When a blue-state governor in a failing blue state starts cutting red tape as if he were President Trump, look out: he's running for president.

This brings us to Gavin Newsom, who, sure enough, is suddenly starting to act like a Republican.

He signed off on this bill this week, according to The Hill:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) Monday signed into law a package of infrastructure bills that aim to cut the red tape associated with building new projects, while also ensuring environmental protection.

The package, which includes five wide-ranging bills, generally centers on streamlining permitting processes, speeding up judicial review to prevent undue delays from legal challenges and addressing cumbersome elements of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Monday's signing also marks the end of a contentious few months in which Newsom and his Democratic colleagues have clashed over certain elements of his streamlining agenda — which also delayed the finalization of the state's 2023-2024 budget to nearly the last minute.

"We're celebrating partnership here today, we're celebrating progress here today," Newsom said at a Monday press conference, prior to the signing.

Newsom's statement about it told us a lot about the dynamic here:

Newsom stressed the importance of "Democrats working with Democrats" on fiscal discipline while "addressing some of the most vexing and challenging issues of our time."

"We once again recognized that we needed to reconcile the challenges and the vagaries of a progressive tax structure," he said.

In other words, Democrats were the problem, the obstacle, the guys who created the red tape in the first place and who remained happy they created the red tape, despite the costs to the economy — and Newsom used his political muscle to prise them away from it in order to make that Trump-like regulation-cutting move.  It wasn't the politically powerless Republicans he had to steamroll to get it done.  It was his very own Democrats.

"Democrats working with Democrats," as he put it, using the happy talk for what must have been a knockdown, drag-out fight among Democrats in the statehouse.

That is weird stuff, because Newsom's never cared about red tape before, or at least not enough to do anything about it, and he's been in politics for years.

But now he does, and he's been talking about it ever since his name came up for president as a top Democrat to replace doddering Joe Biden.  Why is he doing that?  Most likely, it's because he's leaving the enclosed fishbowl of blue-state California politics, where nobody cares if the economy falls apart or people leave the state, and now moving out onto the more competitive field of national politics where voters demand economic growth and results.  In that atmosphere, Newsom will need some kind of record to defend.  After all, when your aim is to defeat the mighty President Trump or the mighty Florida governor Ron DeSantis, both of whom have powerful records of red tape–cutting as well as the economic growth that follows, you're going to have to bring more than "California is the wave of the future" to the electoral table in a competitive race.

Many voters, of course, do believe Newsom when he says California is the wave of the future, and not in a good way.  They notice how many people fleeing California are moving into their state.

So now we have Newsom trying to out-Trump Trump as Mr. Red Tape–Cutter, much the same way Joe Biden is trying to claim that he's created a better economy and a more secure border than President Trump.

Newsom's move to cut red tape does have a Trumpy flavor, and the Chamber of Commerce seems happy, but notice that it's couched in claims of creating cleaner water and the like, which everyone knows is window dressing.

The other aspect of it that makes it window dressing is that it's directed at targeted industries, which means picking winners and losers, rather than lifting the entire economy.  While Newsom's measure is likely to improve some parts of the economy, it will continue to keep the government jackboot on other parts, which should keep the economic growth to a minimum.

This is weird stuff, because if regulation-cutting is good for one sector, why not extend it to the entire economy if one is serious about economic growth?

That's where the Democrats-working-with-Democrats comes in.

Newsom probably made a deal with his fellow Democrats to keep much of the economy fettered by red tape but to free the greenie part, so he could have something to show the voters — to counter the dreaded Trump or the dreaded DeSantis when they trot out their across-the-board achievements.

It's ridiculous and only goes to show that he is aping, not mastering, the art of being Trump.  He's cutting regulations, but only on industries he means to showcase to voters.

The only thing it shows is that Newsom is running for president for sure.  Funny how they put on those Republican feathers whenever their real aim is to obtain more power.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.