It’s not a universal syndrome. Republican Ronald Reagan maintained his popularity, so much so that five years after departing in 1975, California voters strongly endorsed his challenge to Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

The arc of Reagan’s successor, Democrat Jerry Brown, was very different. He enjoyed strong support in the early stages, but two failed efforts to become president and other miscues dragged down his popularity and voters rejected his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1982.

It mirrored the experience of Brown’s father, Pat Brown, who had overstayed his welcome, tried to win a third term in 1966 and lost to Reagan.

“I believe the people of California would like a respite from me and in some ways I would like a respite from them,” Jerry Brown said after his Senate defeat. Decades later, he won two more terms as governor and retired in 2019 with his legacy and popularity intact.

The difference between Brown’s two stints as governor illustrates why some holders of the office leave on high notes and some do not.

Brown 1.0’s constant yearning to abandon the governorship for higher office, when coupled with a lackluster record, simply turned people off. Brown 2.0 made few promises, kept those he made and demonstrated engagement in the job to which he was elected.

The flip side of the popularity coin is a governor who doesn’t over-promise and under-deliver, but shies away from doing the job. Democrat Gray Davis won the office in 1998 on his credentials, which included a term as lieutenant governor. But once he was inaugurated, he indicated by word and deed that he was risk-averse and didn’t intend to do very much.

Davis let two crises fester – one in state finances and the other in electrical energy – and barely won re-election in 2002 against a very weak Republican challenger. A year later voters recalled him and replaced him with action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger initially enjoyed strong public support with his promises to overhaul a bloated state government and won a full term in 2006, but left behind a string of failed efforts to win voter support for reform measures and was very unpopular, having naively made promises he was incapable of keeping.

That brings us to Gavin Newsom, who has three years remaining in his governorship but is beginning to resemble Jerry Brown 1.0, implying to voters that his real interest lies in building national political standing rather than governing California.

“He’s kind of taking on a new persona,” Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley-IGS poll, told the Times. “He’s no longer just the governor of California. He’s a spokesperson for the national party and basically voters are being asked to react to that.”

Newsom’s dip is exacerbated by two other factors: a growing malaise among Californians about rising crime rates, homelessness and economic disparity, and Newsom’s failure to deliver on the big promises he made to win election in 2018, such as single-payer health care and 3.5 million new housing units.

While Newsom has launched some potentially transformative changes in medical care for the poor and mental health, neither has borne fruit yet. It’s not surprising that a governor with a thin record of achievement and a wandering attention span is losing support.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Two women, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, captured the two seats 31 years ago and held them for decades. Republicans haven’t mounted a serious Senate drive for a quarter-century, and the state’s current senators, Democrats Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler, were appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Republicans are still frozen out by their retreat into irrelevancy and a very lopsided Democratic voter majority. However, a year from now California voters will be electing a new senator, almost certainly another Democrat, and the contest is likely to become heated.

Butler’s decision not to run for the Senate after filling out the brief remainder of the recently deceased Feinstein’s final term solidified what could have been a truly chaotic scenario should she have made a bid.

Her decision left three Democratic members of Congress vying to finish Nos. 1-2 in the March primary election and thus qualify for the November runoff. At the moment, Orange County’s Katie Porter and Adam Schiff of Burbank are running neck-and-neck in the polls while Oakland’s Barbara Lee is trailing in both moneyand support.

However, a recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found that none of the three has been able to crack 20% support, which means there are a lot of undecided California voters with the initial decision point fewer than four months away.

Porter scores the highest at 17% in the IGS poll, followed closely by Schiff at 16% and Lee at 9%. Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player who recently declared his candidacy, actually shades Lee at 10%.

Despite their current low levels of support, as the March primary draws closer, Porter and Schiff seem most likely to finish in the top two and duke it out for the seat eight months later. Had Butler mounted a campaign run and divided the Democratic vote even more, it might have given Garvey or some other Republican an outside chance of making the runoff.

As it is, however, it’s very likely to be a Democrat vs. Democrat finale.

“Porter holds big leads among voters under age 50 while Schiff is the clear favorite of voters ages 65 or older,” IGS says in its analysis of the poll. “Lee dominates among the state’s Black voters and runs competitively among voters in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area and the state’s North Coast/Sierras region.”

If anything, a recent New York Times poll showing Trump leading President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential contest, despite Trump’s extensive exposure in criminal and civil cases, gives Schiff another bump.

Schiff can legitimately claim to be Trump’s bête noire, which is catnip for Trump-hating Democratic voters. Neither Porter, who has specialized in populist economic issues during her brief congressional career, nor Lee, who hews to the left of both rivals, has the gut-level images and issues that Schiff can muster.

One can expect, therefore, that Porter and Lee will go negative to undermine Schiff. A hint of that was a CNN report last week that Schiff has been listing both a condo in Burbank and a large home in Maryland as his primary residences on mortgage and tax forms. It had all the earmarks of something that originated in another candidate’s opposition research.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Currently, 13.2% of California’s nearly 40 million residents live in families which fall below the $39,000 annual income mark deemed the minimum for a family of four to meet its needs. The rate climbs to 31.1% if those in near-poverty (incomes up to $60,000) are included.

The California Poverty Measure, or CPM, is derived from the federal Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, or SPM, which was devised to cure the deficiencies of the official poverty rate, a one-size-fits-all data point that measures just some income but is not adjusted for the cost of living.

Both the California and the census rates use wider arrays of income and measures them against what it costs to live. The SPM varies by state while the California measure is calculated for counties as well as the state.

Although the methodology varies a bit, the Census Bureau’s SPM rate for California, 13.2%, is identical to the California measure rate and is the highest of any state. Within California, Los Angeles County has the highest CPM rate at 15.5%, followed by San Diego County at 15%.

While California’s SPM rate is the nation’s highest because of its costs of living vis-à-vis its income levels, Los Angeles and San Diego rates are the state’s highest because their housing costs outstrip incomes for their many low-income service workers and their families.

About three-quarters of California’s poor families have at least one working adult. Latino Californians have the highest poverty rate at 16.9%, followed by Black Californians at 13.6%.

So there are the numbers. California has the nation’s highest functional poverty rate and Los Angeles County, which has about a quarter of the state’s population, leads the state. The natural question is what, if anything, could be done to lower those rates?

To date, federal and state authorities have concentrated on directly or indirectly raising incomes of the poor through subsidies – such as CalFresh food assistance – rather than lowering their living costs. While the state has policies aimed at fostering more construction of housing for low-income families, the success rate has so far been minimal at best.

The income supplements do have an effect, the PPIC-Stanford study has found. Without CalFresh, earned income tax credits and other subsidies California’s poverty rate would top 20%.

The holy grail of anti-poverty groups in California is a guaranteed income – cash payments sufficient to lift people out of poverty. There are some local cash assistance programs underway around the state to test the theory’s viability.

It’s not an outlandish figure when placed in context. Were California to consider such a step, it would make even more sense to put all of the federal and state funds now being spent on subsidies in the pot to eliminate the management costs and the hassle they entail.

There would be some potential downsides to such an effort – not the mention the politics of taking such a radical step. Landlords and stores might raise prices to peel off some of the extra incomes and some recipients might quit working, thus exacerbating California’s labor shortage.

However, it’s worth considering.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Newsom’s hastily arranged first stop was in Israel, where he spent a day commiserating about the bloody assault by Hamas terrorists. His visit included a chat with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some conversation with victims’ families about living with the constant threat of violence, and watching a video that depicted the carnage.

“The worst part about it – the actual video, I saw heads, beheaded people, their bodies, lay there, dead. To see someone’s eyes and mouth being poked to see if they were alive, to find out they were alive after being shot on the ground,” he said later. “It connects to an understanding of the emotion of the Israelis about the atrocities that occurred, and about the 1,400 lives lost. It’s not intellectual any longer.”

It should be noted, however, that Newsom’s show of solidarity with Israelis occurred just days after he signed legislation that, among other things, makes it illegal for Californians with concealed weapons permits to carry guns in their own synagogues, for example, to defend themselves against terrorists’ attacks.

That’s not an imaginary threat. Just four years ago on the last day of Passover, a man armed with a rifle burst into a synagogue in Poway, near San Diego, fatally shot one woman and injured three other congregants, including the synagogue’s rabbi.

A year before, an even more horrific attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue left 11 dead.

In the aftermath of the attack on Israel, many American Jews are arming themselves. But in California, not only will Jews and worshippers in other faiths be banned from protecting themselves in their houses of worship, but would-be killers will know that potential victims in “sensitive” areas will be unarmed.

After his quick trip to Israel, Newsom continued to China for events that were supposed to highlight common interests in battling climate change.

Newsom said he wanted to sidestep the growing frictions between the U.S. and China over the latter’s imperialistic ambitions, its harsh repression of political dissenters in Hong Kong, its ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and other economic issues.

However, he had a private conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the two emerged for a handshaking picture. Later, Newsom said he brought up some of the hot-button issues between the U.S. and China but added that his visit “is suggestive that we’re entering, I hope, a new phase (and) the fact that he’s meeting with a governor of California at the subnational level … is indicative of a thawing.”

“Divorce is not an option,” Newsom also said. “The only way we can solve the climate crisis is to continue our long-standing cooperation with China.”

Moreover, as Newsom was extolling Xi and other Chinese leaders for their commitment to climate change, he was ignoring the fact that they are building coal-burning power plants as fast they can.

Finally, his soft-pedaling approach to China stands in stark contrast to his drumbeat of harsh rhetoric – which continued during his travels – directed at Republican politicians in America.

China got what it wanted: a stamp of approval from an ambitious American political figure. And Newsom got what he wanted, which was more image-enhancing media attention.

What’s a little hypocrisy between friends?

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

A man named Nathaniel Evan Cabacungan was sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison after pleading guilty to second degree murder in the death of Jewels Marie Wolf, a 15-year-old girl he had supplied with a fake Percocet pill containing a lethal dose of fentanyl.

Cabacungan is the first person to be convicted of murder for a fentanyl death – a milestone that the victim’s family and law enforcement officials somberly marked in a post-sentencing news conference.

“This is not an honor we wanted, nor one that Jewels’ family deserved,” Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire said. “I think for those of you that witnessed in court the impact statements of Jewels’ parents and loved ones, we truly saw the strength of the human spirit today.”

Prosecutors said that after Cabacungan gave the girl the fentanyl-laced tablet, he left her alone dying in her bed without calling for help and later sold the deadly pills to someone else.

“He had the opportunity to intervene. He had the opportunity to save her life, and he chose to watch her die instead,” Gire said of Cabacungan.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta was one of the officials who spoke at the news conference, telling reporters, “This historic sentencing, again not something that we wanted to happen here, but it is historic. And to me, it’s an example of good law enforcement at its finest, working together, following the facts, building the case.”

Bonta cited the alarming increase in fatal fentanyl overdoses among young people, saying, “It’s cheap, it’s potent and it’s lethal.”

Superficially, having Bonta, the state’s top law enforcement official, at the news conference was quite understandable, even commendable.

However, it had the trappings of publicity mongering and image-building by an ambitious politician who wants to become governor because Bonta was missing-in-action this year when the Legislature was considering bills to crack down on fentanyl abuse – and rejecting many of them.

Bonta’s praise of Placer County’s fentanyl murder conviction implied that he supports tougher sentences for those who distribute the deadly drug, but neither he nor his office supported bills that would have implemented even lesser punishment.

In April, the Assembly Public Safety Committee considered seven fentanyl bills and rejected three that would have increased penalties for fentanyl suppliers. One would affect dealers whose customers die or are seriously injured such as Wolf, one that would punish using social media to sell fentanyl, as Cabacungan did, and a third that would increase penalties for possessing large amounts of the drug.

Bonta could have appeared to voice his support for the bills, but did not. Nor did he list himself as a supporter.

The committee passed four bills, only one of which would increase penalties for fentanyl possession by raising its classification to that of heroin and other deadly drugs. It was later signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Placer County is trying to crack down on the deadly fentanyl trade.

“Let me be clear: For those that come into our county and knowingly sell their poison, we will come after you,” District Attorney Gire said. “We will prosecute you, and we will do our best to separate you from society for as long as we possibly can.”

Bonta apparently wants the voters to know that he supports that get-tough attitude, but so far he’s been all talk and no action.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

The whole nation will get a full dose of the running conflict next month when California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who’s obsessed with building a national image, debates Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a declared 2024 Republican candidate for president, on national television.

Meanwhile, an ironic twist to the rivalry has developed over how the competing states seek to force social media companies, such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, to toe the official line on content that runs afoul of their very different ideological outlooks.

When it reconvened this month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to examine laws in Florida and Texas that would prohibit social media outlets from barring controversial political speech. The laws were enacted after both Facebook and Twitter suspended former President Donald Trump’s account.

The Texas law, now on hold, would classify social media companies as common carriers such as public utilities and require them to disclose their “moderation standards” affecting what they allow to be posted, and declare why they remove certain conduct.

The Florida law – similar in thrust – would prohibit banning certain users, such as journalists or politicians, and require social media companies to explain the rationale for each instance of content moderation.

In both cases, the social media companies say Florida and Texas are attempting to control how they edit their platforms in violation of the Constitution’s right to freedom of speech.

“At bottom, government ‘may not … tell Twitter or YouTube what videos to post; or tell Facebook or Google what content to favor,’” Scott Keller, an attorney for internet trade groups, told the court in a petition.

The issues before the Supreme Court are remarkably similar to a lawsuit filed in federal court this month by X Corp. against California, alleging that a 2022 law violates its free speech right as well.

The law, Assembly Bill 587, also bores into the standards that social media use to moderate content, requiring them to make extensive disclosures to the state Department of Justice. The measure was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League and is aimed at pressuring the social media companies to remove what the sponsor deems to be hate speech.

“The line between providing an open forum for productive discourse and permitting the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation is a fine one, and depends largely on the structure and practices of the platform,” Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, a Woodland Hills Democrat, said in a statement as his bill was being considered.

Fundamentally, then, while Texas and Florida accuse social media of being too eager to censor inflammatory content, the California law implies that they are not eager enough.

California, meanwhile, has rolled back another censorship law passed last year.

Assembly Bill 2098 threatened doctors with losing their licenses for “unprofessional conduct” if they openly disagreed with officialdom on the nature of COVID-19 or the vaccines used to battle the pandemic.

This year, a few words that repealed the law were slipped into an omnibus medical licensing measure, Senate Bill 815, that Newsom quietly signed. The repeal short-circuited what could have been another legal battle over censorship and the First Amendment and is a lesson about legislating without considering effects on constitutional rights.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Mostly, they are waiting to see how Gov. Gavin Newsom handles hundreds of bills still awaiting his signature or rejection in the few remaining days he has to act.

Newsom appears to be rejecting an unusually large percentage of the bills passed by the Legislature this year – nearly 20% according to lobbyist Chris Micheli, who tracks legislative data as a sideline.

Many of Newsom’s veto messages contain the same language, lamenting that after the state dealt with a $30 billion budget deficit, the Legislature sent him measures that “would add nearly $19 billion of unaccounted costs in the budget.”

“With our state facing continuing economic risk and revenue uncertainty, it is important to remain disciplined in considering bills with significant fiscal implications, such as this measure,” his boilerplate veto message concludes.

That cautionary message underscores the other thing that those in and around the Capitol are watching this week: how much tax revenue the state realizes in personal and corporate income taxes from the Oct. 16 filing deadline. It was moved back from the traditional April 15 cutoff for tax payments because of last winter’s heavy storms.

Jason Sisney, the state Assembly’s chief budget watcher, noted in a recent email that the 2023-24 state budget assumes the state will receive $52.3 billion in taxes in October, about 80% of them income taxes, which are by far the budget’s most important revenue source.

With the state’s economy showing signs of both growth and downturn, the budget’s assumption is an educated guess and the reality could be many billions of dollars higher or lower.

Whatever happens this month vis-à-vis revenues sets the stage for the next budget cycle, particularly the current expectation that the state faces another multibillion-dollar deficit in 2024-25.

After disposing of the remaining bills from the 2023 session, Newsom must make a series of decisions within about six weeks over framing the 2024-25 budget that he will present to the Legislature in January. Those decisions will, in large measure, hinge on the expectations of the state’s economy over the ensuing 18 months.

Last week, the Legislature’s budget analyst, Gabe Petek, issued a flurry of reports indicating that the state is experiencing an economic downturn, and perhaps even a mild recession. He cites uptick in unemployment and a downward trend in investment.

“The apparent start of a recession in California last fall helps explain why the state faced a revenue shortfall in its most recent budget,” Petek explained. “How much the economy will continue to dampen the state’s fiscal picture moving forward is unclear. However, the threat that the recent slowdown could persist will be a significant risk for the foreseeable future.”

The state will consult a collection of economists who specialize in the California economy before Newsom and his advisors settle on a forecast and then extrapolate from that how much the state can expect in revenues. That estimate, in turn, will reveal whether it can balance its next budget or must contend with another deficit.

The current semi-official expectation is there will be a $15 billion deficit for 2024-25.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

The draft essentially calls for sharp reductions in diversions from the Sacramento River and its tributaries to allow more water to flow through the environmentally troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

“It is a consequential effort,” Eric Oppenheimer, chief deputy director of the board, said during a media briefing on what is technically an update of the agency’s management plan for the Delta and San Francisco Bay. “It reflects years of scientific analysis that we’ve undertaken and years of public input.”

The board had previously issued a similar policy paper for the San Joaquin River and its tributaries. The two rivers merge to form the Delta, a vast maze of islands and channels that is the West Coast’s largest estuary.

In addition to upstream diversions to irrigate fields and orchards and serve municipal users, federal and state projects pump water from the Delta’s southern edge into aqueducts for transfer to San Joaquin Valley farms and homes as far south as San Diego.

The reduction of natural flows through the Delta have, scientists say, increased its salinity and otherwise made it unable to adequately support salmon and other wildlife.

The battle over the Delta has raged for decades with environmental groups, lately joined by American Indian tribes, pressing the water board impose reductions on diversions, and water users seeking to protect their supplies.

There are, in the macro sense, two conflicts: how much additional flows are needed to restore the Delta and how any reduction in diversions would be framed and enforced.

The water board’s new draft provides some additional focus on both, but doesn’t provide any solid direction.

For the better part of a decade, two governors, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, have promoted the concept of “voluntary agreements” to reduce diversions, hoping to avoid a head-on political and legal collision.

“We want to thank Gov. Newsom for his continued leadership and commitment to using collaborative voluntary agreements between water users and public agencies to support water quality and fish populations throughout the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” Farm Bureau president Jamie Johansson said in response to the new plan.

However, the water agencies have offered, in the main, much smaller reductions than the water board says are necessary to improve habitat.

The environmental coalitions demanding larger reductions see the voluntary agreements as subterfuges to maintain the status quo and have pressed the board to simply set reduction numbers and enforce them by decree.

“Voluntary agreements serve as backroom deals that continue to leave tribes, environmental justice communities, conservation groups, fishing communities, and other vital stakeholders out of the government-led planning process,” the Restore the Delta coalition responded.

Environmentalists contend that those rights are anachronisms in the 21st century and should be set aside to give authorities the ability to allocate water rationally, particularly since climate change is affecting precipitation and thus the overall water supply.

However, when the water board tested its authority vis-à-vis ordering diversion reductions from senior water rights holders, it lost in court. Moreover, legislation that would have provided such authority didn’t make it through the Legislature this year, thanks to stiff opposition from farmers and other rights holders.

The water board’s new draft may provide more grist for debate, but it does not resolve the fundamental conflicts.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

However, his relationship with the state’s public and private employee unions has been a rocky one. Sometimes he and union leaders sing from the same hymnal, but they occasionally are at odds, particularly when labor is feuding with corporate interests that Newsom is also cultivating.

That syndrome was displayed last weekend when he vetoed two of union leaders’ high priority measures, including one that would have given unemployment benefits to striking workers, but then chose a former union leader, Laphonza Butler, to fill a U.S. Senate seat that became vacant when Dianne Feinstein died.

The juxtaposition drew a sharp retort from Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, who resigned from the Legislature last year to become head of the California Labor Federation.

“Don’t get distracted,” Gonzalez Fletcher posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Gov. Newsom has vetoed three important labor bills, including labor’s collective highest priority bill – SB 799. We must continue to organize & fight & demand respect for all workers, especially those who are striking to fix an economy that has failed us.”

Newsom said that Senate Bill 799, the unemployment insurance bill, would have worsened the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s multibillion-dollar deficit, which developed when the state borrowed about $20 billion from the federal government to keep unemployment insurance benefits flowing during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now is not the time to increase costs or incur this sizable debt.” Newsom said in his veto message.

Gonzalez Fletcher and other union leaders had pushed Newsom to approve SB 799 and the two other union-backed bills he has vetoed, one banning operation of trucks without human operators and another granting full employment protections to household workers. But he was also under pressure from business groups to reject them.

“We applaud Gov. Newsom for vetoing this misguided legislation,” Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council, said in a statement, adding, “We can’t keep saddling business with more and more costs and expect the state’s economy to flourish.”

Newsom’s veto of SB 799 does not end the battle. Gonzalez Fletcher pledged to put the bill on Newsom’s desk again, saying, “We will keep fighting until striking workers get the benefits they’ve earned.”

The clash also hardens a decades-long stalemate over the chaotic finances of the unemployment insurance system.

The state borrowed money from the federal government during the Great Recession because its Unemployment Insurance Fund, or UIF, had virtually no reserves. When the state didn’t repay the loan, the feds hiked payroll taxes on employers and it was finally retired in 2018.

California’s unemployment insurance program is running an operational deficiteven during this period of relatively high employment and is the least solvent of any state unemployment fund. The UIF has been unable to build reserves because of a chronic political stalemate between unions and employers over benefits and the payroll taxes to pay for them.

It began when former Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature drained what had been a healthy UIF reserve to sharply increase benefits, leaving it incapable of handling an economic downturn.

If another recession hit the state, it would almost certainly be forced to borrow even more money to maintain benefits, even though it still has heavy debt from the previous recession.

This political mismanagement of a system that protects millions of Californians from economic ruin is – or should be – a huge embarrassment.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Or did he dig himself into a new hole by not extracting a promise from Butler that she would not seek a full six-year Senate term next year?

Were she to run for a full term, it would completely change the dynamics of what has been a three-way duel for the Senate seat. Congressional members Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee have been skirmishing for months, following Feinstein’s announcement that she would not be seeking another term in 2024.

Two-plus years ago, after Newsom appointed Alex Padilla, then secretary of state, to fill out the remainder of Kamala Harris’ Senate term after her election as vice president, Newsom came under fire for not appointing another Black woman.

Pressed in a national television interview about whether he would appoint a Black woman to a future Senate vacancy, Newsom replied, “I have multiple names in mind. We have multiple names in mind – and the answer is yes.”

As Feinstein’s health deteriorated, the issue arose again and in early September, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Newsom said that he would honor his pledge but only as an “interim appointment.”

“Yes. Interim appointment,” Newsom told interviewer Chuck Todd. “I don’t want to get involved in the primary. It would be completely unfair to the Democrats that have worked their tail off. That primary is just a matter of months away. I don’t want to tip the balance of that.”

That statement appeared to declare that his appointee would not run for a full term, and Lee, a Black woman, called it “insulting.”

“I am troubled by the governor’s remarks,” Lee said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election.”

The hypothetical became real when Feinstein died 18 days later, and three days after her death, Newsom announced his selection of Butler. On Monday, Newsom said he chose Butler with “no constraints, no expectations” about her running for a full-term in the 2024 election.”

Were she to run, it would insert a completely new – and powerful – player into the contest, and thus violate Newsom’s assertion just weeks ago that he didn’t want to “tip the balance” of the Senate contest.

Butler heads EMILY’s List, which helps women win political office, and everything hinges on her intentions after she is sworn in later this week.

Were Butler to seek a full term, the other Senate hopefuls might be forced to also run against her for the rest of Feinstein’s term, which could be extremely confusing for voters.

California’ top-two system would add even more complexity to a head-spinning scenario. As it stands, it’s likely that two of the three Democrats running for the Senate would finish 1-2 in the March primary and face each other in November.

Were Butler to run, four Democrats would be seeking voter approval and splitting the Democratic vote four ways might allow a Republican to sneak into the November runoff.

Let the fun begin.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.