California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) appointed mostly white people to state offices in 2023 — a fact that could complicate his national political ambitions, and that could also fuel support for a bill requiring reporting of demographic data on state officials.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
The report, released this month by Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, or HOPE, found racial and geographic disparities among the people who were appointed to statewide bodies in 2023. While Newsom “made strides” in appointing more people of color and reached near gender parity last year, the researchers said nonwhite people remain underrepresented in positions that play a critical role in advising the governor’s administration and establishing statewide policies.
According to the report, the governor’s office appointed 480 people during Jan. 1-Dec. 15, 2023. Of those appointments, 52% went to white people, 17% to Latinos, 11% to Black people, nearly 9% to Asian American and Pacific Islander people, and 2% to Native Americans.
With just over 39 million people in California, white people make up 34% of the population, Latinos/Hispanics 40%, Black people 5%, and Asian Americans 15%, according to census data.
California’s Proposition 209 has, since 1996, banned the use of race in state appointments, contracts, and university admissions. It was withstood efforts to repeal or circumvent it. Newsom’s appointments were therefore lawful. But in the context of current politics within the Democratic Party, the lack of racial diversity among Newsom’s political appointees could be a problem for him.
Newsom vetoed a bill last year that would have required California to collect demographic data on state appointees. But the Democratic legislature may try again, and has placed a referendum on the ballot, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7, to allow waivers for Proposition 209 to address lingering racial inequalities, if doing so would be supported by social science research.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
