Gavin Newsom

Gavin Newsom is spending his final months as California governor on two tracks at once: a burst of late-term policy action and a widening confrontation with the Trump administration that now touches housing, climate, guns, gas prices, and his own legal exposure.

On July 13 he signed AB 179 at an Oakland Chinatown construction site, cutting local impact fees and red tape for affordable housing while allocating $500 million for low-income tax credits, $900 million for homelessness grants, and $100 million for disaster rebuilding. He tied the state push to the newly enacted federal 21st Century Road to Housing Act, appearing alongside Rep. Mike Thompson and State Sen. Jesse Arreguín. The same day he launched the MyFirstEV rebate program, offering instant $3,500 rebates for new electric vehicles and $1,750 for used ones at dealerships, funded with $135.5 million in state money plus automaker matching. He framed it as a direct replacement for the federal clean-vehicle tax credits Trump repealed, accusing Trump of surrendering the clean-car industry to China.

He is backing two November housing bond measures totaling $36 billion for affordable and middle-income housing, part of a 14-measure ballot he calls the most crowded in a decade. He opposes the billionaire wealth tax on that ballot, Prop 40, calling it poorly designed and warning it could drive out the wealthy and cut revenue. He tried and failed to get SEIU-UHW to withdraw it, and rejected a 2% compromise. Instead he proposes a federal alternative: a minimum tax on fortunes over $100 million, a ban on borrowing against stock to avoid taxes, and a national public equity fund to redistribute AI wealth.

Federal investigations loom over everything. The DOJ is probing alleged routing of $350 million-plus in taxpayer funds to preferred nonprofits, some allegedly returning money to Newsom or his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, whose nonprofit salary and benefits are under scrutiny. His former chief of staff Dana Williamson pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail and bank fraud. Newsom used state letterhead to file a FOIA request seeking evidence the probes are politically motivated, calling them lawfare and tying them to Trump's desire to damage his 2028 ambitions, though some investigations reportedly began under Biden.

On guns, the DOJ sued California July 1 over its Glock-style handgun ban; Newsom vowed to defend the law as life-saving. On gas, he refused to suspend a 2.2-cent tax increase pushing California's rate to a national high of 63.4 cents per gallon, blaming Trump's Iran policy for $5.40 pump prices and backing legislation to expand price-gouging laws to wartime emergencies. He is also deploying AI across state agencies through a partnership with Anthropic and launched the nation's first statewide AI-unemployment tracker. Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton advance to the November runoff to succeed him; Newsom endorsed Becerra.