California gubernatorial recall candidate Larry Elder spoke with KNX on Thursday. The conversation touched on a number of issues important to Californians as they head to the polls on Sept. 14 to vote on whether Gov. Gavin Newsom should be removed from office.
Elder leads a pack of Republicans vying to replace Newsom in the event he is recalled.
Any Republican chosen to succeed a recalled Newsom governorship would face an uphill battle enacting his or her policy agenda, as California's legislature is presently dominated by a Democratic supermajority.
Elder expressed confidence in his hypothetical ability to exert executive power under such circumstances. He cited the governor's veto power as central to his governance plan.
"Vetoed bills have not been overridden in almost 40 years in California," he told KNX. Still, Democrats in the State Senate and Assembly maintain sufficient majorities to override any Elder veto. should they choose to exercise that checks-and-balances power.
"You also have the ability to issue executive orders," he said. "I also have the line item veto. I also have the ability to appoint people to these powerful commissions, whether it's the Water Commission or the Coastal Commission."
KNX asked Elder what his plans were for his first day in office, in the event he was selected to succeed a recalled Newsom.
"One of the very first things I intend to do is to the extent that [vaccine] mandates are still there for state workers, I'm going to repeal them," he said.
Elder said he expected vaccine mandates for federal contractors and employers with 100 or more workers announced by President Biden on Thursday would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. He said he would agree with such a ruling.
Biden said in a press conference Thursday that a vaccine mandate was "not about freedom or personal choice" but "about protecting yourself and the people around you." Elder rebutted this assessment, telling KNX he believed Californians should reserve the choice to be vaccinated or not vaccinated in any and all circumstances.
"This is still America," he said. "Thomas Jefferson advised us not to trade freedom for public safety, and I think he was right."
KNX also asked the candidate to weigh in on the spate of intense wildfires burning across the state this summer. Elder blamed the issue on "poor forest management" by state agencies, and denied any link between fires and climate change.
"I don't believe the principal reason we're having these fires is because of global warming," he said. "I'm not sure that's the scientific consensus at all."
More than half of California's forests are managed by the federal government, not Sacramento; and the scientific community is largely in agreement that the chief cause of extreme wildfire seasons is indeed climate change.
KNX also asked Elder to answer for a widely circulated soundbite in which the candidate said he believed the California minimum wage should be "zero" dollars.
"Why two people who are adults can't determine what the price of labor ought to be, is beyond me," Elder told the editorial board of California's McClatchy-owned newspapers in August. "And why a third party feels it is his or her business to interfere with that is also beyond me."
Elder declined to defend or discuss the statement, and instead insisted that he was running his campaign on other issues, such as homelessness and crime.
"I'm campaigning because of crime, I'm campaigning because of homelessness. I'm campaigning about the outrageous rise in the cost of living," he said. The minimum wage had "nothing whatsoever to do with why two million people signed the petition to recall [Newsom]."
Roughly 1.7 million people added their signatures to a petition to recall Newsom. About 7.7 million voted for the governor when he ran for office in 2018.
Elder told KNX that even if he is not successful in replacing Newsom in the Sept. 14 recall election, he had no plans to disappear from political life. When KNX asked if he intended to run again in the 2022 gubernatorial election, Elder replied, "I'm not leaving the stage."