I received the following email from Gov. Newsom's office:

From: Sepi Esfahlani <Sepi.Esfahlani@gov.ca.gov>
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2019 5:04 PM
To: 'info@klaaskids.org' <info@klaaskids.org>
Subject: Note from the Governor

Hi Marc,

I hope you’'re doing well. Thank you for being a part of the dialogue with Governor Newsom and his office regarding his recent announcement on criminal justice. I would also like to ask if you could please send me your preferred mailing address so that the Governor can send you a letter directly.

Thank you in advance.

My response:

Dear Sepi,

I want to make it very clear that I believe that the meeting occurred so that the Governor could look reporters in the eye the next morning and declare that he had spoken to families on both sides of the death penalty issue. You do not, in good faith, discuss how crime victims can have opportunities to be heard on criminal justice issues, and then sandbag the father of a child whose killer is on death row by announcing a death penalty moratorium. Had that meeting been in good faith, I would have been told that the death penalty was on the meeting agenda prior to arriving.

To sign an executive order based on personal belief that disregards the law of the land, the will of the people, and the sentence handed down by a jury of peers, is something we have come to expect from our president, not our Governor.

Tell Gov. Newsom not to bother with a personal letter. I'm just not interested.

Sincerely,
Marc

Several Facebook friends questioned the dig at President Trump. I'm not sure if he really means it or if that is strategic--the worst thing you can say about someone in Newsom's world is to say he is like Trump. I took a somewhat similar tack in my SF Chronicle op-ed, noted in this post.

That is a minor point, though. The major point is the offensiveness of Newsom claiming he is engaging in "dialogue" with the families of murder victims when all he is really doing is inviting a small number to meetings where the result is predetermined. Newsom knew what he was going to do and put his staff on it soon after taking office. There was no dialogue.

Newsom's statements about the death penalty indicate quite clearly that he just takes all the talking points from one side and accepts them uncritically, making no effort to find out if they are true.