California will be the first state to provide universal health care access for all residents regardless of legal status, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Monday. “Undocumented” residents through age 26 were already eligible for Medi-Cal, and Newsom’s $286 billion budget extends “full-scope” coverage, including long-term care to illegal aliens, ages 50 and older.

Newsom also proposed a $2.7 billion COVID “emergency response package” that would boost testing, accelerate vaccination and booster shots, and “battle misinformation.” Both announcements have more to do with the 2022 midterms than people might think.

By official estimates, California now harbors between 2-3 million illegals, but the number is surely much higher. In 2019, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra hinted that more than 10 million illegals live in California, close to the 11 million the Pew Research Center has long claimed for the entire country. According to scholars at Yale and MIT, the national total is likely closer to 22 million.

In California, when illegals get driver’s licenses, the Department of Motor Vehicles automatically registers them to vote. In 2016, Secretary of State Alex Padilla refused to cooperate with a federal probe of voter fraud, and by March 2018, the DMV had given licenses to more than 1 million illegal aliens. Padilla wouldn’t say how many illegals voted in 2018, but a ballpark figure would be 100 percent, doubtless the same in 2020. (For what it’s worth, the “fact checkers” insist this cannot possibly happen. And they would know!)

False-documented foreign nationals constitute an imported electorate for Democrats, who do more than protect illegals, even the violent criminals among them, from deportation. Under Democrat rule, illegals get a host of benefits including in-state tuition, welfare, and now full medical coverage. If embattled Californians saw that as Newsom buying votes for November, it would be hard to blame them, and the COVID emergency package recalls other realities.

Gavin Newsom’s grandfather was a crony of Jerry’s father, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, and his son Jerry Brown appointed Newsom’s father to a judgeship. Newsom is also a former nephew of Nancy Pelosi and in his March 2020 emergency declaration, Newsom hailed Pelosi’s “leadership” in response to the pandemic.

Newsom promptly deployed his emergency powers to cut a $1 billion mask deal with a Chinese company, Build Your Dreams (BYD), which had no experience making masks. Newsom hid details of the deal even from fellow Democrats.

“Perhaps it’s time for legislative leaders to dust off their rarely-used subpoena power,” the Sacramento Bee editorialized. The administration feared that “Trump might steal California’s equipment,” but that did not justify Newsom’s decision “to hide a taxpayer-funded contract from legislative leaders.” Neither did the obfuscation account for “other reasons why the administration may wish to shield the contract from oversight.” Journalists and legislators alike should have seen this coming.

As CalMatters noted, legislators “made $500 million available immediately and allowed Newsom to spend up to $1 billion total,” and unanimously passed two bills “waiving a requirement that legislation must be in print for three days before lawmakers can act.” Legislators also suspended public hearings for at least a month and floor votes for at least a month.

Newsom issued a stay-at-home order that had cops arresting solitary surfers but turning a blind eye to violent rioters and arsonists. He also issued “Guidance for Private Gatherings,” that limited the number of participants, restricted singing and chanting, and even laid down rules for using the bathroom. Liquor stores and abortion clinics remained open.

The governor slapped a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew on nearly the entire state, home to some 40 million people. While that was in effect, Newsom and his cronies partied without masks at the upscale French Laundry in Napa. In the style of Leona Helmsley, the COVID restrictions were only for the “little people.”

One of Newsom’s first actions as governor was to reprieve more than 700 convicted murderers on California’s death row. On Newsom’s watch, convicts managed to grab $400 million in unemployment benefits, and the fraudulent claims ran more than $20 billion overall.

What happened to the $1 billion Newsom gave BYD for masks remains unclear, but that was no barrier to the new $2.7 billion package. Like the DMV’s “motor voter” program, which will surely shake out more benefits for false-documented illegals, the Democrats’ imported an Electoral College.

Newsom’s actions are all about the midterms but the Pelosi puppet shows signs of throwing his mask in the ring for the 2024 presidential election. In the meantime, Nancy’s boy previews what Democrats want for the nation: unbridled spending, massive expansion of government, special rights for criminals, an open border, and false-documented illegals as a protected, privileged class.

“I have seen the future, and it works,” proclaimed Californian Lincoln Steffens, after a visit to the Soviet Union. As they survey their once-great state, Californians have seen the future, and it irks.