Are state leaders too invested in their shutdown position to admit they're wrong?
Former California Republican Party chairman Tom Del Beccaro speaks out.
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Former chairman of the California Republican Party Tom Del Beccaro pushed back on the state’s stay-at-home order on Wednesday, saying he thinks “things are going to unravel” for Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“California is a big place and treating northern California or the eastern counties the same as L.A. makes no sense,” Del Beccaro said on “Fox & Friends First” on Wednesday. “There’s a lot of rumblings, a lot of lawsuits, a lot of counties that are fighting back.”
He then revealed what he called a “dirty little secret.”
“The district attorneys and certain sheriffs aren’t enforcing Gavin Newsom’s rules, so I think things are going to unravel for him,” Beccaro said.
Del Beccaro made the statements one day after Newsom unveiled a four-stage plan to reopen the state’s economy.
This week Newsom said, “Politics will not drive our decision-making, protests won’t drive our decision-making.”
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“We need to protect not just the business community, but customers of those businesses,” he added.
Unlike Georgia and other states that are already allowing hair and nail salons to operate, those would have to wait until a later phase of California's reopening plan, the state public health director Sonia Angell said. Mass gatherings, including concerts and sporting events, are even further away, possibly not until there's a virus treatment.
It wasn't clear when restaurants could allow dine-in services again. Many have been offering takeout and delivery since Newsom issued his statewide stay-at-home order March 19; however, thousands of restaurant workers have lost their jobs.
The state's unemployment department has processed 3.2 million unemployment claims because of the coronavirus, Newsom said in a news briefing on Monday, KXTV reported.
Del Beccaro said Newsom’s four-stage plan is "unrealistic," emphasizing how important tourism is to California's economy and hospitality industry.
“Where do restaurants fall in this plan? It’s not clear and there’s already an estimate that 30 percent to 40 percent of restaurants in California will never reopen," he noted.
Newsom said this week that California may be only a few weeks away from making “meaningful changes” to its stay-at-home order and warned progress will be jeopardized if people do things like crowd beaches, which occurred last weekend.
Del Beccaro said that Newsom’s plan unveiled Tuesday indicates that California’s reopening won’t happen for months, not weeks.
“I think he’s going to get pushback and also what you find, is here and there, and I talked to people today throughout the state, there are non-essential businesses already doing that kind of work, opening up and doing things,” Del Beccaro said.
“California is just too big for one man to try to control and some of these lawsuits are going to overturn his rules,” he continued.
Officials from six rural Northern California counties -- Sutter, Yuba, Butte, Colusa, Tehama and Glenn -- wrote to Newsom this week asking to implement "a careful and phased reopening of our local economies." The counties, with a population of about 500,000, have seen fewer than 100 confirmed coronavirus cases and a handful of deaths.
Del Beccaro noted on Wednesday that those counties “have almost no cases whatsoever.”
“Of course they’re very sparsely populated, unlike Los Angeles, so those six counties make a great case for saying treat us different than Los Angeles,” he continued.
He then noted that “protests and lawsuits are gaining speed” and said he expected some of the rulings to be turned over.
There have been a few protests by people who want to reopen the state, saying their liberty and livelihoods are at stake. On Sunday, dozens rallied in Pacific Beach in San Diego.
Three people were arrested at a rally just north of San Diego and were cited for violating health orders, Sheriff’s Lt. Ricardo Lopez said.
Meantime, the six San Francisco Bay Area counties said it’s too early for them to ease restrictions.
As of Wednesday, California has reported more than 46,000 coronavirus cases and 1,862 deaths, according to data compiled by Fox News. More than half of the state’s cases and deaths have been reported in Los Angeles County, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The number of infections, however, is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested and studies suggest people can have COVID-19 without showing symptoms.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.