HOT OFF OUR “TRANSOM” and timely too. I called Josh right after we got this e-mail (Vern here) … see below…
California State Senator Josh Newman to Introduce Recall Reform Legislation
Sacramento, Calif. — State Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) will introduce two constitutional amendment proposals to increase the number of signatures required to trigger a recall election and to have California’s lieutenant governor finish the governor’s term if a recall is successful. Senator Newman plans to introduce both bills on January 3, the first day of the 2022 legislative session.
“Now is the time to take a hard look at California’s recall provisions to see whether they still are serving their purpose,” said Newman. “For instance, the lieutenant governor is the No. 2 constitutional officer in California and to me seems to be the logical person to complete the term of a recalled governor. The recall process we have now invites partisan shenanigans that are costly for taxpayers.”
Changing the state Constitution requires a majority vote in both houses of the Legislature and, if passed, would have to be approved by California voters.
“Constitutional amendments are not everyday events and I don’t favor big changes for small matters,” said Newman. “But recall in California has become a partisan circus in the internet era and must be reformed to reflect the political challenges we face today and to serve the public better.”
Senator Newman won his seat in 2016, but was recalled in 2018. He won the seat again in the 2020 election. He since has been an advocate for recall reform.
Legislation sponsored by Newman to prohibit pay-per-signature collection of signatures in an effort to qualify a state or local initiative, referendum or recall for the ballot was approved by the California State Legislature last week, and awaits Governor Newsom’s signature. The measure would not prohibit payment for signature gathering, as long as payment is not based on the number of signatures obtained. Signature gatherers still could be paid an hourly wage or salary.
SB 660, Prohibiting Pay-Per-Signature Incentives, will help to eliminate the corrosive practice of paying per-signature bounties to professional signature gatherers who work for partisan organizations that seek to manipulate the state’s electoral process.
Surveys show that voters don’t want to eliminate recall, yet would like to make qualifying a recall election more difficult.
To schedule an interview with Senator Newman, contact Alina Evans at 831.331.8468.
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State Senator Josh Newman represents the 29th Senate District, which is comprised of portions of Los Angeles County, Orange County and San Bernardino County. The 29th District includes all or parts of the cities of Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Chino Hills, City of Industry, Cypress, Diamond Bar, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, Placentia, Rowland Heights, Stanton, Walnut, West Covina and Yorba Linda. Senator Newman is a former United States Army officer, businessperson, and veterans’ advocate, and lives in Fullerton with his wife and daughter.
Vern here again. I called Josh to see if this reform was going to apply as well to local recalls – he hadn’t decided yet, and wanted my opinion as someone who’s led a few himself. (It’s nice to have friends in the State Senate!) I told him, off hand, I don’t think things should be made harder for us little local reformers – for one thing, the recalls WE get going are a lot less expensive, and affect a lot fewer people, than the clusterfuck we all just went through. Then what about recalls of County officials, which don’t happen quite as often, as nobody seems to pay attention to their county governments? Maybe that could be reformed in some intermediate way. What do YOU all think?
*Nothing wrong with the Recall or Initiative Process. It is just the stupids that put their
“Wild and Crazy Guy” ideas out there and the entirely Lemming State that signs their
stuff.
Maybe they will come up with Required Licensing for all Electric Bikes and Registration
fees too! This could be another of the Failed Republicants proposals for the coming
year.
You assign no importance to the cost of such elections, not to mention the turmoil. This seems surprising.
I’m ambivalent about some of the reforms, though others (like clarifying that it’s the Lt. Gov. who takes over if the Gov. is recalled) are essential. I’m thinking these things through and will write about it when I’m ready.
*Dr. D., we applaud your eagerness to improve the system. However, the problem is those that will be writing the rules and this could be not just a messy process but corrupt. Hiram Johnson, thought it was beneficial to offer “The People” a chance to be heard beyond Political Party or Political Hacks or High
Dollar Contributors. We still believe that. It only cost $4000 dollars to put your name on the ballot and $250 bucks a word to make a ballot statement. Even Homeless folks can put up a Help Me page and get on the ballot. Not bad
Republican Democracy at work…eh?
Sorry, but this is just dumb.
1) You’re now just circulating two petitions instead of one.
2) Creates a completely different standard for one statewide official versus all others
3) Infringes on the role of the legislature to impeach the executive and replace with the Lt. Gov.
This attempt to undo a long standing constitutional right is what, the third since the Newman recall? All of which have delayed the right of the electors to recall an official months and years from circulating a petition, while raising the level of effort necessary to provide a direct check to one party rule.
All three proceed from the justification that officials subject to a recall do not deserve it.
That’s an arrogant position. These attempts to dull an expressed right of the people are straight out of the PRI.
Enjoy a government beholden to the interests of its party. That’s worked out real well for every economy that’s tried it in the last hundred years or so.
The purpose of a recall is to remove a bad person from office. Democrats seem intent on making it so expensive and onerous that only corporations, unions, or major political parties can make one happen, all while letting a potentially vile human being make laws as long as possible.
You’d think that a guy who won his first election against a party-backed carpetbagging sycophant would know better than to encourage hardening a machine that tried its damndest to keep him from ever getting past a primary.
Sorry, but calling this plain dumb is plain dumb.
1) Your (that’s the hypothetical generalized “you”) trying to remove Blameless Eleni at the same time as Blameworthy Newsom is probably the “bridge too far” that exposes the scam so clearly as a mere power play that even dogs can understand it. You probably lose the Newsom recall at the outset as a result.
2) The “completely different standard” already exists with state law itself! No other executive officer, legislator, or judge has someone else who was elected to replace them as or if necessary.
3) Whaaaaaaat does this have to do with impeachment?
The “constitutional right” to replace a Governor with anyone other than the Lt. Gov. has never existed. It was allowed to happen once because a much more conservative state Supreme Court simply refused to hear any challenge to it. Look, “recall away,” if you must, but you can’t replace someone who already has a designated replacement. (And there’s a whole line of succession that eventually reaches a legislator in a safe blue seat, so don’t even think about trying to impeach everyone at once.
The recall power has been used to good effect in the past — and should have succeeded more times than it has. But it has also at times been abused — and this is what offer happens when you abuse a legal right: flawed and ill-considered attempts at reform.
There is nothing sacrosanct about “at any time and just because we can” being the permitted basis for a recall. That has been shown to be bad and (using some ways worse) intolerably expensive. Right now, you are seriously looking at losing the power to recall officeholders at all; I hope that you will join the forces of reform and help us figure out how to retain and strengthen its core application rather than just engaging in automatic gainsay of all reforms.
I’m not trying to do anything, Greg.
Try not to be cute. Folks signing the petition really don’t give a rat’s butt about the blame difference between A and B. If they’ll sign A, they’ll sign B. You’re smarter than that.
Second is not correct. Recalls of all other officials also involve a snap election. Try again.
Third is also false. Can’t have a debate with made up facts, sir.
(1) I don’t think that you understand what I was saying in Point 1. This recall could be justified, and was by many, as partly a response to Newsom’s blockheaded and revolting French Laundry escapade — which is about something he had actually done, as opposed to “not solving homelessness” or something he had actually done right, such as his initial response to Covid. That was its plausibly legitimate defense to its being described as just a Republican power play.
You and Zenger seem to think that not only do you not legally need a legally legitimate reason to recall someone, but you don’t need one ethically or morally either. It can be just “we think that our people will come out to vote and yours won’t, maybe combined with “we have more money than you do.”
Speaking as someone who definitely sees a place for recalls in politics, I regret that this is the attitude that it likely to get it curtailed way more than I’d like to see, and way way way more than you do.
(2) I know that you have a good legal mind, despite being a non-lawyer, but you simply don’t seem to understand how one deals with ambiguities and contradictions in constitutional texts. By every canon of construction of constitutions and statues (like the Election Code) that I know of, there is an ambiguity between that requirement that “the recall will go forward” and “the Lt. Governor takes over the Governor’s position, either temporarily or when the Governor is out of state or permanently when the office is vacated.” (That’s a paraphrase.) The specific controls the general, and one would construe the term “recall” in a narrow enough way that would render it constitutional: the recall goes forward without> a redundant accompanying replacement election. This is a special case, where a replacement is already provided for.
(3) This is just an insult and not worth my time to answer. Try again, if you dare.
*Actually, after a little thought it has come to mind that Democrats DO NOT USE THE
RECALL as much as Republicans. If we were a Democrat person, there may be upwards of 15 good targets for RECALL, like McCarthy and Nunes for starters. Ah, but who takes our advice.
One can’t recall members of Congress. Beyond that, good point about the asymmetry of opportunity.
Agreed.
Recalls were never intended nor designed to be replacements for elections. Recalls should only be used in extreme circumstances such as criminal behavior or obvious incompetence. Newman’s suggested changes are common sense measures to keep what should be a rarely used tool from being abused by partisan hacks.
If you want to reduce the influence of corporations and special interests in elections the tool to accomplish that is campaign finance reform. As far as county officials, etc. the rules should be uniform for all recalls. Again, recalls are an extreme remedy.
I agree, but — regardless of the framers intent back in 1911, the current text of the Constitution and election code does allow them to be called for any basis or none.
Obviously people here differ as to whether that should be the case; this smacks of the suitor whose target rejects him, and then decides that he’ll take her a long drive nighttime out into the country and tells her “are you going to give me want, or are you walking home. She could walk home — perhaps safe from both predators and injury — but she shouldn’t have to just become someone decided that the first response to the question doesn’t count unless she puts a whole lot of extra effort into making it count. It’s just wrong.
Ao I agree with you, but I really regret the prospect of the baby being thrown out with the (particularly grimy) bathwater. Recalls have their use, but they can be misused too. The trick is drawing the line between the two, and I don’t know if anyone can do that well.
*You can RECALL anyone for anything from using the wrong mouthwash, having the wrong handshake or wearing the wrong color undershorts. This is California and the one place in the country where people can get offended overnight and do something about it if they want to. Finding out for example that someone got elected once was a KKK member could easily be a reason to RECALL. Beating up ones significant other…..drunk driving and hurting someone……or any number of minor issues including taking drugs of one kind or another…..could be reasons to RECALL. Heath issues which impair the ability to do the job and the person will not step down? Who knows? The truth is….that we have a good system, no matter how stupid our population reacts to any event. This is called Representative Government and when someone no longer Represents us…..it could be a serious reason for RECALL.
We need to do what other states are doing:
1) Require each petition for recall to include evidence of misconduct by the elected official targeted for recall.
2) Separate the election for a successor from the recall election, scheduling it after a successful recall vote is completed and certified.
3) Amend the State Constitution to stipulate that the lieutenant governor automatically becomes acting governor once the governor is recalled, either until an election for a successor us completed or for the remainder of the existing term.
“3) Amend the State Constitution to stipulate that the lieutenant governor automatically becomes acting governor once the governor is recalled, either until an election for a successor us completed or for the remainder of the existing term.”
In California, it makes perfect sense for the Lt. Governor to serve out the remainder of the governor’s term, since the Lt. Governor was already independently elected by the voters to an office that already involves the possibility of taking over for the governor as needed. The line of succession already exists—and by law, all Lt. Governors will have received a majority of votes for their office.
*Ridiculous…indeed. Yeah, lets all get the same haircut and then think we have fixed Bad Hair Days! NOT! Sorry friends……we Recall changes EVER! If you don’t like it the way it is – Move to your favorite state when they have it just the way you want it.
In other News: (Since we have no Open Thread this week=end.
The USC Toejams are now the USC Trojans again. Dumping Helton and his
favorite QB……has made all the difference. Jaxson Dart is awesome and should start the rest of the season. Forget Clovis Whatever…..he is so OVER.
It was huge to see the huge Offensive comeback by the Trojans. As Alums what a joy to go into storage and dust off our USC Sweatshirts, Jackets and Shirts. Should Jaxson start next week……we will be putting out our USC Flag proudly. Ding Dong the Witch is Dead…..thank goodness!
I agree only with #3 (and, as I’ve written here, I doubt that an amendment is even required.)
I disagree with #1 because no clear definition exists of “misconduct.” In Anaheim’s Covid-aborted recall of Harry Sidhu, most of the things that we accused Sidhu may have been technically legal, such as representing Disneyland and the Angels to the point of potentially bankrupting Anaheim (the fire sale from which would also mostly represent people of Disney’s and Arte Moreno’s wealth.) His refusal to represent the people of the city — much of which was not evident during his campaign — justified recalling him even if no instance of “official misconduct” could be found.
I disagree with #2 because it simply adds to the cost of a recall. I would add a single-transferrable vote to the recall election — but that would always suffice. If a party wants to commit suicide by stupidly not participating in such an election, that’s their business.
I would note that Newsom himself would HATE this part of your proposal, because it would remove the threat of someone as horrible as Elder immediately replacing him if he were recalled.
*One last redundancy to consider: We have had “Conflicting” Initiatives on the California ballot many times over the years. One year was really funny. The Pro argument said VOTE NO and the Anti Argument said VOTE YES. Yes was No and No was Yes. Guess we will have to go back to the days of Farm Subsidies and Paying Farmers for NOT raising their crops to really get a feel for that type of thinkin?