Newsom’s affordability moves are mostly smoke and mirrors
When a politician gets Oval Office Fever, his every act aims in that direction.
As political reporter Adam Edelman noted on NBC News, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent actions, including signing 794 bills in 2025, “could help form the basis of a future national platform.”
Many of those bills signaled Newsom’s approach to the potent and practical concern about affordability.
An obvious area Newsom is dealing with as governor of California is the high cost of housing, which is sure to be a target for his 2028 opponents even in the Democratic primaries. By his count, he signed 45 pro-housing bills in 2025.
One was Senate Bill 79, by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which overrides local zoning laws to allow denser housing near mass transit stops. Another was Assembly Bill 609, which exempts urban housing from onerous California Environmental Quality Act reviews, under certain conditions.
This editorial board supported both bills for rightly bringing down government restrictions on housing development. However, both bills were loaded with myriad stipulations, including labor and affordability mandates that undermine the intended benefits from streamlining.
In this way, Newsom’s actions on housing show he’s able to get major reforms done, but in ways that are often counterproductive due to the perceived need to appease organized labor and other special interests. It’s no wonder that Newsom abandoned his original pledge to see 3.5 million homes built in California.
On energy, Newsom signed a package of five energy bills in September, with his office crowing, “Millions of California families will see money back on their electricity bills in October – and that refund will be even bigger next year thanks to new laws I signed last week. Up to $60 billion will go back in your pockets, cutting your electric bills while we keep our historic momentum transitioning away from polluting fossil fuels.”
That sounds nice, but it’s cold comfort considering Californians have seen their energy bills skyrocket under Gov. Newsom. As Eric McGhee from the Public Policy Institute of California noted in April, electricity “rates have surged dramatically in recent years, from about a third higher than the national average in 2015 to over 80% higher last year. “
Other bill signings show his aim to appease progressives still bitter at his ditching of single-payer healthcare.
Senate Bill 40, by Sen Scott Wiener of San Francisco, caps the cost of a 30-day supply of insulin at $35 a month for large group plans starting this upcoming Jan. 1, and for individual and small group plans starting on Jan. 1, 2027. The problem with all price controls is they shift costs, in this case forcing prices higher for other drugs, or reducing drug-company profits needed to develop new drugs. But an aspiring president need not mind long-term economic distortions if it means positive headlines in the short-term.
What all these bill signings show is that Californians will remain the launching pad for Newsom’s ambitions. They certainly aren’t showing an ability to actually improve affordability in California.
As Newsom advances toward the 2028 Democratic primaries, his message is going to be hit hard by a budget deficit near $18 billion, the highest unemployment in the nation at 5.6% and endemic housing and homeless crises.
Whether his actions the past year and the coming one cancel the obvious negatives in voters’ minds won’t be known for a while. But as an editorial board that’s watched the entirety of Newsom’s governorship, we have our doubts.