Gov. Gavin Newsom has gained a reputation for making grand pronouncements and then not following up with specific actions after the press conference is over. Rarely, however, have we seen him actively undermine the goals he outlined in his public statements. Until now.

In 2021, the governor signed a landmark police accountability bill to decertify police officers who engaged in abusive and illegal conduct and provide public access of the investigations. He signed the law in the aftermath of the highly publicized video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd. His death sparked nationwide protests.

California was one of only three states that had no process for decertifying bad officers. Even in instances of egregious wrongdoing that would lead to an officer’s firing, that officer often would get a new job at another police agency. The officer at the center of the Floyd incident was the subject of 18 previous complaints about his on-duty behavior.

Our sister papers in the Bay Area News Group ran an investigative report in 2019 about California’s “criminal cops” — active police officers who had been convicted of felonies, including serious crimes such as manslaughter. “But thanks to some of the weakest laws in the country for punishing police misconduct, the Golden State does nothing to stop these officers from enforcing the law,” it noted.

Senate Bill 2 was designed as a remedy. “Too many lives have been lost due to racial profiling and excessive use of force,” Newsom said at a press conference after the bill signing. “We cannot change what is past, but we can build accountability, root out racial injustice and fight systemic racism.”

When the governor says something, it’s best to follow Ronald Reagan’s advice about the Soviets: “Trust, but verify.” The Associated Press reported last week that Newsom is using a budget trailer bill to gut that legislation. His administration is trying to eliminate the transparency elements of SB 2 under the guise of a cost-cutting measure, given the state’s $31.5-billion budget deficit.

That’s a terrible idea. By eliminating a state role in releasing investigative reports about reprobate officers, the administration would return that responsibility to local agencies. Yet the premise of the bill is that local agencies have proved themselves unable to police their own officers. News organizations and victims often have been able to get requisite information from them.

Related Articles

The AP article quoted Antioch Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker, whose city is reeling from a federal investigation of officers who shared texts claiming to have brutalized suspects: “To say, ‘go to the very people who commit the crimes against your community and ask them to reveal themselves to you so that you can hold them accountable,’ I don’t think that’s a fair process.”

Furthermore, it’s preposterous to claim that gutting the law will save any significant amount of money. We’re talking the equivalent of pennies in the state’s multibillion-dollar budget. The administration didn’t offer any cost figures but it’s likely to be in the millions. And, of course, transparency can save the state even more — by discouraging behavior that leads to large civil settlements and litigation.

We’re not sure what the governor is thinking, but the Legislature needs to force Newsom to live up to his earlier statements about battling police abuse.