California scheming: The governor's mad
UCLA's departure to the Big Ten caught the state's governor off guard. He's pissed and the political fallout is just getting started in that state.
California’s governor is mad. Like really pissed.
Gavin Newsom read about the decision by USC and UCLA to join the Big Ten. Read about it. He emphasized the word several times in his interview with FOX 11 in Los Angeles last week.
“UCLA is leaving the Pac-12,” started the FOX 11 interview.
“I read about it,” Newsom said.
“Heading to the Big Ten,” the interview continued.
“I read about it,” Newsom repeated.
“Yeah, so they didn’t tell you in advance?”
“I’m the governor, no big deal,” Newsom said. “Governor, state of California, but maybe the bigger deal is I’m chair of UC regents. I read about it. Is it a good idea? Did we discuss the merits or demerits? I’m not aware that anyone did. So it was done in isolation. It was done without any regental oversight or support. It was done without any consideration to my knowledge.
“Now perhaps there was deep conversation with other chancellors and presidents in the system and the impact more broadly not just to the UC’s, but to other universities including Stanford University and the whole Cal-State system. I have strong opinions about this for no other reason than as a member of the regents, we were never consulted. Never asked for an opinion and then they didn’t even have the decency to provide heads-up. So trust me when I say this, we’re not going to be looking into it, we’re already looking into this within minutes of reading about this in the newspaper.”
And on Wednesday night Newsom did what he could to show just how mad he was by asking UCLA to explain just how this move will benefit student athletes. Here was the statement from Newsom as reported by Los Angeles Times:
“The first duty of every public university is to the people — especially students. UCLA must clearly explain to the public how this deal will improve the experience for all its student-athletes, will honor its century-old partnership with UC Berkeley, and will preserve the histories, rivalries, and traditions that enrich our communities.”
— Gavin Newsom
Now, to be honest, I find Newsom to be kind of a weenie going back to his days as the mayor of San Francisco. But the idea that he’s mad as hell and somebody’s going to pay because they didn’t get his say-so before making this move is absolutely fine by me. I’m mad as hell about the move and I would like nothing more than to see Humpty Dumpty get put back together again.