Usually imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but not for Gavin Newsom
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask“If they’re going to open that door…to put women’s lives at risk, I’ll do it to save people’s lives any day of the week,” Mr Newsom told. He has run an advertisement in Texan newspapers trumpeting California’s efforts to keep people safe from gun violence. It is a direct attack on Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, who has pushed restrictions on abortion while loosening those on gun sales.
The Golden State’s new “bounty-hunter” law is important for two reasons. First, it shows how Mr Newsom is trying to position himself as a leading progressive voice nationally. Guns are a winning issue among Democratic voters, who favour more controls. Mr Newsom is rumoured to be considering a run for president in 2024, although he denies it. “It’s just not happening,” he says. “She [Vice-President Kamala Harris] is my friend.
Second, California is pushing the envelope with gun rules, creating potential “showdowns” with the Supreme Court, says Ken Miller, of Claremont McKenna College. The “bounty hunter” construct empowers individuals, rather than the state, to sue. Mr Newsom reckons if the Supreme Court were to find California’s law invalid, it would have to throw out the one in Texas, which is similarly structured.
The laws also differ in their reach. Whereas Texas’s bounty-hunter law quickly limited access to abortion, California’s is “unlikely to have any significant impact”, predicts Adam Winkler, of the University of California, Los Angeles. It is already in effect illegal to buy assault weapons or sell guns to under 21-year-olds in California, so the law is mostly symbolic.
Some worry about the consequences of copying a mechanism which even the press release for the Californian gun law describes as “wrongheaded”. The American Civil Liberties Union argues that “replicating the reprehensible Texas model only serves to legitimise and promote it”. It is concerned about a “dangerous legal precedent” for other states to enact bounty-hunting laws.
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