SACRAMENTO — On a Saturday night in December, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was so frustrated by a Supreme Court decision allowing Texas residents to sue abortion providers that he went straight to social media to call for legislation allowing private citizens to enforce his own state’s gun laws.
It sounded so tit-for-tat that many Californians wondered if he was just trying to get a rise out of one of his favorite foils, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas. Others doubted he was serious because it would have meant embracing a bounty system of enforcement that he considered legally dubious.
Seven months later, Mr. Newsom not only signed the bill on Friday, but he has leaned harder than ever into his rhetoric against Republicans. He ran ads in Florida and Texas attacking the states’ Republican governors, Ron DeSantis and Mr. Abbott. He rebuked other states for banning abortion, as well as ripped the Supreme Court for its recent decisions overturning Roe v. Wade and giving Americans a broad right to arm themselves in public.
While Mr. Newsom has repeatedly insisted that he has no intention of running for the White House in 2024, his actions at times seem to belie his statements. The Florida ad — a $105,000 spot worth more in free publicity — turned heads in national political circles. So did his visit to Washington this month and his declarations this spring that fellow Democrats were too meekly responding to Republican moves.
“I think he realizes that Democrats are hungry for a hero,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor at California State University, Sacramento. “He’s building a profile as an alternative on the left to this aggressive policymaking we’ve seen by Republicans in recent years.”
No piece of legislation better encapsulates Mr. Newsom’s fight-fire-with-fire attitude than the bill co-opting a Texas anti-abortion tactic to enforce California bans on assault weapons and ghost guns.
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Senate Bill 1327 aims to bury those who deal in banned guns in litigation. Awards of at least $10,000 per weapon, and legal fees, will be offered to plaintiffs who successfully sue anyone who imports, distributes, manufactures or sells assault-style weapons, .50-caliber rifles, guns without serial numbers or parts that can be used to build firearms that are banned in California.
“No one is saying you can’t have a gun,” said State Senator Bob Hertzberg, a veteran San Fernando Valley Democrat who was tapped by the governor to craft and shepherd the complex legislation. “We’re just saying there’s no constitutional right to an AR-15, a .50-caliber machine gun or a ghost gun with the serial number filed off.”