Governor Newsom postponed the annual State of the State address scheduled for today, apparently (according to Politico) until the final results of Proposition 1 are known. When he does deliver the speech, we hope he will address not only the issues with which Proposition 1 is concerned (mental health and housing) but also why California has a budget deficit despite a healthy national economy, the risky choices he proposes for closing that deficit, deterioration in the state’s jobs climate (a new report shows that the California added far fewer jobs than originally thought), and poor K-12 educational performance (California continues to lag Florida, which went from the lower half of the NAEP rankings to the Top 5 over about 10 years, including high rankings for Black and Hispanic students). Governors have responsibility for much more than ballot measures.
