u/Erik_Bookman

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By Erik Skindrud, InfoWise.org

Let’s spend a minute with an open mind, trying to understand California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s drive to double in-office days for close to 100,000 state office workers — starting in July.

While words like collaboration and “mom and pop” businesses top his talking points, a bit of digging turns up a more powerful — as well as delicate and sensitive — motivation.

The reality is that Newsom’s confidence about a run for President in 2028 is tempered by vulnerability. The issue is laid out in a January piece in The Atlantic by Marc Novicoff and Jonathan Chait.

Gavin “Newsom has a problem,” the pair write. “During his tenure (as governor), the state has been a laboratory for some of the Democratic Party’s most politically fraught policies and instincts, which has left it less affordable and more culturally radical than it used to be.”

“It (now) provides (Newsom) opponents an endless buffet of vulnerabilities across social and economic issues.”

Newsom is grasping for bona fides to lend him cred with right-leaning voters. Two years ago, he undertook a flurry of steps — hosting Steve Bannon and the late Charlie Kirk on his podcast, sniping at trans people, announcing the return-to-office gambit.

The move throws California state workers under the bus. Newsom is surprisingly tone deaf on this point. At his budget-revise press briefing on May 14, he even compared his record to the federal-worker DOGE initiative of 2025 — now shorthand for politically-driven HR policy.

“We were DOGE before DOGE,” Newsom said last week. “I just didn’t do it with a chainsaw.”

Read the rest of the article here: https://infowise.org/2026/05/17/understanding-newsoms-return-to-office-drive-along-with-other-dumber-campaign-strategies/

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By Erik Skindrud, InfoWise.org

California unions and elected officials are following a Texas playbook that undid last year’s return-to-office order in the Lone Star State — as Gov. Gavin Newsom charges ahead with his own unpopular RTO mandate.

Last June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 5196, essentially reversing Texas’ RTO order. Abbott didn’t comment after signing the bill.

On April 8, a California version, AB 1729, advanced — with the State Assembly Committee unanimously endorsing it.

A bipartisan coalition is backing the bill, which would let state agencies set telework policies for themselves. It would empower California Transportation Plan (CTP) 2050 action items, which recommend “expansion of telework policies for State employees and other public-sector employees who are able to work remotely.”

Telework action items identified in California Transportation Plan 2050 — a Department of Transportation planning document published in 2021.

It would also establish a website publishing data on annual cost savings, reduced commutes, and cuts in energy use and emissions related to state worker telecommuting.

The effort is spearheaded by youthful state assembly members who see work-from-home as a progressive policy that delivers benefits to workers and the state’s bottom line. Late last year, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office tallied California’s budget deficit at $18 billion. (The governor’s office in January downplayed the issue, pegging the deficit at $3 billion.)

On May 14, both will deliver a ‘May revise’ — new budget forecasts that include deficit estimates. This past week, columnist Dan Walters accused both Newsom and the state legislature of hiding their heads “(in) the sand” on budget imbalances that may add up to $30 to $60 billion a year.

Newsom is “standing on political quicksand” given the many unknowns in the budget, the L.A. Times said on May 3.

With looming pressures from the Iran war, these imbalances may push Newsom to relent on his in-office push — which would save taxpayers at least $225 million annually — and $1 billion every four years.

Newsom’s RTO is a departure from California’s half-century of pioneering and promoting telework. If his mandate sticks, California would step back from its role as world leader in the practice.

Consultant and blogger Gleb Tsipursky suggests the move is a policy feint designed to mollify commercial real estate and downtown business owners — before reversing course, satisfying worker and union demands.

The playbook unfolds in this order. Candidate Newsom “announces a sweeping return (to office in order to) placate landlords and transit agencies, then trades (telework) flexibility for delayed raises, trimmed stipends or slower pension growth.”

“The Texas about-face isn’t an isolated incident,” Tsipursky observed last August. “It’s part of a fascinating pattern playing out in state capitals across America, where rigid return-to-office mandates are collapsing under the weight of economic reality and employee resistance.”

Another possibility is that Newsom would wield his veto.

“If the Legislature passes (AB 1729), there is one major hurdle: the governor’s desk,” the Sacramento Bee noted on April 8.

Telework — and AB 1729 — advocates hold a powerful card that could decide the poker match, however.

Nearly all bills vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newson pass by more than a two-thirds majority, “meaning the same votes from those legislators would be enough to override the governor’s veto,” media outlet CalMatters noted in 2024. Tradition and “loyalty” have prevented the step being taken since 1979.

With Newsom leaving Sacramento, and telework support across the aisle, the option is on the table.

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Assemblymember Lee, AB 1729’s sponsor, declined to provide comment for this article. His press release, with bill endorsements from five union leaders, is available here.

Late last year, however, Assemblymember Josh Hoover’s chief of staff shared perspective on Hoover’s support for telework — and the current two-days-in, three-from-home hybrid arrangement.

Hoover is the lone Republican among nine AB 1729 coauthors.

“The bottom line is that my boss represents thousands of state workers and is supportive of their desire to work efficiently and productively at home,” Hoover chief of staff Teresa Trujillo said via email. “That’s the reason he has pushed against the Governor on this issue and opposes his RTO directive.”

READ full version here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/erik-skindrud-9aab8b28_california-unions-and-elected-officials-are-share-7457209233617367040-hMOZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAXem9IBbU0T0bi_6wDymYZxa_e4iptDVQE

Or here: https://infowise.org/2026/05/04/texas-win-inspires-a-california-telework-strategy-poised-to-bypass-newsom-return-to-office-order/