A maverick California congressman has one mission — stopping his state’s liberal policies from spreading to the rest of the country.
Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley has been the biggest nemesis of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in the state Assembly, seemingly dogging the Democrat’s every move, from COVID-19 lockdowns to the gas tax to billions in homeless spending. After winning his House seat in a redrawn district on the Nevada border, one couldn’t help but wonder whether the 37-year-old’s Twitter digs at Newsom would come to an end.
NEWSOM NEMESIS KEVIN KILEY VOWS TO UPEND DC AS CALIFORNIA’S NEWEST HOUSE MEMBER
This was answered on Jan. 10 when Kiley ominously tweeted, “My arrival in Congress is not going to make Gavin Newsom’s life easier. Quite the contrary.”
My arrival in Congress is not going to make Gavin Newsom’s life easier. Quite the contrary.
— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) January 10, 2023
“I want to counter the propaganda coming out of the governor’s office portraying our state as somehow the model for the nation,” Kiley told the Washington Examiner. “That is Newsom’s whole shtick right now — this is what the nation should be. Nothing is further from the truth. California leads the nation in all of the wrong ways, like when it comes to poverty, education, homelessness, and cost of living. Now it’s the most popular place to leave.”
The conservative lawmaker has introduced dozens of bills during his six years in the state legislature to counter what he says is liberal overreach. Most have gone down in flames to the Democrats’ supermajority, and he blames Newsom for every one he signed.
The most high-profile example was an attempt to delete the state’s 51-cent gas tax last year as prices skyrocketed past $6 a gallon. Newsom nixed this in favor of a rebate card for a few hundred dollars that Californians have yet to receive.
“He is totally neglecting the things we need, like safe communities. We have homelessness, water shortages, forest fires, and a need to maintain roads. Instead, he is pushing this cartoonishly woke agenda to build his national image,” Kiley said. “I certainly want to make sure that his agenda and what he has done for California doesn’t spread through the rest of the country.”
Kiley said he will use every tool possible to circumvent Newsom’s policies, whether it’s introducing bills, using pressure as a member of Congress, or simply blasting his message with a larger megaphone. States often receive federal funding for a variety of local programs, and with a Republican House majority, Kiley hopes to curtail a lot of Newsom’s agenda.
He ticked off homelessness, transportation, and California’s sanctuary state status as three issues he hopes to tackle.
Last week, he co-sponsored a sweeping California infrastructure bill dedicating funds to capture water runoff in reservoirs. Similar legislation was passed by voters in a 2014 state bond issue, yet construction never began thanks to excessive red tape that Newsom should have cut, Kiley said.
But there is one major thing Kiley wants to circumvent — any future White House victory for Newsom. The governor is rumored to be Democrats’ choice to run in 2024.
“He clearly thinks he is on to something. … He has been explicit about wanting California’s failed policies to spread and become imposed on all Americans,” Kiley said. “We simply cannot let that happen.”
Kiley even wrote a book titled Recall Newsom: The Case Against America’s Most Corrupt Governor as a prelude to jumping into the recall election against the governor in 2021. Newsom won the battle with 62% of the vote.
But this time around, Kiley hopes to have the upper hand.
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“Californians are paying a high price for living here, and voters want us to get back to basics, to what [lawmakers] are supposed to do,” Kiley said. “I’m going to do what I can to make government more accountable and the state more livable.”
