What to Expect at Newsom's Inauguration

Monday is the big day for Gavin Newsom. At about noon, he is set to be sworn in as the 40th governor of California, following Jerry Brown’s historic tenure.

As if you needed another point of contrast between the two, Brown’s 2011 inauguration featured a choir from one of the charter schools in Oakland that he started, while Newsom’s pre-inauguration benefit concert Sunday night featured Pitbull.

Of course, that’s all secondary to the bigger question: How will Newsom run the state? Adam Nagourney, The New York Times’ Los Angeles bureau chief, is back with context.

Q: What should we be listening for in Newsom’s speech?

NAGOURNEY: The governor-elect was relatively vague during the campaign, but he said a few things: He promised a major investment in early childhood education, and expanding parental leave. We can count on those being in the speech.

Q: Are there potential surprises in store?

NAGOURNEY: I’m going to be listening for him to talk about the epidemic of wildfires that ravaged the state last year. Will he propose something to mitigate future blazes, protect homeowners or insurance companies? I’m also interested to see if he says anything about Mr. Brown’s troubled high-speed train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. He has expressed general support, but it’s going to need his active backing to be necessary to keep it moving down the tracks (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Q: What about California’s other big issue — water?

NAGOURNEY: Mr. Brown left office without winning final approval for the twin water tunnels he wanted to build under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, to assure water flows to Southern California and farmland. Mr. Newsom has been decidedly unsupportive of something that big — but he very well might come out in favor of a less ambitious single tunnel.

Q: Is he likely to hit any overarching themes?

NAGOURNEY: California has been very much defined by Jerry Brown these past eight years, a tenure marked by frugality and a head-on approach to issues like global warming. Mr. Newsom, during the campaign, tried to at once tie himself to the popular governor, and present himself as the face of change. This will be a day for him to show how much this is going to be a new chapter in the story of California — and how much he wants to leave the Brown era behind.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.