Gavin Newsom is perhaps one of the luckiest governors in California history given that he has presided during an economic boom that, at one point, left the state with an almost unimaginable $97.5-billion budget surplus. Mainly, all he had to do was propose spending programs—and he had compliant Democratic supermajorities to give him what he wanted.
Even the COVID-19 situation, despite posing a serious public-health challenge, was a godsend for the state's chief executive, given that the normal constraints of governing went by the wayside. Like many other governors, he grabbed vast executive powers—issuing hundreds of edicts. Many of them only tangentially related to the pandemic. How many governors historically have exerted so much power?
