Regarding California's Recall Law...

[arwalden]

Does a candidate have to be in office for a speified number of days before a recall effort can begin (or before it can be certified)?

If Arnold becomes governor, what's to prevent other activists from (ab)using the system to stage a recall of Arnold? And so on, and so on, and so on...

Depending on how angry the activists are, it appears that this could go on indefinitely.

-- Allen

P.S. I'm surprised at how seemingly FEW signatures are required in order to get the ball rolling on a recall vote.

[Booberdawg]

1. There is already a recall effort planned and in place for arnie

if he should win today

[ET Awful]

2. Another question that's been tickling my brain . . .

If Davis were to resign, wouldn't Bustamante immediately become governor per the chain of succession?

I'm not saying he should have done so, I'm just curious.

[Booberdawg]

7. No - long past deadline for that

[Spazito]

3. Here's a great link regarding recall, the law, statutes, etc...

http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/library/htRecall.html#Topic1

Interesting, there used to be a 6 month waiting period after an election to start the recall but that has been recinded and the recall can begin immediately.

[Frodo]

4. It's MUCH harder than it seems from this "election"

Part of what made this recall possible was the incredibly low turnout of the last election. You need to get signatures from registered voters equalling 12% of the previous election's turnout. Then you need to get quite a few more because LOTS of people will sign more than once, or will sign despite not being a CA resident - or registered to vote.

So if 10Million people vote today (not unlikely considering over 2Mil voted by absentee already) you need to get 1.2 Million signatures PLUS at least an extra 500 thousand to assure that you survive court challenges to your list. That's 1.7 Million voters signing a recall petition. Quite a few more than they got this time.

How likely is that? At least at first, it can't happen. Too many people will say that he was just elected (so he hasn't screwed up Kal-e-forn-e-ahh - yet). But the real reason is that you don't even look at opponents until you get enough people to say "dump this bum". Reletively easy with Davis floating at 20% approval (lower than any politician I can ever remember - Nixon was at least half again that high at his worst)... Ahnold will take some time to sink to that level.

[MadHound]

5. I really think it would be foolish for the Dems to start another recall

The Democratic party would get killed in the "liberal media" for being whiners and obstructionists. Meanwhile California's government would continue to be stalled, thus negatively effecting the state and it's economy. Not to mention that it would cost the state(already running major deficits) another sixty+ million. Plus having continous recalls in California would negatively impact the economy in the rest of the country, since California is THE big economic engines of the US.

I think time, money and energy would be better devoted to repealing the recall law(correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the Dems control the state assemblies?). That way, once you get a Dem govenor in in '06, you could be assured that he stays in office.

Doing a recall on the recall is a foolish move. It would hurt the Dems, the state, and the rest of the country. I know that tit for tat politics is tempting, but don't fall for it.

[Frodo]

6. Same problem.

A Constitutional Ammendment requires a majority vote as a referrendum, and it only get's there after 1) - 2/3 majorities in both the House and Senate and the Governor's signature or 2) Signatures of 8% of the number of people who voted in the last election.


"1" requires more votes than we have in the Legislature (and how likely is it that Ahnold would sign that???).

"2" requires a petition process very much like a recall would - with a slightly lower threshold for signatures, but a higher bar to convince each one to ammend the Constitution.

And I'm not sure it's a good idea to be associated with that... From 3000 miles away t looks like California likes their direct democracy petition process. Wierd.

[rocktivity]

8. See what Arnie does about getting CA's $9B back from Enron

The people have actual grounds for a recall at that point--the PEOPLE, not any political party.


rocknation