THE BUZZ: Governing America’s biggest state ain’t easy.
— That fact was reinforced for Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom some 36 hours after he was decisively declared California’s incoming leader. With Gov. Jerry Brown out of state, Newsom was in charge as the acting governor. He was immediately greeted with twin cataclysms.
— First came the horrific shooting at a country bar in Los Angeles County. Newsom, who campaigned on going toe-to-toe with the National Rifle Association and championed a ballot initiative to regulate ammunition sales, found himself in the position of ordering flags to half staff in honor of Sgt. Ronald Lee Helus, who was slain responding to the shooting. A decidedly weightier matter than one Newsom grappled with in a previous rotation in the temporary governor’s seat.