“Imagine being an elected official where folks say ‘clean them up,’ and you say, ‘I can’t do it,’” Newsom said in a recent interview with POLITICO in which he lamented proliferating encampments.
Newsom and city officials argue judges who are far removed from street conditions are allowing an intolerable situation to fester, with the governor regularly blasting courts after adverse rulings. Advocates counter that Democratic lawmakers are ignoring the constitutional rights of people who have nowhere to go.
A lack of shelter beds has put homeless people in an untenable situation, Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach said. Her organization sued San Francisco because politicians “have washed their hands of” the issue while neglecting people’s rights and distorting data about the number of people declining shelter. She argued Newsom and Breed have excoriated the courts to deflect from their own failings.
“They’ve overly dramatized it into a way to let themselves off the hook,” Friedenbach said. “They’ve politically maneuvered into, ‘It’s not our fault, it’s homeless peoples’ fault. It’s not our fault, it’s the lawsuit’s fault, it’s these judges’ fault.’”
Some progressive critics have gone even further, warning that Newsom’s broadsides against judges are perilously close to the type of authoritarian rhetoric he deplores when it’s coming from Republicans.
“This is something you’d expect Ron DeSantis to do and not a self-proclaimed liberal governor,” said Maya Polon, a Sacramento-based public affairs consultant. “We’ve seen how important an independent judiciary is, and it’s undemocratic and disappointing to see from someone who wants so much to be the face of the progressive left.”
But Democratic politicians counter that their frustration toward the courts is justified. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who championed a recently passed anti-camping ordinance, said in an interview that “law-degrading” judicial rulings were undermining public order.
“I don’t think anyone involved in these decisions wants them to result in more encampments, more filth, more crime, but that is sometimes the result of these rulings,” Gloria said. “If a judge and I were walking in a frozen food aisle at the supermarket, I suspect a constituent would know who I am and give me an earful while the judge could go about their business.”
Gloria said voters who don’t see improvements would be less likely to back the long-term work needed to ease a housing crunch, like building more homes and siting shelters.
“The first thing is we need to build a lot more housing, and in exchange for that I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to want streets to be safe and hygienic,” Gloria said. “If people don’t see the progress, they’ll increase their opposition to the interventions that help solve this problem.”
It could be years until some cases are resolved, leaving elected officials to navigate a thicket of often-contradictory rules governing how and when they can move people from public spaces. Some of California’s legal officials are urging the courts to move swiftly.