The Governor’s Coin-Op French Laundry
By Susan Shelley
Governor Gavin Newsom’s arrogant jaunt to a luxury restaurant for a lobbyist’s birthday dinner was a revealing look at how our elected leaders and their closest advisers are using political power to rob the people of California of their money and their freedom.
If you somehow missed this story, Newsom and his wife were photographed through the sliding glass doors of a private dining room at The French Laundry, chef Thomas Keller’s California-opulent restaurant in Napa, where none of the dozen attendees were wearing masks or observing state-required social distancing. In fact, they were seated, as Groucho Marx put it, “Any closer and I’ll be in back of you.”
The November 6 dinner party, first reported by Alexei Koseff in the San Francisco Chronicle and confirmed by photos obtained by Fox 11 News in Los Angeles, was also attended by the chief executive officer of the California Medical Association and the CMA’s top lobbyist.
News of the rule-breaking soirée broke just as the state government was announcing its new directive, ordering the rest of California to cancel Thanksgiving dinner with extended family and friends.
Why is this even legal?
It may not be legal. Assembly members Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, and James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, recently won a lawsuit seeking to stop the governor from writing and amending state laws using the power he says he has under the California Emergency Services Act. A Superior Court judge said he doesn’t have that power.
You won’t be surprised to hear that the governor is appealing that decision.
Two issues in particular deserve your attention:
First, the credibility and necessity of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions are called into question by the fact that the governor, his wife, and two top officials from the California Medical Association felt perfectly safe at a crowded dinner table, with people from more than three households, without masks. If the people who review “the science” and “the data” every day feel personally safe attending a mask-less, crowded dinner party at a restaurant, what does that say about the justification for the restrictions that are currently ruining California’s small business owners and erasing the liberty of state residents?
Second, ever since the emergency declaration in March, state and local officials have placed unprecedented restrictions on freedom and commerce. The United States Constitution guarantees your right to life, liberty and property, and it prohibits any state from depriving you of those rights without due process of law. A blanket emergency declaration that overrides all your rights for an indefinite period of time, at the whim of one elected official, is an unconstitutional infringement on the freedom of American citizens.
Freedom is a condition that exists under a government of limited power. If there are no limits on power, and the government can do anything to anybody at any time, you are not free. Everything you do requires the consent of the government.
In a free country, the government requires the consent of the governed.
Gov. Newsom’s dinner at The French Laundry in honor of a lobbyist’s birthday offered Californians a peek through the sliding glass doors at the influence-peddling sewer that sits atop the state of California.
It’s a coin-op French Laundry.
Susan Shelley and Jon Coupal talk California issues every week on the Howard Jarvis Podcast. Listen and subscribe at www.kabc.com/the-howard-jarvis-podcast/
