Gavin Newsom will head to a Vatican climate summit next month. GOP cries foul

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will head to the Vatican mid-May to speak at a papal summit on climate change, a trip scheduled a day after the deadline to submit his potentially controversial revised budget to the Legislature.

Newsom’s May 15-17 trip to the Vatican was announced Monday, and quickly denounced by Republicans.

“Awfully convenient timing for the governor to dump his bad news about California’s $73 billion budget deficit in the May Revise, only to swiftly jet out of the country shortly after,” state Sen. Minority Leader Brian W. Jones, R-Santee, said in an emailed statement.

“Newsom is all about chasing national headlines while ignoring his job as governor of California. Our state is in crisis — Californians want and deserve answers,” he said.

Like Jones, other Republicans argue that Newsom is stretching far into national and international issues when he should be devoting himself to governing the state. Democrats contend the governor is striking just the right balance.

Newsom’s office said he is “focused on addressing the state’s top issues, including the climate crisis.”

“The governor’s brief travel to the Vatican Climate Summit — where he will join other governors as he represents the 10 million Catholics who call California home — is immediately after the May Revise,” his office said in an email. “The governor’s trip is in recognition that the cost of climate inaction will make today’s budget challenges, which stem from last year’s extreme weather, even worse.”

Climate summit organizers said two other governors, Maura Healey of Massachusetts and Kathy Hochul of New York, are also invited along with 16 mayors and governors from other countries and all will have a speaking role. Leading scholars from the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe will also attend.

Co-organizer Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, the chancellor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, noted that the criteria for who will speak was “binary: Governors in hotspot regions of the world facing significant climate risks and governors from regions offering best practices in climate resilience.”

Whirlwind Week

Analysts pointed out that it appears Newsom is positioning himself for a future presidential bid.

Consider just the past week of activity for the governor, diving in and out of national issues while blending direct California items into his whirlwind schedule.

It began a week ago Sunday with an announcement on national television when he said he was working on emergency legislation to give Arizona abortion providers the ability to care for Arizona patients who come to California. At the same time, his political action committee unveiled an advertisement targeting Alabama audiences challenging planned abortion restrictions in that state.

On Earth Day April 22, Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom helped dedicate the new state park, Dos Rios, in the Central Valley.

At a midweek news conference at the state Capitol, the governor introduced the promised bill to aid Arizonans seeking abortions.

A day later, he stood on a patch of land carved out on a walnut farm in front of a solar array in Winters, a town 30 miles southwest of Sacramento, the governor touted a California battery storage capacity milestone.

Among others actions during the week, amid a torrent of news releases about different matters from his office, the governor announced that the state has awarded more than $100 million for 33 tribal land projects “as part of a first-in-the-nation effort to address historical wrongs committed against California Native American tribes.”

In another missive, he announced the state was awarding $120 million in tax credits for eight California companies, including one that aims to build the first steel mill in the state in 50 years.

Becoming a national figure

“It’s been obvious for months if not years that after winning reelection in 2022, Newsom has tried to become more of a national figure, likely in anticipation of a future presidential run,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said in an email..

Many governors with similar ambitions end up juggling a lot “and it’s up to home-state voters to determine whether they end up neglecting the home front.”

He also noted that Newsom can’t run for reelection because of term limits, “so even if his state-level standing weakens, there’s not really an electoral outlet for voters to express that dissatisfaction.”

That wasn’t stopping detractors from chiming in, some of whom had spoken last week saying Newsom ought to worry more about California and let Arizona handle its own problems. Newsom responded the Golden State will be directly impacted by the strict abortion ban in Arizona.

Still, “If anyone’s curious where Gavin Newsom’s priorities lie, look no further than his red-state Twitter rants or his international travel schedule,” California GOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said in an emailed statement.

“California faces a record $73 billion budget deficit while struggling with an affordability crisis, surging homeless population and the nation’s highest unemployment rate, but instead of tackling the mounting issues at home, Newsom is now jetting off to the Vatican. News flash for Newsom: you were elected to be California’s governor, and you are failing miserably,” she said.

Democrats viewed Newsom’s incursions on to the national and international stage differently.

“The California Democratic Party continues to prioritize addressing the devastating effects of climate change and supports the governor’s work to provide solutions to this global crisis,” Rusty Hicks, the chair of the California Democratic Party, said in an emailed statement. “Air and water pollution don’t stop at any national border, and it will require the hard work of bringing leaders from across the globe together to affect real change.”