Newsom’s EV obsession exposes his ignorance about democracy
In the battle over redistricting congressional maps, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has sounded the alarm on the “very survival of our democracy.”
It’s not the first time he has wrapped himself in the term. When President Trump deployed troops to quell unrest in Los Angeles, he declared, “democracy is under assault right before our eyes.”
Newsom even launched a “Campaign for Democracy,” purportedly to curb “authoritarian leaders who are so hell-bent on gaining power.”
For Newsom, this “threat to democracy” line isn’t just an overused trope — it increasingly looks like projection.
Consider the following: Americans oppose electric vehicle mandates nearly two-to-one. But, when bipartisan majorities of both chambers of Congress passed and Trump signed legislative repeals of California’s EV mandates, rather than celebrate democracy in action, the Newsom administration sued to subvert the will of the people.
This month, my organization moved to intervene in the Northern District of California to stop Newsom’s attack against democracy, arguing that California’s claims are meritless.
Newsom’s rule is not just a threat to long-suffering California motorists. Setting aside his national political ambitions for 2028, California’s EV mandates carry major implications stretching well beyond the Golden State.
Newsom’s EV mandate phases out conventional vehicles, completely banning the sale of new internal-combustion engine passenger cars and light trucks in California starting in 2035. At that point, all new sales must be of so-called “zero-emission vehicles.”
Under a quirk of the Clean Air Act, California alone is empowered to request a waiver of federal preemption from the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce stricter emissions regulations than those from Washington, D.C. Once the EPA gives its blessing, every other state in the country can opt to follow California’s rules.
In December, as the Biden administration was careening to its merciful conclusion, the EPA granted last-minute waivers green-lighting California’s request to enforce its EV mandates and to export them to 11 other states.
If this is allowed to stand, sales of new internal-combustion engine cars and light trucks would be banned in roughly 30 percent of the U.S. market in less than a decade.
Fortunately, bipartisan majorities in Congress disagreed and passed three Congressional Review Act resolutions repealing those waivers. Enacted in 1996, the Congressional Review Act allows Congress to overturn rules issued by government agencies through an expedited legislative process. Under the law, only a majority vote, not the 60-vote threshold required to surpass a filibuster in the U.S. Senate, is required.
As the Supreme Court has already noted in a decision joined by one of the liberal justices, by using this procedure, Congress enacted “legislation” that “block[s] [these] California regulations.”
Yet within hours of Trump’s signature on June 12, California, along with 10 other progressive states that have adopted these EV mandates, sued. Their theory is that they were somehow entitled to the Senate filibuster’s 60-vote threshold because Congress failed to follow the advice of two unelected Democrats who provide non-binding advice to Congress — the comptroller of the Government Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian.
Not only was Congress right in how it interpreted the Congressional Review Act, but, more fundamentally, whether and how to use the procedures provided under the act, or any other procedures to pass laws, is a determination the Constitution reserves to Congress. The courts are powerless to second guess it.
That is why the Congressional Review Act expressly shields any aspect of the act’s process from judicial review. Newsom would know this if he were truly steeped in the principles of the democracy whose future he claims to be representing.
On electric vehicles, as with many other facets of everyday life, common sense has prevailed over climate extremism. Meritless claims and hopes for judicial resistance may play well with the activist class, but they alienate ordinary working Americans.
A Democratic Party shut out of power and grappling with approval ratings at a 35-year low should take note, especially as it desperately seeks a leader to guide it from the abyss.
Before turning their lonely eyes to Newsom, Democrats would be wise to think twice. Not only are his policies misguided and his state unaffordable, but his red-faced rhetoric about “democracy” fails to pass a basic constitutional smell test.
Bill McGinley is the president of the Center for Legal Action, the litigation arm of the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce. He previously served as assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary in President Donald Trump’s first-term White House.