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The political climate in California is changing. The Golden State is seemingly on the cusp of a red wave in the Los Angeles mayoral and statewide gubernatorial races. Californians\u2019 deep\u00a0concern about the prevalence<\/span><\/a> of high-intensity wildfires plaguing their state is a major reason why.<\/p>\n I previously\u00a0argued<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that Governor Gavin Newsom treated California as a policy laboratory for all kinds of radical regulatory experimentation and that the results were overwhelmingly negative. Now there are signs of a state-wide reckoning.<\/p>\n Polling indicates that California residents could put an end to the toxic mix of harmful policies crafted or enforced by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Newsom.<\/p>\n The L.A. mayoral race has put this dynamic on full display. Former reality TV star and political outsider Spencer Pratt has made the Palisades Fire, which occurred under Bass\u2019s watch, a central issue in the race. That fire, started by a deranged arsonist, caused damages estimated<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at over $28 billion and killed dozens of people. Bass\u2019s team oversaw a response that policy experts have\u00a0criticized<\/span><\/a>\u00a0as inadequate. At the time, the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/i>editorial board argued that Bass\u2019s city government \u201cbadly mishandled<\/span><\/a>\u201d the response, and, perhaps worse, that Bass tried to sweep evidence of her bungled response under the rug.<\/p>\n Though it happened over a year ago, Spencer Pratt is not letting Bass off the hook for her role in the fire, which affected him personally. \u201cIf they didn\u2019t burn my house down, I wouldn\u2019t be running for mayor,\u201d Pratt has\u00a0said<\/span><\/a>. That strategy is working for Pratt. While still slightly trailing Bass in recent\u00a0polls<\/span><\/a>, Pratt is slated to face Bass in a runoff election in November.<\/p>\n Bass blamed climate change for the fires, which is no excuse for negligence. In fact, if Bass believes climate change is exacerbating wildfire risk, that arguably casts her in a worse light. If she believed that fires are now more likely to occur, due to climate change or any other reason, her decision to\u00a0drastically reduce<\/span><\/a>\u00a0the L.A. Fire Department budget by $17 million before the fire was especially inexcusable.<\/p>\n Bass not only refused to accept accountability but also attempted a cover-up. Bass reportedly altered<\/span><\/a>\u00a0an after-action report to downplay the role of poor political decisions in the fire\u2019s impact. The original report, much of which Bass reportedly\u00a0quashed<\/span><\/a>, may have discussed the reservoir\u00a0drained ahead of the fire<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that could have supplied 117 million gallons of water, and the\u00a0insufficient availability<\/span><\/a>\u00a0of firefighters.<\/p>\n Solely focusing on Bass, though, misses the larger point: In California, ideologically driven leftist policies have prioritized environmental regulations over brush-clearing measures. Faster vegetation growth translates to higher fire risk.<\/p>\n Californians know this, but they have long faced an uphill battle in clearing brush from public land. As a general rule, California\u00a0doesn\u2019t clear brush<\/span><\/a>\u00a0from public lands for environmental reasons, and residents must apply for a permit to do so \u2014 a lengthy and cumbersome process.<\/p>\n This is what happened in the Palisades Fire. Having not been cleared from public lands abutting residential areas, brush plants, which are evolutionarily engineered to burn, contributed<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to the fire\u2019s rapid spread.<\/p>\n Californians know that politicians are at least partly to blame for mismanagement and poor policymaking that\u00a0cost<\/span><\/a>\u00a0over 20,000 of them their homes in the most recent major bout of wildfires in early 2025.<\/p>\n That is why Democrats are at risk of losing their grip on power in California at the gubernatorial level, too. Republican candidate Steve Hilton is surging in polls among Californians and could be the first Republican elected governor of California in two decades.<\/p>\n Hilton is not tiptoeing around challenging fire prevention issues. To the contrary, he is leaning in with ambitious\u00a0proposals<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to use remote sensing technology and drones to detect and stop fires before they spread out of control.<\/p>\n At the same time, Hilton has condemned California officials for putting ideology before people. Hilton has\u00a0noted<\/span><\/a>, \u201cthe California Coastal Commission also blocked fire prevention and mitigation measures in the exact hills that just burned, in order to protect a few thousand specimens of the Braunton\u2019s milkvetch shrub.\u201d He also got Californians\u2019 attention, with his\u00a0claim<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that the L.A. wildfires were \u201cnot a natural disaster\u201d but rather \u201ca man-made disaster.\u201d Thanks to common sense axioms like these, he is currently the\u00a0frontrunner<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the race, much to the chagrin and surprise of California\u2019s Democratic establishment.<\/p>\n California is a solid blue state and has been for many years. A red wave there would mean a red wave could be possible anywhere. And apocalyptic scenes of wildfires, the most salient and striking example of policy failure in that state, are getting voters\u2019 attention like never before.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Sydney Rodman is a visiting fellow with the Independent Women\u2019s Center for Energy and Conservation.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n