Gavin Newsom has never once met with California’s 58 sheriffs.
Not a sit-down. Not a representative sent on his behalf. Not a returned phone call. Every governor before him had a standing relationship with the men and women running law enforcement in the state. Newsom ended it the day he took office; rural California has been paying the price ever since.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is running for Governor of California. He’s not a politician, he describes his campaign as a citizen’s rebellion. But he has been elected to run the fourth largest sheriff’s office in the country for over seven years. He’s spent the last year driving the length of California talking to talking to the people who grow its food, fight its fires, and manage its land. He’s met with farmers, ranchers, loggers, and water district managers. He knows where the Scott Dam is. He knows what the Potter Valley Project means to 750,000 people. He’s tracked Chinese and Mexican cartels through California’s forests. He’s watched Gavin Newsom refuse to return a single call from California’s sheriffs.
In this conversation, he goes deep on the issues that actually affect working Californians, the ones Sacramento pretends don’t exist:
Water. Why the last major reservoir built in California was 1979 (we’ve doubled in population since then), why the state keeps routing water to the ocean instead of storing it, and what the Scott Dam removal would actually mean for the North State.
Fire. Why the Palisades Fire wiped out 20 years of California’s carbon reduction in a single event, why prescribed burns take two to three years to permit, and why bringing back the logging industry is essential.
Illegal cannabis and cartels. How legalization created a more dangerous black market, what Chinese, Russian, and Mexican criminal organizations are doing in California’s forests, and why Sacramento takes credit for enforcement it didn’t do.
Agriculture. Why California has lost nearly a quarter of its farms since 1982 and up to 900,000 acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland may be taken out of production due to water policy, why small farmers are being regulated into selling to big ag, and what it would take to reverse this dismaying trend.
Law enforcement and Newsom. The standing relationship between governors and sheriffs that Newsom destroyed, and why Jerry Brown warned them on his way out: “You have no idea what’s coming.”
Predator policy. Wolves, mountain lions, grizzly reintroduction proposals, whether he’d delist the gray wolf, and what Fish & Game has gotten completely wrong
CCW and Second Amendment. Why access to concealed carry permits varies wildly by county and what that means for rural Californians who are 45 minutes from the nearest deputy.
Energy. CPUC corruption, why he says utility rates would be cut in half the day he takes office, and the case for nuclear.
Bianco grew up in a small coal mining and farming town in Utah, came to California at 21 because it was the most perfect place he’d ever seen, and has watched it be systematically dismantled in the time he’s been here. He’s not running because he woke up one day and wanted to be governor. He’s running because he looked at the field, looked at the state, and decided someone had to.
This conversation is for the farmers in the Central Valley watching their fields go dry. For the ranchers in Modoc choosing between their cattle and the law. For the loggers in Humboldt who watched their industry get regulated into extinction. For everyone who’s looked at a ballot and wondered if it’s even worth filling out anymore.
Show Notes
Sponsored by Ranch Vision: www.ranchvision.io
Special thanks to Josh Woolwine for creating our intro. Follow Josh at www.instagram.com/hjwoolwine.
