The LA Times located California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom somewhere in the Phantom Zone just to ask him the meta-question: "Why have lieutenant governors?"
"I think it can have an important purpose," Newsom responds. "It can be the eyes and ears for the governor on higher ed, economic development, delta water...."
We don't need a lieutenant governor for that.
That's cold, man.
Newsom has been in suspended animation. The California state senate, which he presides over, has a Democratic supermajority that’s rendered him obsolete. The lieutenant governor of the planet’s eighth-largest economy is no different than thousands of struggling actors in Hollywood. He can't get a callback.
Brown's top priority then was to return state government to solvency. "He's done a magnificent job on that issue," Newsom says. "Trust me, I wouldn't say that if I didn't believe it. I admire the hell out of him."
But Newsom apparently hasn't had a chance to tell Brown that personally.
"I'm ready to take the call and be supportive, whatever he needs," Newsom says. "I really do want to rekindle a relationship, but it's his prerogative."
Moonbeam keeps Newsom’s leash tighter than Sutter Brown's. Sutter Brown is the governor's dog.
Newsom has attempted to reform the state’s constitution to require the governor and lieutenant governor to run as a ticket, thereby putting some of Brown’s wrinkly skin in Newsom’s absent game. Nary a single state legislator took up the bill.
And now, for the rest of his term, Californians will be wondering why Christian Bale in "American Psycho" is the Golden State's lieutenant governor.