The movement to recall California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has helped people understand what they can do to hold their elected officials accountable, says Randy Economy, senior advisor and official spokesman to the RecallGavin2020 campaign.
“It’s empowerment. I think people now realize that they can take their government back, and they can hold their elected officials accountable,” Economy told The Epoch Times’ Crossroads program. “I think that’s the power of democracy.”
The effort to recall Newsom was launched on June 10 last year. Supporters needed to collect 1,495,709 signatures by March 17 to trigger a recall election.
Previous attempts at collecting the required amount of signatures had failed. But on Sunday, the campaign said it had reached 1.95 million signatures.
“And we’re going to be adding more and more between now and the very last day,” Economy said.
“We’re fighting every odd against us,” he told The Epoch Times. “We’re standing up to some really powerful multi-billionaires and the political swamp here in California that’s been controlled by one party for almost two generations now.”
Economy indicated that politics in California is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s easy to spend $10, $12, or $20 million to run for a state assembly seat or a state senate seat.
“We’ve only raised $950,000. And in the grand scheme of things, that’s peanuts in California politics,” he said.
Economy called the recall campaign a “grassroots movement.” The campaign has 250,000 volunteers and only two paid employees. Economy is one of the two.
Economy went on to say that the recall effort is not partisan. “It’s not a Democrat thing. It’s not a Republican thing. It’s about the fact that people just feel helpless right now. They want hope. They want to have inspiration.”
Among the people who signed the recall petition, 31 percent are Democrats or Independents, and the rest are Republicans or Libertarians.
“We’re just good solid California, you know, grassroots individuals who really are doing the heavy lifting and hopefully making miracles happen by getting this thing on the ballot,” he told The Epoch Times.
“This is not a coup. This is not a takeover of government. We are participating in a legally and lawfully-allowed democratic process, which is called a recall. And a lot of states don’t allow recalls,” Economy added.
Economy suggested that the recall effort has become a national and world focus. He has done nearly 1,300 interviews in the past four months with journalists from across the nation and the world.
Economy said people hearing the recall story are going to start feeling energized and empowered. “They’re going to start looking into saying: ‘Can we do that here? Can I hold my governor accountable?’”
“It started off to being about the governor, but I think it’s now much more [sic] larger than that,” Economy added. “It’s a refreshing, powerful movement.”
“So to the California critics who are promoting partisan power grabs and outdated prejudices and rejecting everything that makes California great, we say this: we will not be distracted from getting shots in arms and our economy booming again.”
