In Defense of Governor Gavin Newsom

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning in defense of Governor Gavin Newsom, who recently defied his own idiotic COVID edicts as he partied at one of the few restaurants that has not yet been forced out of business. I defend him because he was doing what we once all did in a free society, make our own decisions over what risks we are willing to run and what precautions we are willing to take according to our own circumstances to protect our own health.

Yes, COVID is a nasty bug, and a quarter of a million Americans have died while having it, but this isn't the bubonic plague. The CDC's best estimate is that if you are under 49, your chance for surviving COVID, if you get it, is 99.92 percent. Even if you are over 70, you have a 94.6 percent rate of recovery. Forty percent who get it, don't even know they have it. And yet we have allowed our officials to ruin our quality of life over it, destroying countless businesses, throwing tens of millions into unemployment, robbing our children of their educations, and shredding our most cherished rights as Americans.

Governor Newsom's night of partying should be a wake-up call for every American.

Every time we step outside our homes, the risks that we face multiply. A free society assumes that its citizens are competent to assess those risks, balance them against the avoidance costs, and to manage their decisions in a generally responsible way. It is called common sense, and it is a necessary prerequisite for self-government and liberty.

The choices of an octogenarian with emphysema might be very different from those of a healthy Governor from California. Only a fool would claim the omniscience to make an informed judgment for every person in every circumstance in every community. Yet sadly, this crisis has revealed that fools abound in public office, and that a fool with power can quickly become a petty tyrant.

Which brings us back to Governor Newsom. These government nannies love to tell us that they are just following the science. Well, what does this science actually tell us? It tells us that COVID poses virtually no risk to children but can be severe among the elderly. So what did these lockdown leftists do? They closed all the schools and ordered infected patients into nursing homes.

The science tells us that outdoor transmissions of the virus are extremely rare, and that 80 percent of infections occur in people's homes. So what did these lockdown leftists do? They closed our beaches, parks, and campgrounds and ordered people to stay at home.

The science tells us that obesity is a contributing factor to the severity of the disease. So what did these lockdown leftists do? They closed all the gyms and kept the liquor stores open.

The lockdowns haven't saved lives. The States with the most stringent lockdowns generally have the highest mortality rates from COVID. Utah stayed open while next door, Colorado shut down. Utah currently has half the COVID mortality rate and three-fourths the unemployment rate as Colorado. But the lockdowns have cost countless lives from suicides, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and deferred health screenings and treatments.

Recently, Governor Newsom demanded that restaurant diners replace their masks after every bite, but also minimize the times they are taken off. I guess that means you take really big bites. Thanksgiving dinners are allowed in California, but only when they are held outside, guests are seated 6 feet apart, and they last no more than 2 hours. Now it is all right to use the bathroom, but only if it is frequently sanitized, otherwise presumably you will just have to use the bushes. And for God's sake, no singing.

I have wondered how much longer the American people are going to tolerate this nonsense.

So let us not criticize Governor Newsom. Perhaps he has just offered us all deliverance from his own folly.

Nor should we criticize the California legislators who ignored travel and quarantine restrictions to junket in Hawaii. Nor should we ridicule Speaker Pelosi for choosing not to wear a mask in a hair salon that was forced to close for the rest of us.

Good for them. They are demonstrating by their actions the freedom that every American citizen needs to reclaim from these very same people. The Governor should make his own decisions about running his own life. I only ask that he and his ilk would stop telling us how to run ours.

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