can see, a lot of things flipped. My point being is Republicans in California need to learn the lessons.

[00:25:03] They need to learn the lessons that Texas was doing. And not just sit idly by. And I know Camille and I have talked about this on the show so many times. It does seem like we're out here all by ourselves. Nobody wants to help California. They're just fine with letting California be run completely by Democrats and status every single election. There's not really anybody willing to put up a fight.

[00:25:28] And again, I'm not going after individual candidates or Republicans who are fighting hard to keep their seats or change things. It does feel like the apparatus is just not there. There's no organizing. It doesn't seem like there's any sort of aggressive attitude. And this is sort of a theme of Republicans and Democrats nationally as well. Go back to Howard Dean. Howard Dean, yes, the guy who screamed and yelled and got kicked off basically the presidential run at that point.

[00:25:56] Maybe not kicked off, but he was kind of after that big yell or scream or whatever, he kind of lost it. But he had all the momentum. Howard Dean was the guy in 2004 where he was the big rising star in the Democratic Party. He was very exciting. A lot of people liked him before the scream. Obviously, the scream was a big thing. I don't know if anybody in the comments or the chat, do you remember Howard Dean? Does anybody remember? Or am I kind of dating myself about 2004 if you remember Howard Dean?

[00:26:26] But his thing as he was running was it was the 50-state strategy for Democrats. And at that time, it was a new strategy for Democrats. The idea was we're going to go to every single state and try to be competitive in every single state. And it hasn't stopped since then.

[00:26:52] Even after he lost in 2004, that strategy was then picked up by the Obama campaign in 2008 and then consequently in 2012. And it's still being done today, this 50-state strategy. The Democratic Party in the entire United States abides by this 50-state strategy of we're not going to give ground on any state. We're going to try and be competitive every single state. Republicans don't do that for some reason.

[00:27:18] Republicans are happy to hold on as much as they can dearly to the couple of red states that they have. And they took advantage of the fact that they thought Texas would always go red and they never have to really worry about defending it. Well, egg on their face because now Texas is blue. And it's just one of those things where Democrats continue to be aggressive, Republicans continue to play defense.

[00:27:41] And until Republicans really want to turn around and actually go on offense in some of these states that are blue and start changing things, it's not going to look good for the future if you're not a fan of big government Democrats and statists and now socialists. It's just not a good deal. And I've always said, you know, be aggressive here in California. Why not? Put pressure on California.

[00:28:10] Make Democrats actually defend California. Because right now Democrats don't have to worry about defending California. They don't have to worry about spending money in California. It's because Democrats will just win. Javier Becerra, I mean, like he doesn't, how much money did he spend once he got past the primary? Not a lot, I imagine. Because why? It's, you know, what's he worried about losing?

[00:28:32] But if you force them to actually play on defense, then all of a sudden money that's supposed to go to other states then has to funnel into California. The point of this story is what I see happening in Texas, it was an eye-opener to me,

[00:28:52] someone who's been following up with this politics for long enough, to show you that just because you think a state is red or blue and will always permanently be red or blue, that's not the case. And for people here in California, it should be a wake-up call that work, organization, and a functioning political machine and a political apparatus can actually change things. But you have to be willing to do it.

[00:29:20] And you have to be willing to actually invest in it. It's not going to happen overnight. It took 13 years for Texas Democrats to actually do something and actually get to where they are. They got lucky because in the sense of this big national wave of enthusiasm to get Democrats in as a rebuttal to the Trump administration. But here in California, you got to do the same thing. You got to build the infrastructure and you got to build the sails to catch the wind when it comes along.

[00:29:49] And right now, I don't think Republicans are doing that. So moral of the story, there's more than enough money. We saw it with Prop 40. We saw it with all these propositions. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been dumped into these propositions. Imagine if a fraction of that went into political organization and just a little bit more voter registration outreach. Who knows where California could be in six years, in 10 years? Would it be a purple state? Would it be a swing state? Could be very impressive. Who knows?

[00:30:17] But don't let, don't just think the defeat in Texas doesn't mean anything in a vacuum. Take a lesson from what happened in Texas and think about how it can apply here in California. Okay. Let's see. People checking in. Palm Desert. What's up? Orange County. Tallarico is basically John Cornyn. I mean, I guess moderate. Let's see. I feel a lot better from last week.

[00:30:46] I was recovering from my cold. So anybody tuned in last week. Let's see. Trump was on the ballot. The GOP was on the ballot. They failed at the affordability issue. Yeah, they absolutely did. The GOP had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for one Senate seat. They wound up losing anyway. Yeah. Yeah. But it was also just sometimes you catch politics at the right time.

[00:31:16] And that's what happened. But they had to put in the work. They had to put in work all the way up to them. And there's always a saying about luck is when opportunity and preparation meet. And that's, I guess, the lesson Texas Democrats are showing us is that preparation and opportunity just met at the same time. There was an opportunity. There was a wave of blue. There was a blue wave that picked up a lot of Democrats. And they were just positioned at the perfect time.

[00:31:46] And here we are. I didn't even know who this Gina Hinoza lady was until she won, to be fair. I don't follow a lot of Texas politics. But moral of the story. Moral of the story is it is possible. So when people get my comments or DM me on Instagram or something and say, oh, California will never turn red. It'll never change. I mean, yeah. If that's your belief. But it can absolutely change.

[00:32:16] All right. Next story, which is the title of the show, which is Newsom has cleared out of nowhere, basically two days after the election, Gavin Newsom has commuted the sentence of 548 inmates who were on death row and instead giving them life without parole.

[00:32:38] So let's watch this clip and we'll get into the ramifications and why is he doing this? Because I'm still asking the question as to why is he doing this? And if you're in the chat or the comments, let me know why you think he's doing this. But this is a clip about those victims, the families of victims reacting to this news.

[00:33:10] That was the scene back in 2018 when a defiant Luis Bacamontes was found guilty. And sentenced to death. Thank you for joining us here for our news at 11. I'm Edie Lambert. I'm Goldstein Dart. Bacamontes was convicted of murdering two Sacramento County deputies. And he is just one of 548 inmates whose death sentences were commuted by Governor Newsom today to life in prison without the possibility of parole. KCRE3's Anahita Jafari spoke with friends and family of some of the murder victims who are

[00:33:38] now wondering where's the justice? My family has spent nearly 30 years fighting for justice. Justice for him. Justice for Michael Lyons. He was a person. He was a kid. He wasn't just as a statistic. In 1996, he was abducted by a serial killer after walking home from school. It's extremely disturbing the things that he did to Michael. His life was stolen in an instant.

[00:34:09] This little boy never made it home again. He was almost 80 pounds and this was a grown man. He was a monster. And he took an 8-year-old innocent boy's life. Governor Gavin Newsom plans to convert 548 death sentences to life in prison without parole. Including the sentence of Robert Boyd Rhodes, the man who murdered Michael Lyons.

[00:34:34] Do you feel like the governor considered the voices of victims' families when making this decision? He took every single monster, every single person that's on the worst of the worst, the worst of California's criminals. And he took them all together and gave them all life without parole. And to know that not one case was looked at separately and just taken in for what it was is really, really hard. Hundreds of cases.

[00:35:01] Among them are the loved ones of Danny Oliver, a former Sacramento County deputy killed by Luis Bracamontes in the line of duty alongside another officer. I'm going to break up soon and I will kill more. I went flying in there and he had already been shot in the head and drug underneath the car for like 100 yards or something like that. And they were trying to work on him and, you know, they got him in the ambulance and then I followed him to the ambulance in the ambulance.

[00:35:28] And, you know, I was there with him and they pronounced him dead. Danny's former sergeant, Chris Guerrero, keeps his memory alive with a memorial at his pizza restaurant. I had a party, I had a Christmas party. Ensuring his life and sacrifice are never forgotten. You know, I thought about his kids. I thought about, you know, I thought about his wife, his parents.

[00:35:52] I was hoping I would get through my career not to have to do this, you know, but yeah, that was a really bad day. And today's decision by the governor brings it all back. How does changing a death sentence to life without parole affect victims' families' understanding of the justice system? It's really, really hard. And I wish there was a way to take it all away. Or to at least fully trust in the process.

[00:36:21] We wasted the judge's time, we wasted the DA's time, we wasted all the investigators' time. Everyone's time. It's all for nothing. Except, they say, for the convicted murderer. He's going to live his life out. And how pathetic and however his life is, he's still alive, he's still breathing. And Danny's in the ground. I'm Anahita Jafari reporting for KCRA 3 News. All right. Obviously, rough stuff to talk about.

[00:36:50] If you are sensitive to this stuff, no shame if you want to turn off or tune out. I do want to go over this CalMatters article, and we'll talk about maybe our theory as to why Gavin Newsom did this. So this is, again, Michael Lyons. This is from CalMatters. The title is Soul Hearting Pain, Victims, Families Enraged at Newsom's Death Row Decision.

[00:37:18] Basically talking about how long they've had to endure the horror and tragedy of this in the sense that they've had to relive this tragedy. And every time this happens, an appeal or they have to go through court, they are met with the reminder of what they've lost. And the tragedy and the trauma that they have to go through. Michael Lyons, this was again on May 16, 1996.

[00:37:42] Eight-year-old Michael Lyons was walking home from his Yuba City Elementary School when Robert Boyd Rhodes grabbed him and drove him to a secluded spot along the Feather River. Goes on to say he was sexually assaulted and tortured the boy for the next 10 hours. When the detective shot his body, it was naked from the waist down. His Batman shirt pulled over his head. He'd been cut and stabbed 70 to 80 times, according to friend, the boy's mother.

[00:38:10] Quote, I could see those scrape marks, those knife wounds across his little face. That image will forever be the last image of his beautiful face I would ever see. Another story. Phyllis Loya, a 78-year-old former attorney, is furious that Newsom for disrespecting her son's memory and for adding more trauma on top of everything she and her other victims' families have endured. Quote, it was a deliberate political decision and he couldn't care less about what happens to victims. He doesn't want our input. He doesn't want to hear our stories.

[00:38:40] He doesn't want to consider us. Her son, Larry Lasseter, 36, an officer with the Pittsburgh Police Department, got the call on April 23, 2005, to be on the lookout for two armed suspects who had robbed a bank branch inside a grocery store. That suspect, 18-year-old Alexander Rashad Hamilton, fired four shots, two of which hit Lasseter. Hamilton continued firing at the officers until the guns magazine was empty before he surrendered. After his sentence hearing, Hamilton said he was fine with being sentenced to death.

[00:39:10] He had no interest in hearing from Lasseter's family telling the judge, quote, let me get on my way, San Francisco reported. And it just goes on and on and on. And another story that is probably one of the more, not popular in the sense of popular in a good way, but one of the more well-known ones, which, subtle plug, I do go over, I had mentioned this at the top of the show, I do go over in the crime section of my book. In fact, it starts off the entire chapter, which is about Polly Klaus.

[00:39:41] Richard A., this was 1993, Richard Allen Davis kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaus from her Petaluma bedroom and murdered her. And he's one of the most notorious names on death row, and now he is covered by Gavin Newsom's order. Mark Klaus called the announcement a shiv in my back. So he was the father. This is like a shiv in my back. Now, the sister said he doesn't deserve death, so there's a little bit of change. But it did lead to a lot of change in criminal justice law.

[00:40:11] Three strikes, Prop 184, which is also a result of that. It says, Polly was at a Petaluma slumber party. Davis was out on parole despite a long, violent record. And then he was sentenced to death in 1996.

[00:40:31] So here is the weird conundrum of why he did this and why I kind of put this out there in the thumbnail and in the title. Why did Gavin Newsom do this? I think there's some people who say that maybe it saves less because of appeals, but it probably costs more money in terms of keeping someone on, not death row, but life in prison without parole is going to cost a lot more.

[00:41:00] It's not really a cost thing. He said it's because his decision was forced because it didn't line up with California's values. Interesting. Interesting. California values. This is also the state that basically has made it a constitutional amendment, a constitutional right for you to get an abortion.

[00:41:31] I'm just going to leave that there. You have a governor who says that death row does not align with California values, but you have a state that protects, has a constitutional right for abortion. And maybe Gavin Newsom can say that this is some part of his Catholic upbringing that he doesn't believe in death row or giving the death penalty.

[00:41:58] But one can't be true without the other, right? That can't be the same thing. You can't have the same belief for one type of life and not the other type of life. I'm not really sure where he's going with this. Maybe someone in the chat just said maybe he was told to do it. I don't know why someone would be told to do it.

[00:42:19] Maybe big prison got to him and said, we want you to do this so that we can make more money on them because you'll have to pay us more money. That seems like an odd thing to do, but I'm not really sure what he's going to do with this. First thing I thought of is this is absolute political fodder for at least political ammunition for 2028. Imagine the campaign ads that are going to run when Gavin Newsom is running in those states like Iowa.

[00:42:51] All of a sudden, they can name any of these poor victims, Michael Lyons, Polly Klaus, the officer who was killed. They can name all these people, put them in an ad, and say, Gavin Newsom commuted the death sentence for the criminals who committed this. They were on death row. A jury found them guilty and convicted them to a death sentence.

[00:43:16] A jury of your peers from your constitutional right found you guilty, sentenced you to death, and Gavin Newsom said, no, no. I'm going to commute that sentence because of reasons, because it doesn't align with California values. Mind you, this is not the first time that we know about Prop 36 how Gavin Newsom didn't listen to the will of the people.

[00:43:47] You know, Gavin Newsom loves democracy when it favors him. He's a big fan of democracy when it favors what he wants to do, right? He always goes on and on about campaign for democracy. That's the name of his super PAC that he has. Loves democracy when it aligns with his goals but not when it doesn't align with his goals. Prop 36 passed overwhelmingly. Every single county in California, all 58, voted yes to support Prop 36 to get tougher on crime.

[00:44:14] Gavin Newsom weaseled his way out of it and said, well, they didn't include a funding mechanism, so therefore I don't have to fund this. I don't have to do anything about this. I don't have to implement this. Also, it was 2012 and 2016. Yes, 2012 and 2016, there were two ballot measures to try and abolish the death penalty. Californians voted both times to uphold the death penalty.

[00:44:42] And you can say what you feel about the death penalty. Some people were against the death penalty. But if you're going to argue that you listen to the will of the people, like Gavin Newsom loves to say, that he's a big fan of democracy and the will of the people and every vote should be counted. He just cast aside all of this. And in 2019, a year after he was elected and his first year in office, he implemented a moratorium on the death penalty.

[00:45:10] So he implemented a moratorium. Even though California voters said, no, we're fine with the death penalty. We can keep the death penalty as a punishment. He instituted a moratorium in 2019. And now on his way out with a couple months left to go, he commutes the sentences of 548 death row inmates. Now, it's not as simple as that.

[00:45:34] There is a little bit of a backstop because based on the California Constitution, Article 5, Section 8, anyone twice convicted of a felony needs a Supreme Court recommendation. So that means four justices out of those who are on the court right now. So that's about 382 of the 548, 70%, who need to go through Supreme Court recommendations.

[00:46:02] And keep in mind, if you think, yes, there are several who have been appointed by Gavin Newsom. Let me see. I think I have the numbers right here. Let's see. It's not a Newsom court. There are six sitting justices and one vacancy. Six of them are two Newsom appointees. There are three Jerry Brown appointees and one Schwarzenegger appointee. So it's not entirely a Newsom court.

[00:46:30] Now, whether or not that gets filled by Newsom before he leaves, that's something else. Whether Becerra nominates someone when he gets in, we'll have to see. It falls on kind of Javier Becerra. If they don't do this by January 4th, it becomes Javier Becerra's problem. So here's a nice little going away present. Here you go, Becerra. Now you get to handle this hot potato. But I'm not really sure what the purpose of this was. I'm not sure what the political get.

[00:46:58] I'm usually pretty attuned to what Gavin Newsom does and go, well, he's doing this because he knows this will look good for his presidential run in 2028. And I guess this time I'm trying to look at it and go, somebody just said it. Maybe that's the best point. Drumroll 420 is that he did it for the DSA vote for 2028. He is kind of making that move. He's kind of positioning himself to be an ally of the DSA, even though he's far from a Democratic Socialist.

[00:47:27] I mean, he is an entitled rich white guy who lives in Marin County in a $9 million mansion. The last thing he wants to be is a socialist. He makes more than enough money. Definitely not a socialist. So it is odd to think why he would do this. Maybe he's just not a fan of criminal justice. He doesn't like Prop 36. He doesn't like the death sentence.

[00:47:56] It's been something that he has tried to block ever since he's been in office. It's still a law on the books, and California voters have upheld it not once but twice. So I'm not sure where this goes. I'm not sure why he's doing this. And that's the point of my thumbnail why I put up there. I said, why did this happen? I'm not really quite sure. The DSA vote might be the best guess.

[00:48:25] So, you know, shout out to Drumroll in the chat for saying that. That might be the best guess as to why Gavin Newsom did this because of that DSA vote. Is the DSA against the death penalty? I don't know. I haven't looked that up, but that's an interesting angle. All right, let's look at some more comments, and we're going to get to our last story of the night. So we can't sentence a serial killer to death even though we don't execute anyone on death row due to cost in California.

[00:48:56] Would he have commuted the death sentence of someone who killed his wife or one of his children? That's a good question. I don't know. Would he have gone all the way out? He just kind of did one stroke where he's like, everybody. Incarcerating someone on death row typically requires two to three times more resources than housing an average prisoner. That might be an interesting thing. Maybe it's a cost thing. I don't know.

[00:49:25] Entitled rich people are the DSA. That's a good point. Yeah. All right. Last story of the night. The Becerra era has begun. The Becerra era has begun. Javier Becerra was seen in Sacramento Capitol building, and reporters caught up with the new governor-elect. He will be the governor coming in January.

[00:49:51] I think it's January 7th is when he gets sworn in. So we have until January 7th. Newsom will be out. Becerra will be in. In the words of my favorite band, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I do want to bring this up because it's already really early into his tenure as governor-elect.

[00:50:17] And it seems like Javier Becerra is no friend of the press. Right? It seems like he's no friend of the press. He pushed back on him in Sacramento. But this isn't the first time that he's done this. This was earlier in the campaign. I want to pull up this clip real quick. California gubernatorial candidate Javier Becerra is facing heat from critics over his exchange he had with a local reporter.

[00:50:47] By the way, this is a profile piece. This is not a gotcha piece, right? Well, look, I think these questions are fair. It's in order to learn about you as a candidate. So long as it's about the profile. I don't know how you define profile, but I'd like to begin the interview. The way I describe profile is you talk about all the things that I've done, things I want to do, and along with some tough questions. But not only tough questions.

[00:51:10] Becerra's campaign telling Fox, quote, he's proven over decades in public service that he will always show up, take questions, and defend the right of journalists to do their job. Primary Day in California is on June 2nd. That was probably the biggest hint right away that Javier Becerra is not a friend of reporters.

[00:51:33] And I think he believes as a state with a super majority of Democrats where they hold every statewide office, where they believe that they don't have to answer to the press. And I want to thank, you know, there are great reporters out there, Ashley Zavala, Jody Watts is another one, Joyce Savchik down here.

[00:51:55] You're starting to see the rise of these kind of bolder reporters and applause to them for going out and holding these politicians' feet to the fire. And showing that there is a market for these type of reporters who actually hold the state accountable for what they're doing. And they're going to have to keep doing it. They're going to have to work extra hard at it. You know, you have Robert Rivas, who is the Speaker of the Assembly. He is notorious for not answering questions.

[00:52:26] He will run away from reporters and doesn't answer questions. So, all right, you have the Speaker of the Assembly who doesn't want to answer questions. Don't know much about the new Senate pro temp, whether she is a big fan of the media or not. You have a lot of these politicians who are not a fan of answering questions, whether it's the Secretary of State, whether it's the Comptroller, whether it's the State Treasurer, whether it's anybody who's working on the Capitol Annex building.

[00:52:55] And now you have Javier Becerra, who is doing the same thing. In a state where who's going to check you? Why worry about the media? And in that clip, that sort of attitude of, well, just to be sure, this is a profile piece, right, to show you how wonderful I am. Not, you know, not any gotcha questions.

[00:53:23] Like, he wanted to make sure that this was just a puff piece, not actually a real interview. Now, this was the piece that is going more viral as of recently. This is him after being elected this week. Guys, don't play this game about asking me to commit because I didn't get elected doing that. The Becerra era has officially begun. California's governor-elect met with reporters at the state capitol for the first time since the election.

[00:53:53] We had about 19 minutes with him. And in those 19 minutes, we didn't get any new announcements, no new insight into how he'll govern California, no specific policies or what he's going to push in these next few months. He was flanked by the Senate's president, pro tem Monique Limon and assembly speaker Robert Rivas. His spokesman said that the news of the day is that all of them are Latino and that they are willing to work together. Now, in this limited Q&A, reporters tried to get more specifics out of Becerra.

[00:54:21] A lot of these questions revolving around the cost of living, the cost of energy in this state, cutting taxes, and the cost of health care. That clip in the beginning that I showed you was prompted by the last question that he took. California's leaders, Governor Newsom and state lawmakers, because of budget issues, had to cut back on the state's health insurance that right now has been extended to undocumented people. That scale back takes place in July. Becerra was asked if he'll commit to reversing those cuts. As he responded to the question, he left reporters with this message.

[00:54:51] You know, every time people ask those, will you commit to this, will you promise to that, that may get you elected, but that isn't the way you govern. And I made it very clear, I was going to be the health care governor for California. I made it very clear that I want California to be the backstop for all families who need access to health care. But you want me to make a commitment to families without knowing what the budget will be, without knowing where the votes are? And that's just playing politics the wrong way.

[00:55:20] I'm no longer a candidate. I'm now the governor-elect. So I will take this very seriously. Am I committed to make sure families don't lose their health care? Not only that, I'm committed to expand it so more families have access to health care. But you want me to make a commitment without knowing what the budget will be, without knowing where the votes are? I'm not going to play you that game. I will tell you that no one on this campaign for governor was more committed than I was to make sure that not one family lost their health care

[00:55:50] and that those families that didn't have it would get it. All right. Javier Becerra, not going to play that game. Not going to commit. To be fair, he hasn't looked at the budget yet. He hasn't gotten into office. But there's this standoffish attitude, right, with Javier Becerra. First you have this interview where he doesn't want people to ask many gotcha questions. It's got to be a puff piece.

[00:56:19] Then you have this interaction with reporters where he goes, guys, I'm not going to play this game. I'm not going to answer a lot of your questions. What he's referring to with this issue, with the cuts, because he said, again, I'm going to be the health care governor. He used to be the HHS secretary, although the Biden administration said he was an idiot. I don't know if that was verified or not, but supposedly he was like the HHS secretary. They couldn't find him when meetings were really important, especially during the end of COVID.

[00:56:48] Here's the cuts that he's talking about. It's $4 billion where Gavin Newsom had extended Medi-Cal to basically any person, regardless of age, regardless of citizenship status, whether you're a citizen of California or not. It slowly started with, well, it's going to be kids. And then people were like, well, yeah, kids, of course. Can't get mad at kids. And then it was elderly people.

[00:57:18] And it was, well, okay, you can't get really mad at elderly people. And then Gavin Newsom goes, no, we're just going to make it everybody. And then less than a year later, it broke Medi-Cal to the point where the legislature had to loan Medi-Cal money. We had to loan ourselves money to actually fill the gap. It was like $2 billion shortfall because there were too many people who were signing up because when you make anyone eligible for Medi-Cal, regardless of age, even if they don't have citizenship, guess what's going to happen? There's going to be a lot of people who show up and actually hop on Medi-Cal.

[00:57:47] And they weren't expecting that. And the LAO called it out. The LAO, the legislative analyst office said, if you open this up and let everybody come on here, they're not going to be able to handle it. So that's the cut that they're talking about. So then in January 2026, they had to enrollment freeze all of this. Basically, undocumented adults, 19 and over, they basically said, okay, we can't afford this anymore, so we're going to freeze this right now.

[00:58:12] In July 2026, dental ended, and then July 2027, coming up next year, they're going to start charging people $30 a month premium. So it's not free anymore. They're going to be starting to charge people $30 a month in premiums. Isn't it funny how that always ends up that free does not actually mean free. Someone has to end up paying for it. And at a certain point, when you try and give everyone free health care, sooner or later, someone's got to end up paying for it.

[00:58:41] And if you don't have enough people paying into the system, it's going to collapse like it did here in California. And then what happens is, well, we can't afford to give you free, so we give you really cheap health insurance. And let's see where that gets you. So state estimates freeze $3.3 billion a year when fully in, including premiums $675 million a year. So, you know, only about $300 million in savings.

[00:59:11] So that's not what he's committing to. He's saying, I'm not going to commit to it. I don't know if we actually have the money to do this. It doesn't mean he's not going to try it. He said that every revenue option is going to be on the table to raise revenue. And I'm sure his goal as the health care governor is to give health care to everybody. He's going to look at every revenue, whether that is, again, taxing billionaires, taxing millionaires, multimillionaires, whether that's taxing one way or the other. They're going to try and figure out how to raise revenue for this.

[00:59:42] Whether he can do it or not will be a completely different issue. And I just want to point out a pattern with Javier Becerra. Just so we know going into his – people probably saw this going into it, and Helton called him out on it. June 9th was his last group Q&A until August. Okay? Keep in mind the primaries were at the beginning of June. So once he won his primary, he thought he could just skate in. August 5th, he left a Capitol presser 12 minutes in and just walked away. Just said, I'm done.

[01:00:12] I'm just going to walk away. September 30th, he had one debate with Steve Hilton. Even though they said they agreed to several debates, he did only one. There was a second one that was scheduled, and Javier Becerra had no-showed. And then Nithya Rama, just as an aside to Los Angeles, she's doing the same thing. In the New York Post, they talked about how both Becerra and Rahman both think they don't have to answer any questions.

[01:00:41] So what's the moral of the story here? Moral of the story is when you live in a state that is a supermajority of one party, they feel like they're not beholden to the people. And in fact, I guess the through line in this whole episode, kind of bringing it all home,

[01:01:03] is when you have a state that is a supermajority of one party that doesn't believe they have to answer to the people, change has to happen. Something has to happen. And something does need to happen in California. Whether there are the people out there who are listening, maybe someone sees this video, hears this podcast and says something does need to change, the truth is it's not going to happen overnight.

[01:01:32] But it does happen over time. And pressure on this type of entrenched party, this one-party state, does change things because all of a sudden politicians who are mostly, not all politicians, there are a lot of nice politicians out there. If you've met them personally, there's a lot of people who actually care. But mostly, inherently politicians are out to save themselves, protect their nice little cushy little government job.

[01:02:03] So when pressure is applied where they might lose their seat, all of a sudden they change their tune a little bit more. There is a compelling effect that happens when things start to change in a state. And all of a sudden, those who are in power and thought they were deeply entrenched into power might change how they govern. Because right now, we talked about two stories where you had a governor on his way out, a lame duck governor who goes,

[01:02:31] I don't care that the state voted not once but twice to uphold the death penalty. I'm just going to go ahead and commute all the sentences, 548 death row inmates. I'm also not going to listen to Prop 36 and not care about that. I'm just not going to listen to the will of people. And who's going to stop me? And then we have another story where the governor-elect who's coming in after this lame duck governor basically is telling the media to go screw off. I'm not going to answer your questions. I don't care.

[01:02:58] I'm going to be combative with you because I don't think I really need to answer your questions. And please, if you're going to do an interview with me, make it a puff piece. Don't ask any gotcha questions. Don't ask any hard questions. I don't have to answer hard questions. I'm the governor of the state of California. I'm a Democrat. And I have all of the power at my fingertips. So that's the through line for tonight's episode. You have a state governor that is one party and completely out of control,

[01:03:26] completely out of touch with the people and the will of the people when they vote against them. They just don't listen to it. And then you have Texas, which is giving you the blueprint of how to make change happen here in California. So I guess the final question worth asking for this show and for maybe people to ruminate on, comment on.

[01:03:51] Again, if you want to actually give me your thoughts so I can read them next time on the show, inbox at CaliforniaUnderground.live. You can send your thoughts there. I'll read them. Again, if you say, hey, I want to have this on the show or something, I'll read your comment on the show or question, theory, stuff like that. That's the point I want to create more of a two-way communication, inbox at CaliforniaUnderground.live. Love to see your emails and stuff like that. But it's a question you got to think about.

[01:04:21] How do we change the state? Texas gave us the blueprint. The question is, will anybody follow it or will anybody listen? Or will the California GOP continue to do what they always do? Which is not run enough people, not register new voters, and throw Hail Marys and hope that things work out. All right. With that, we're a couple minutes over. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. As always, make sure you subscribe, like, share, review.

[01:04:50] All of that stuff helps with the algorithm. Hyping, as well, if you see this a couple days after and you like it and you can see hyping, make sure you hype as well. Hyping does help this, does help more people. Somebody asked, what about the mileage tax? We'll get to that. Believe me, there's a lot to discuss with Becerra. There's a lot of stuff we're going to have to unpack from the midterm. So there's going to be a lot of stuff that we have going in through the rest of the year. We're not done. We're not done.

[01:05:20] California Underground is not done talking about California politics. I know a lot of influencers out there who, because it was vogue, because there was a gubernatorial race, wanted to jump in and start talking about California all of a sudden. They switched their hats from national politics to California politics because there was a gubernatorial race. We haven't gone anywhere. We've been here doing California politics for the past eight, nine years. We're not going anywhere. We're here in the off seasons. We're here in election season.

[01:05:48] We're here to give you the news and the breakdown and stuff like that and our input and uncover these stories for you and really dissect them for you every single week, Tuesday at 8 p.m. So with that, the best thing you can do to support the show that is 100% free is share it with someone that you think would really like this. So if you know someone and say, hey, I think that you would really like this show. I get a lot out of it. I really like the host. He's pretty cool, too. Let someone know.

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[01:06:43] It talks about all of this stuff, the leftward lurch about how we went from red to blue. It talks about crime, three strikes, death penalties, all of that stuff. It's all in the book. Go check it out. You can scan the code. Go on Amazon. Look for The Gilded State. With that, we'll see you on the next one. Later.