Eighteen weekdays marked “no official business.” Fifty-three blocks of mysterious “work time.” A typical day that often starts after 9 a.m. and wraps before 5. This is how California’s highest-paid public servant spent the first four months of the year.
After months of stonewalling that forced The California Post to bring in lawyers, Governor Gavin Newsom finally coughed up his official calendars. What they show is not a man grinding away at the crises crushing the Golden State. It is a man treating the governor’s office like a part-time gig while he polishes his presidential resume.
One in four non-holiday weekdays between January and April carried zero scheduled government business. On February 6, the entire official entry was a single “work time” block from 2 to 5:20 p.m. From April 3 through April 12, the only item listed was a 35-minute stop at the North Salton Sea Conservancy. The rest of that stretch? Blank.
Newsom’s office insists the calendars are incomplete. “No official business” just means nothing was pre-scheduled, they say. Unscheduled calls and informal chats supposedly fill the gaps. Convenient. It does not explain why the public had to fight for months to see even this partial record, or why 34 entries remain blacked out.
Other states put their governors’ schedules online as a matter of routine. Oregon keeps a public archive. Virginia, Iowa, and Utah do the same. California’s progressive champion demands transparency from everyone else while treating his own daily activities like classified material.
The timing is no accident. Some of those empty days lined up with Newsom’s nationwide book tour for his memoir, “A Young Man in a Hurry.” The book is widely viewed as the necessary first step toward a 2028 White House run. While Californians deal with sky-high housing costs, open-air drug markets, and businesses fleeing the state, their governor was on the road selling his personal brand.
He found time for the media that flatters him. An 80-minute interview with Vogue after a 20-minute prep session produced a profile that opened by calling him “embarrassingly handsome.” Marie Claire got access to paint his wife as the most underestimated woman in American politics. Bloomberg declared him an economic maestro. Local Capitol reporters? They get the redactions and the legal delays.
He spent more than 19 hours rehearsing his final State of the State address. The speech itself lasted just over an hour and landed with a thud. Priorities.
California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin put it plainly. Newsom “seems to treat the governor’s office like a part-time gig, spending his limited time pushing failed policies.”
She is right. The man who ordered 224,000 state workers back to the office four days a week cannot seem to fill his own calendar with the actual work of governing.
Scripture speaks to this kind of stewardship. Jesus said in Luke 16:10, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”
If a man cannot be bothered to account for the ordinary workdays of the office he already holds, why should anyone trust him with more power?
Newsom still draws nearly $246,000 a year from taxpayers. He still jets off to Davos, Munich, and London. He still finds quiet time for meetings with the billionaires behind the California Forever megacity project he has never publicly embraced. What he does not find is the consistent focus California desperately needs.
This is not about one Tuesday or one “work time” block. It is about a governor whose real energy is directed toward the next job while the current one suffers. California has become the stage, not the mission. The calendar proves it. The legal fight required to obtain that calendar proves he knew exactly how bad it would look.
Voters should take note. A man who hides his schedule, fills it with vanity media and book tours, and leaves large stretches marked “no official business” is not leading. He is auditioning. And California is paying the price.
