Exclusive | Ex-Dem Senate leader asks California Supreme Court to block Gavin Newsom’s death row commutations

Former California Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero is asking the state Supreme Court to block Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sweeping commutations of all 548 death row inmates, accusing the outgoing Democrat of abusing his power to burnish his national political ambitions.

Romero, who served 12 years in the Legislature and was the first woman to lead the state Senate as majority leader, told the California Post exclusively that Newsom’s decision to spare all 548 condemned inmates was a calculated political stunt aimed at appealing to the Democratic Party’s increasingly left-wing base.

“This was a political ploy; a blatant, political ploy to basically put his name out there in Michigan and to the Talaricos and all of them that: ‘Hello, my presidential delusions of grandeur are still in place,’” Romero said.

Newsom announced last Thursday that he would commute the death sentences of all 548 inmates on California’s death row, converting their sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The governor called it one of the “most difficult” decisions of his career, defending the move in a letter to Californians as a “righteous action.”

“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom wrote.

The governor also said California “cannot morally kill” the inmates, adding the state could “let these offenders die in obscurity while we forever remember and honor the victims.”

But Romero, a former East Los Angeles lawmaker who left the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party, isn’t buying the explanation.

“He’s been in office for 30 years, as he brags in one of his opening paragraphs in that letter, but he waits until days are left before he basically just drops a bomb,” she told The Post.

Romero has launched a Change.org petition urging the California Supreme Court to reject the commutations that require judicial approval. The campaign had collected more than 1,000 signatures as of Monday.

Her argument hinges on a provision of the California Constitution that restricts the governor’s clemency powers for people with multiple felony convictions.

Under Article V, Section 8, the governor may grant pardons and commute sentences but “may not grant a pardon or commutation to a person twice convicted of a felony except on recommendation of the Supreme Court, 4 judges concurring.”

Romero claims 382 of the 548 condemned inmates fall under that provision, meaning their sentences cannot be commuted without the approval of at least four state Supreme Court justices.

“I am asking the California Supreme Court to reject every commutation that requires its approval,” she wrote in her petition.

Romero said she bypassed Newsom because she believes the governor’s decision was intended to send a political message to the party’s progressive wing rather than address California’s criminal justice system.

“He wants to send a message to the new socialist base of the Democrat Party saying, ‘See, I’m far left just like you,’” she said. “So I think that’s why we didn’t go to the governor directly. We went directly to the people, and we’re now going directly to the court saying, asking, the court to not concur in this recommendation.”

Newsom, who is termed out and set to leave office in January, has publicly mulled a 2028 White House run.

Romero also accused Newsom of hypocrisy, pointing to his frequent criticism of authoritarian leadership.

“This governor has jumped up and down saying, ‘No kings, no kings,’ has gone to protest. [But] he has acted unilaterally as a king,” she said.

In her petition, she alleged Newsom “did not review the cases one by one,” propose any reforms or seek approval from the Legislature, courts or voters before making the sweeping announcement.

Among those whose death sentences are being commuted are Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped, raped and murdered 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993, and the killers of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez, who was beaten and starved to death by his mother and her boyfriend in 2013.

Romero said she was pursuing the challenge in the names of the two young victims.

“I am doing this in the name of Gabriel Fernandez, a little 8-year-old boy in Los Angeles County who was beaten and starved to death by his mother and her boyfriend,” she wrote. “I am doing this in the name of Polly Klaas, taken from her bedroom and murdered. She would be 45 today.”

Strikingly, Romero said she personally opposes capital punishment but believes Newsom’s decision disregards the will of California voters.

“I am Catholic, and I personally oppose the death penalty,” she wrote. “I may disagree with the death penalty, but I respect the people of California and the rule of law. Gavin Newsom does not.”

California voters rejected an effort to repeal the death penalty in 2012 and again in 2016. In that same 2016 election, voters also approved a separate measure intended to speed up executions.

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