Emboldened after surviving his recall election, California Governor Gavin Newsom is trying to one up Texas by making an anti-gun law that is modeled after their SB8 anti-abortion law. He wants to allow private citizens in California to sue anyone selling or manufacturing "assault weapons."
The media cheered the move this weekend, particularly CNN and MSNBC. On CNN Newsroom with Fredericka Whitfield, the host brought on California Democrat congresswoman Jackie Speier to praise the governor and bash the Supreme Court’s decision in the SB8 case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson.
Announcing that the state was now an “abortion sanctuary,” the CNN host touted how Speier once defended partial birth abortion, relaying her own experience in 2011: “Officials in your state say they plan to make California a sanctuary for abortion rights if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade. You got really personal with America when you spoke about your own abortion on the house floor.” She then played that clip of the Democrat scolding her GOP colleagues.
Afterwards, Whitfield wailed that the country was going backwards:
“So that was ten years ago, and here we are now listening to efforts to disregard a variety of circumstances, among them just like yours. I mean, is this nation, in your view, going backwards?”
Her Democrat guest completely agreed, bashing the Supreme Court for taking away the “personal, private” right to take another human being’s life in abortion. The CNN host worried for women outside of California. “What's your message to women outside of California, you know who are waiting to hear what becomes of abortion rights across the country but particularly in their states?,” she pleaded to her guest, who again boasted how her state would welcome women to get abortions for any reason.
During another hour of CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta, fill-in host Phil Mattingly also hyped Newsom’s proposed law:
So he got an idea. Why not create a law based on a similar principle? Only this time it would give residents legal standing to file lawsuits against those who manufacture or distribute firearms. He tweeted, “SCOTUS is allowing private citizens in Texas sue to stop abortion?! If that’s the precedent then we’ll let Californians sue those who put ghost guns and assault weapons on our streets. If Texas can ban abortion and endanger lives, California can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives.”
His guest, PBS host and CNN commentator Margaret Hoover, begrudgingly noted that it didn’t seem within Newsom’s power to make a unilateral law like this. But she tried to soften the blow by insisting Newsom’s political stunt “made a point”:
Look, it seems a little too cute by half. I mean I understand what he's doing and he's trying to make a point. But that law in Texas by the way the one in Texas and in Mississippi, these are lawed that have passed through the legislature's lane by the governor. So I don't know that Governor Newsom can do this unilaterally. But he's trying to make a point. And he's using you know these preposterous vigilante laws, enforcement mechanisms to make a point that there's a double standard here. So I understand what he's doing, but it seems a little cute.
Her husband, CNN commentator John Avlon, was more obnoxious, lecturing the Supreme Court. “Well, at the very least it may force some justices to think about the underlying principle and precedent rather than just the ideological desire they may have to see the law in one state passed and not the other,” he hoped, to which Mattingly agreed.
On left-wing MSNBC, host Alex Witt was excited by Newsom’s stunt. Bringing on Speier, she gushed, “Wow!” over the governor using the same tactic that the media slammed as “vigilantism” when it came to abortion. As Speier praised the “brilliant” suggestion by her fellow Democrat, Witt raved “if it’s good for the goose it's good for the gander.”
But constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley deflated the media’s hopes and dreams, writing Sunday to not believe the media hype because the law Newsom is proposing is unconstitutional, as he also deemed the Texas law.
"With his bravado, Newsom has guaranteed that courts will strike down his law as an open ‘mockery’ of gun rights precedent and he will actually box in liberal judges and jurists in voting against the California law on the same grounds," he wrote.
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Read the transcripts below:
MSNBC
Alex Witt Reports
12/12/21
ALEX WITT: After the Supreme Court declined to block enforcement of the Texas abortion law, California Governor Gavin Newsom is responding with a call for new legislation utiliziang the very same tactic.
The governor’s office tweeted a statement writing, “if states can shield their laws from review by federal courts, then California will use that authority to help protect lives. We will work to create the ability for private citizens to sue anyone who manufacturers, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in California.” Joining me now is California congresswoman Jackie Speier, a democratic member of the house armed services, intelligence, and oversight committees.
Wow! As I welcome you. First give me your reaction to what Gavin Newsom has done there with regard to saying, you know what? We're going to use what Texas is doing to do it here in
California, you manufacture, sell, do anything with assault weapons, ghost gun kits, we're going to be able to come after you with lawsuits.
REP. JACKIE SPEIER: Well, it's brilliant and it makes the point that the Supreme Court absolutely refused to do what it should have done, which is to strike down the decision– that allowed SB8, [audio out] through which Texas gave vigilantes the ability to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. The law in Texas is unconstitutional. It should’ve been struck down by the court. It wasn’t, it was allowed to stay in effect. And Justice Sotomayor helped make the case over and over again how bad that action was for the supreme court. So if it’s good for the goose its good for the gander and I applaud Governor Newsom for taking that particular point of view.
WITT: I was going to say that, if it’s good for the goose it's good for the gander. So thinking alike there.
…
CNN Newsroom With Fredricka Whitfield
12/12/21
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: Okay. Let me ask you about another contentious issue in your state. Officials in your state say they plan to make California a sanctuary for abortion rights if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns "Roe V. Wade." You got really personal with America when you spoke about your own abortion on the house floor. You talked about it ten years ago, and I want to play that for our viewers right now.
[plays clip from 2011]
JACKIE SPEIER: You know, I had really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey has just put my stomach in knots because I'm one of those women he spoke about just now. I had a procedure at 17 weeks pregnant with a child that had moved from the vagina into the cervix and that procedure that you just talk about was a procedure that I endured. I lost a baby, but for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous.
WHITFIELD: So that was ten years ago, and here we are now listening to efforts to disregard a variety of circumstances, among them just like yours. I mean, is this nation, in your view, going backwards?
SPEIER: No question. Fredericka, I am deeply troubled by the politicization of the Supreme Court to the level that they would allow the Texas law to be retained and know full well that it was unconstitutional, and it was basically giving license to bounty hunters, to vigilantes around the country to sue in Texas.
Now, what we have in California now, not only are we going to be a sanctuary for women to be able to pursue the freedom to make a decision about whether or not to have a child, is something that's personal and one that should be made in conjunction with your family and your physician. So we will be a sanctuary in California. But the governor has gone even further and said, if you're going to allow this, Supreme Court, we're going to pass a law in California that’s going to allow people to file lawsuits against anyone who distributes or manufactures assault weapons and brings them in to California -- you can so how this is a very slippery slope, and the Supreme Court has done a great injustice to the American people and to the Constitution by take the -- taking the position that it has on this particular case in Texas.
WHITFIELD: What's your message to women outside of California, you know who are waiting to hear what becomes of abortion rights across the country but particularly in their states?
SPEIER: My message to women is that we are there for you. We will have your backs. If you're the victim of any kind of rape or incest, or if you have become pregnant and it was unintended, that you will have the ability to come to California and we will take care of you, we will.provide for you and you will not have the financial implications of having to making that trip.
It goes really to the core values that we have as Americans. Church and state are separate. And we have a law that’s been on the books for over 50 years that says this is a right of privacy. This is a right of individual privacy. And for the courts to now say we can get into your uterus is totally unacceptable. And of course there’s no discussion about the impregenator and what their responsibility is in all that. So I have ideas of what I’m going to do next year in terms of introducing legislation to create some responsibility for those who impregnate women who are then forced to have a child.
CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta
12/12/21
PHIL MATTINGLY: California governor Gavin Newsom is calling for gun legislation modelled after a controversial abortion law in Texas. Yes, you heard that correctly. Newsom says he was outraged by a Supreme Court ruling Friday that continues to allow private citizens to sue Texas abortion providers. So he got an idea. Why not create a law based on a similar principle? Only this time it would give residents legal standing to file lawsuits against those who manufacture or distribute firearms. He tweeted, “ SCOTUS is allowing private citizens in Texas sue to stop abortion?! If that’s the precedent then we’ll let Californians sue those who put ghost guns and assault weapons on our streets. If Texas can ban abortion and endanger lives, California can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives.”
Now, the governor, to be specific, is calling for damages of at least $10,000 per violation. Joining me now to talk about this CNN senior political analyst John Avlon, CNN political commentator and host of the very great PBS Firing Line, Margaret Hoover.
Margaret I think there were two Supreme Court justices who predicted something like this would likely happen in wake of the Texas law, What's your read on what governor Newsom is doing here?
MARGARET HOOVER: Yeah and let’s just be clear, their last names were not Alito or Thomas. [laughter] Look, it seems a little too cute by half. I mean I understand what he's doing and he's trying to make a point. But that law in Texas by the way the one in Texas and in Mississippi, these are lawed that have passed through the legislature's lane by the governor. So I don't know that governor Newsom can do this unilaterally. But he's trying to make a point. And he's using you know these preposterous vigilante laws, enforcement mechanisms to make a point that there's a double standard here. So I understand what he's doing, but it seems a little cute.
JOHN AVLON: Well, at the very least it may force some justices to think about the underlying principle and precedent rather than just the ideological desire they may have to see the law in one state passed and not the other. We’ll see.
MATTINGLY: Yeah which I think is probably more the point than necessarily the policy? But we’ll see. A lot to come on this point.
