[DEMOCRACY IN ACTION Transcript  |  Arthur Shaper Video]

I'm glad you used my last name; there's quite a few Kevins in the race.  So many.

Can we give it up for James Gallagher?

I've got to quibble with Mike Netter a little bit. I'd say there is no finer legislator in the state of California than James Gallagher, and I would defy you to find a greater friend of liberty in the United States of America.

Thank you Mike for your leadership in this movement that has given us all this opportunity and thank you to Roxanne, Angela, to Christy to Shannon to Renee. These are the voices of the recall—the greatest citizens movement in California history, the most diverse citizens movement in California history, a movement that will change California history.

And thanks to all of you for being in the fight.

It's good to be in L.A..

The weather's a heck of a lot better than the other venues for our rallies.

Well look, I grew up in the Sacramento area, but I spent five years of my life here, long enough to become a Clippers fan but not quite long enough to bring myself to root for the Lakers.

I moved here after college to be a high school teacher. I joined Teach for America, and was hired at Manual Arts High School as an employee of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

My mom was also a teacher. She spent most of her career teaching special ed, which I truly consider to be God's work.

When I ran for the legislature, my first priority was to fight for educational opportunity because I knew first-hand that far too many kids are trapped in failing schools.

When I was elected, my very first bill was about school choice. School choice.

The bill was considered in the education committee in May of 2017 and we heard testimony from a woman named Keshara [phon.], Keshara had faced much adversity in life, had been homeless, but did everything she could to provide a decent education for her seven year old son, Maki [phon.]. She moved to Torrance and tried to enroll him in Torrance Unified, but because she lived on the wrong side of the street, she got stuck in a LAUSD school, where Maki was a constant victim of bullying in a neighborhood beset by gang violence. Still LAUSD wouldn't let him out.

My bill would have let Maki enroll in the school that was right for him. I argue then, as we do today, that your zip code shouldn't be your destiny, that every student has the right to a quality education.

And yet, when the bill came to a vote in the Education Committee, it failed. Three members voted yes, four voted no. And Maki was stuck in LAUSD.

A scathing Sacramento Bee editorial the next day read that the committee rejected a bill to help kids in need of a break.

Since then, things have only gotten worse at our capitol, and in our schools.

Before COVID, California ranked 49th out of 50 for education outcomes in low income communities. During COVID we abandoned those communities all together, as we were 50th out of the 50 states in getting kids back to the classroom.

This is the central reality of education politics in California: it's not about the kids, it's never about the kids.

And that reality is more evident than anywhere in the massive, massive district that serves this area.

LAUSD is a behemoth. It's the nation's second largest school district. It educates over 600,000 students, almost five times more than any other district in California, and generally does so quite poorly with academic outcomes that are among the worst in the state. The District is also on the brink of insolvency.

In the COVID era LAUSD's failure to serve kids has kept reaching farcical new lows. On March 26 of 2020, the union that all but runs the district UTLA, wrote a nonsensical letter to the superintendent, using the virus to quote demand a moratorium on the approval of any new charter schools.

As Christy mentioned on July 9, 2020 UTLA published a 17-page research paper that was something between a manifesto and a hostage note.

It set forth a list of demands before it would let schools open, including Medicare for All, defunding the police, overturning Prop 13, and imposing an enormous tax increase.

Last fall, even after L.A. public health authorities cleared English language learners and kids with special needs to return to school, UTLA, still tried to stop it. This spring, after extra state money was made available for school that actually opened, LAUSD scammed families in the state by setting up Zoom in a Room that only 7% of high school kids showed up for.  And just two days ago, just two days ago, LAUSD announced it will require burdensome and gratuitous weekly COVID testing in addition to masks for all students and staff this fall.

This cannot continue. It can't continue.

It is impossible to achieve education success in California, if LAUSD keeps failing so many students. That is why today I am calling to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District.

As governor, I will ask for a LAUSD break up bill on my desk by the end of the year.

The new districts will be of manageable size and responsive to their communities. They can be guided by the same principles that have made charter schools a success—freedom from the constraints  of the state education code, freedom from the master union contract, and accountability for student learning outcomes.

Now in recent days, the current governor of California has left no doubt that he is ready and willing to shut down schools again.

If I become your governor, this will not happen.

On day one, I will make sure every school is open, full time, five days a week, no excuses and no masks required.

And I'll do something else on day one, on minute one. I will end the state of emergency.

That wipes out every related state and local order automatically.

Now this governor loves executive orders, doesn't he. But here's the thing about executive orders. You can undo them with executive orders. As your governor, I will unwind Gavin Newsom's one man rule in one fell swoop.

For every executive action Gavin Newsom has taken to violate our rights and diminish our freedoms, I will take executive action to restore those rights and defend those freedoms.

And all these menacing state agencies, [inaud.], the water board, the EDD, the Department of Public Health. I will tame them with a new directive: Serve the people of California. Don't harass them. Don't harangue them. Don't run their lives; don't ruin their lives.

But unlike Gavin Newsom I will respect our Constitution and our separation of powers. Soon after taking office, I'll call a special session of the legislature, and throw down the gauntlet—take your job seriously, gather in the public interest at long last, or face the same fate as Gavin Newsom in next year's election.

Now LAUSD's dismal performance comes despite massive, spending so much money.

When your child is funded at $26,000 per year, yet she still isn't taught to read, that is a sign your government is fundamentally broken.

And there are other signs.

What do you pay the highest gas taxes while driving over the deepest potholes, your government is broken.

When you pay for billions more in homelessness spending, yet have to wade through tent cities just to get to the beach, your government is broken.

When you get a good job and work hard, yet can't afford a down payment on a house 'til your 40s, your government is broken.

When you live in fear that your light switch won't work, or your community will burn down, your government is broken.

When your told to take a shorter shower as water flows abundantly into the ocean, your government is broken.

When you walk down public streets that double as restrooms and injection sites, your government is broken.

When you watch calculator-wielding thieves rob department stores in broad daylight waving at a security camera on the way out, your government is broken.

When your job is deemed inessential and then your unemployment check flies over your mailbox and lands in a state prison, your government has broken.

When your child's face is smothered in cloth for no good reason, your government is beyond broken.

Everywhere you look, it is the same story. As Californians we sacrifice the most, and we get the least in return.

It's no wonder that two thirds of residents now say the kids growing up in California today will be worse off than their parents.

It's no wonder that more and more are packing up U-Hauls to avoid that fate.

This used to be the state where anyone could get ahead, where the full glory of the American dream was realized. It's now the state that so many can't wait to leave behind.

That is the California tragedy.

So how did this happen, what broke our state government?

How did our beautiful state get to be last in everything?

Well it's the same story behind LAUSD's decline. Across the world and throughout history, one factor more than any other separates prosperous states from failing one. And that factor is political corruption.

Political corruption. Nothing is more ruinous. It is an iron law of the human condition that corruption leads to decay.

California is the furthest thing from a government of, by, and for the people. It is a government of corrupt politicians, controlled by lobbyists for the benefit of special interests, and no one, no one has ever personified that corruption like Gavin Newsom.

As long as dictionaries are printed, the first entry under the word hypocrisy will always be the French Laundry.

But what was even more revealing about that night was the company our governor keeps. A table full of lobbyists.

They wine him, they dine him, they elect him, they own him.

They've given him $36 million, helped him raise that for this recall vote, and it makes sense. When buying politicians is your business model, you'll pay anything to stop a citizens movement.

PG&E to take one example. You heard of them. PG&E was behind Gavin Newsom's rise to power and San Francisco. As they've given us one catastrophe after another, wildfires, blackouts, felonies. They've given Gavin Newsom more money than any other politician; they even pay his wife's salary.

It was massive unions, Newsom's biggest [inaud.], that instructed him to sign and ruthlessly enforce one of the most corrupt laws in American history, A.B. 5, which put thousands upon thousands of independent contractors here in L.A. out of work, destroyed their livelihoods.

And during COVID-19 Newsom took this corruption to new levels. Huge no-bid contracts were awarded to the governor's top donors. Powerful interests, including Hollywood, as we heard from Angela, were exempted from lockdowns as small businesses died in droves.

But worst of all, of course, and what may be the political crime of the century, this governor expelled millions of kids from their classrooms, longer than any state, while his own kids were in in-person private school.

He inflicted [inaud.] harm on a generation of young people. He lowered your child's life expectancy, just so he could keep getting money from teachers unions, perhaps for a future White House bid.

We're making sure that doesn't happen.

If that isn't a betrayal of the public trust, I don't know what is.

If that isn't grounds for removal, I don't know what is.

Time and again, my friends, the Newsom regime has proven the truth of that famous expression: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Corruption was already causing California's decline, but Gavin Newsom's absolute corruption has brought that decline to a total freefall. California has had the worst COVID-19 experience of any state. If our outcomes matched Florida's, millions more kids would have been in school, hundreds of thousands more workers would be employed, and thousands more people would be alive.

Proverbs tells us where there is no vision, the people perish. In Gavin Newsom's California there's been no vision, that's for sure. But it's not because he's blind. This governor drove our state off a cliff with eyes wide open.

The recall then is about one thing, and it's about everything—rooting out corruption and restoring integrity to state government.

If I am elected, the order of the day will be back to basics—pave our roads, store our water, manage our forests, maintain our grid, fund our police. Do the things government is supposed to
do. Do them well and do nothing else.

To save the state we love, I'm asking California voters to take a chance on change. And guess what? If you don't like the result, you can vote for a return to political racketeering next year.

In this historic election we have a chance not just to reject the unthinkable abuses of the COVID era, but to turn the page on the long standing abuses that got us to this point.

We can turn the page on our state's disregard for the well being of students by empowering families with school choice,

We can turn the page on our state's disrespect for the welfare of workers by enshrining as inviolable the right to earn a living.

We can turn the page on our state's disparagement of religious freedom by putting fellowship and worship beyond the reach of any bureaucracy.

We can turn the page on the California exodus by rolling back every special interest giveaway that makes it so hard to get by here.

And we can turn the page on this dark era of government control by lighting a new spark of liberty and self government. Self government.

This is the moment to rekindle that great American innovation, to renew the meaning of We the People. Here's the thing, here's the thing. I think the most important job of our next governor is to make it less important who the governor is by returning power to local communities and their citizens.

Less power in the governor's hands means more power in your hands, to live your life as you see fit, and to have your say in our shared future.

That's the larger promise of this recall, revitalizing the whole idea of citizenship, reviving those forgotten words from our Declaration of Independence, the consent of the governed.

At the end of the day, this is a movement not just to fire America's worst governor, although it's certainly that.

This is a movement to save America's greatest state.

It's already made history. We've already made history. And now comes the fight for California's future. I believe California is worth fighting for. I know you do as well, and it's an honor to be in that fight with you. Thank you very much.