SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — Some members of the California Legislature are waiting to see how and if Gov. Gavin Newsom will take action after a judge limited some of his executive power.
Newsom and his legal team have about a week to change the mind of the Sutter County judge who ordered him to stop issuing executive orders that might interfere with state law.
The judge tentatively ruled this week the governor overstepped his boundaries of power in one of his directives during the pandemic-related state of emergency.
“It means California is no longer an autocracy, which is what Governor Newsom has claimed the Emergency Services Act turns our state into,” Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, said Friday.
Kiley is one of the two Republican lawmakers who sued the governor.
“Even during a state of emergency, we still have separation of powers, we still have rule of law, we still have checks and balances, we still have the Constitution,” Kiley said. “The governor can’t claim all the powers of the state for himself.”
Newsom’s press secretary says the office is still evaluating next steps and strongly disagrees with the order’s specific limitations. The judge banned Newsom “from exercising any power under the California Emergency Services Act which amends, alters, or changes existing statutory law or makes new statutory law or legislative policy.”
Before this ruling, the governor issued 58 executive orders in the pandemic-related state of emergency, including pushing back deadlines for some taxes and fees, changing how some licenses are issued and renewed, and suspending some rules and deadlines for schools.
“We’re reviewing how many of those are called into question by this decision. I think it could be quite a few; I think it could be close to half of them,” Kiley said.
The judge’s decision will be finalized next Friday.