On Tuesday, 59.5% of voters decided to remove Orange County Senator Josh Newman, who was midway through his four-year term. Newman was a big target for people who strongly opposed his stance on raising the state's gas tax. The repeal effort for the gas tax is in the works to go to the statewide ballot.
“It bodes very well for us to pull off the repeal,” said Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California and a leader of the recall effort. “It shows that there is a taxpayer revolt brewing in California that is seeing through the millions of dollars of misleading ads from Sacramento special interests.”
DeMaio said his group is considering possible recall campaigns against other Democratic senators who supported the gas tax, including Anthony Portantino of La Cañada Flintridge and Richard Roth of Riverside.
John Cox, who will be moving to the November ballot in the race for governor against Gavin Newsom, is not a proponent for the gas tax and expressed his disdain for the notion.
“How many hardworking Californians are going to be forced to choose between buying groceries or filling up their tank on the way to work?” Cox said. “We’re going to repeal that gas tax in November.”
The repeal initiative needs 585,407 signatures from registered voters to qualify for the ballot, and backers recently turned in petitions signed by 963,905 people. The verification process is still in process, but so far elections officials are finding 77% of the signatures are indeed valid.
Photo: Getty Images