IT'S TOO BAD WE CAN'T FIRE MORE GOVERNORS.

• Author: Welch, Matt
• Position: IDEAS

FACING A RECALL election sparked partly by his heavy-handed pandemic restrictions on what Californians can do in their beloved outdoors, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in March chose a symbolically appropriate if politically tone-deaf venue for his annual State of the State address: an empty Dodger Stadium.

Like the beaches Newsom ordered closed the previous Fourth of July-months after researchers had become confident that outdoor settings were contributing little to the spread of COVID-19--the place Angelenos call Chavez Ravine looked unnatural without the hum of humanity. The plasticine preening from an ostensibly humbled governor didn't help either.

"Instead of fans in stands, we see nurses in [personal protective equipment], saving lives one injection at a time," Newsom said, bragging about the "most robust vaccination program in America," which nonetheless ranked in the bottom 10 based on per-capita doses administered at the time. "And look, we've made mistakes," he added. "I've made mistakes. But we own them, learn from them, and never stop trying."

If only.

One of Newsom's most damaging edicts was padlocking playgrounds--not just in the pandemic's scary early weeks, when scientists didn't understand much about how the virus was spread, but for six excruciating months. Kids in sunny California were prohibited by law from attending school or playing organized sports, long after the world's leading epidemiologists and pediatricians began preaching the benefits of outdoor play and the comparative safety of schools and day care centers.

Even after reopening the playgrounds, Newsom mandated masking there for 2-year-olds, 6 feet of separation between families, a 30-minute time limit, and no eating or drinking. Then, when COVID-19 cases started surging in December, the governor shuttered the sandboxes again, only to reverse himself after an outcry from exhausted parents.

With a brazenness only a politician or actor could summon, Newsom is defending his anti-scientific record on scientific grounds. "From the earliest days of the pandemic," he said in his Dodger Stadium speech, eyes shining with pride, "California trusted in science and data."

Sacramento placed so little trust in neutral analysis that the governor refused to share his formula for determining when counties could emerge from lockdown orders after cases spiked last Thanksgiving. (It had something to do with the state's guesstimate of future intensive care unit capacity.) "These...