by Megan Munce –
After the failed recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, two Bay Area legislators are taking up the question: should this be allowed to happen again?
California’s current Constitution and election codes don’t lay out acceptable reasons for recalling a state elected official, such as the governor. Instead, recall proponents only need to provide signatures enough signatures to equal 12 percent of the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, with at least 1 percent of voters from at least five counties.
In the 2021 recall election, that number was just under 1.5 million.
If a simple majority of voters vote to recall the elected official, the replacement candidate with the most votes becomes their successor — meaning that the elected official could be recalled even if more people voted for them than their successor.
State Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, chair of the Senate Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments, decried the current law as “anti-democratic” in a Wednesday news conference.
“Californians want accountability from their leaders, which the recall process provides,” Glazer said. “But they don’t want this partisan manipulation, where a small minority can force an election and have a candidate prevail with less than a majority vote.”
In response, Glazer and Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, chair of the Assembly Committee on Elections, plan to hold a series of public joint hearings on possibilities for election reform. Their goal is to provide a comprehensive proposal that could be considered during the 2022 legislative session.
Berman said he hopes to have strong bipartisan support for and engagement in the hearings and has been speaking with other members of the state Legislature about achieving that hope.
Glazer said strong bipartisan support and a transparent process would contribute both to combating polarized partisanship and rebuilding trust in California elections.
Nothing is off the table, both legislators declared, but Glazer said neither he nor Berman were suggesting getting rid of the recall process entirely. In a recent poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, 75 percent of Californians said they favored keeping the recall process.
A smaller majority of those polled also favored reform efforts, such as defining what a recallable offense is and increasing the threshold of required signatures both for proponents of the recall and for candidates to be eligible to run in a recall.
Berman and Glazer said they would consider those options and more in conversations with other legislators, academics and legal experts through the public hearings, which Berman said would begin in October at the earliest.
The final decision, though, will be left to California voters, who Berman anticipated would welcome the changes.
37 comments
Guaranteed this will all be done just to protect there hold on CA as they destroy this state. As is now this was a wake up call. Start doing the job for the people instead of all your special interests and illegals. CA is a mess. Crime is higher. In a lot of cities in the state you can’t even leave a pack of gum in the car with out it getting broken into. We pay a fortune for gas , yet have some of the worse roads. Concord at one point was in the top 20 of worst roads in the US. We need change. Not more protections for bad politicians and political parties. This isn’t a football game that you choose a side on. Either Democrat or Republican. This needs to be more about what’s right for all of us.
Love it!! Very well said. I have lived here almost my whole entire 39 years of life and CA is just not what it was when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I miss the four seasons and nice people the most. Very sad and unfortunately I’m stuck here. 😏
Do I understand the process? The US President and Vice President are elected together and of the same party. Should the President not be able to do his work because illness, death, or impeachment, the Vice President takes over as President. But in California the Governor and Lt. Governor are elected separably and while usually of the same party can be of separate parties. And if the Governor is ill, dies, or impeached, or otherwise removed from office, isn’t the Lt. Governor is suppose to become Governor?
I think that is what confused a lot of people.
I could be wrong in both cases but it makes sense if you end up with a Governor that can’t do the job then the Lt. Governor should be the one to replace him/her.
Specific conditions, or just “we don’t like him”. Also not when there’s only a short time left before the candidate would be up for re-election anyway.
Exactly. It shouldnt be enough to simply not like losing an election to start a recall and that is what happened here. The next day after Gavin won the signatures started being collected. Does every election require millions to run it endlessly until you win? THEY STILL couldn’t pull it off. What does that tell you? He won fair and square the first time and whining about it and pulling all legal actions you can won’t change it. Of course barring people from voting would work for them, they are trying that elsewhere but it will only make it harder. We will still come and vote! Freedoms are insured by our constitution, not misled individuals.
Who will still come and vote? You mean illegal aliens and felons?
California needs voter ID right now..
Hmmm…didn’t the democrats immediately try and impeach Trump after he won the election, just because they didn’t like the results? …If I can quote you, “He won fair and square the first time and whining about it and pulling all legal actions you can won’t change it.”
Huge difference, Trump was being investigated for Russian collusion. Russians definitely interfered with our election in 2016 and multiple members working for Trump were charged and either took plea deals or were sentenced for various crimes related to their dealings with Russia. Trump literally said on the campaign on tv, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,”
The Mueller investigation did not exonerate Trump despite what Trump and Barr tried to spin it as. That is a mountainous difference between the presidential election and the governor race. What is it that Gavin Newsom’s campaign do that was equivalent to Trumps? The real reason Republicans started the recall process was because of sour grapes. It only become legitimized later on when our dumb ass governor decided to be a hypocrite at the French Laundry.
@Pyrrhus – Russian collusion? Look at the end result for actual collusion.
Trump – Favors Keystone pipeline to decrease dependence on OPEC. Condemns Germany for planning to import natural gas from Russia, which would increase Russia’s profit and their ability to arm themselves against NATO nations, which is mostly funded by the US.
Biden – Kills Keystone and 11,000 American jobs with it. Signs agreement with Germany to let the Russian pipeline go through in spite of a bipartisan backlash against it.
Where is the actual “Russian collusion?”
Biden is colluding with Russia. Material collusion, not rumors from unnamed sources.
The “Big Guy” will do anything for his 10% cut.
The hallmark of the left is to accuse others of what they are actually doing.
Biden’s ancestors were slave owners.
Harris’ ancestors were slave owners.
lol
Hillary’s lawyer was indited for lying to the FBI in the Democrat Russian Collusion Hoax
Sadly I’ve found, that the final decision is usually left to the courts.
Newsom won, but the work is not done. They absolutely need to change the recall procedure. There were a bunch of great article from various news organizations on this today outlining our recall process vs other states. The barrier for recall is so low here, which is why the republican party keeps doing it. Sadly, I think if it came down to a vote, the voters would reject any change for fear of not being able to recall a republican governor, if one were to ever win CA. I would hope that whatever is proposed is well laid out and clearly explained when this is put on the ballot so we know that we are not just getting rid of this current process, but what the exact process will be when we replace it. Then i think it stands a chance of passing.
And one final comment on Elder. I had never heard of him before August. Don’t like him, but he’s definitely was someone that a lot of people got behind. I appreciated his concession speech. And I am curious how this will play out next year. Whether he will run for Governor and how he will do when he has to say more then just 3 taking points.
wow that was fast
scared to lose power so bad they again change the rules
one word
audit
As one who detests leftists to include Guv Hairdoo, I do have to say that all along I said this recall was a STUPID idea because with Motor Voter, same-day registration, early voting, ballot harvesting, universal cheat by mail, etc. etc. it had ZERO chance of defeating Newsom. Plus, a Newsom victory would in fact EMBOLDEN him as now he can claim a mandate and plow full steam ahead with his leftist agenda. Well? I was 100% right…it was an incredibly idiotic endeavor, pushed along by morons with their incessant/lame refrain of “Recall Newscum”.
They’re planning that there will never be another Republican governor of California. We’ll wait for it to bite them in the rear end.
Most states don’t have the same wacky governor recall rules in place that California does.
Of course they want to change it. They had to spend $70M to keep numb nuts in office. And you can bet he starts repaying those union/corporate debts toot sweet.
Other than our ability to pay tax revenue, California citizens are irrelevant.
Please define “they” in your statement “they had to spend $70m to keep numb nuts in office”. And if your issue is with money, how much did the OTHER side spend to get him out of office?
Major contributors to saving Newsom include Government &Employee trade unions, the Netflix CEO, California Teachers Union, Service Employees International Union, George Soros, Several Native American Casino Operators etc. It’s a relatively short list of special interest.
I have no issue with campaign denominations. I do have an issue with a Governor owned by special interest groups who will be repaying them before he does anything to benefit private citizens. Further, he has a nasty habit of awarding no bid contracts to his cronies.
He earned his own recall by spending our money recklessly, releasing dangerous criminals early, his failed $1B Chinese mask purchase, Billions in fraudulent unemployment payouts still uninvestigated, and bringing on pro-crime Soros DA’s. Meanwhile the fires continue.
Has he learned anything? I hope so.
The California voters have spoken to keep the State spiraling downward at all costs. The only change I’m looking forward to is leaving California.
Be careful what you wish for Popcorn.
The more of us that leave means that you and your ilk will be stuck paying the bills. The California exodus is real. California is devolving into a feudal state of lords and peasants, and you cheer it on. How could it be good for a state to lose hardworking, tax paying, law abiding citizens?
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me why the Lt. Governor can’t take over instead of having a new election. The current Lieutenant is Democrat and her name is Eleni Kounalakis.
Part of the problem was the mail in ballots. People shouldn’t be receiving a mail in ballot if they didn’t request it. We already know what has happened to the many ballots that were mailed in. A person’s preferred political party should not be displayed on electoral mail.
In other news, Lord Newscum has a big donor who misappropriated funds to give to him and exert political influence regarding other issues on top of misappropriating money to live the high life.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gavin-newsom-ties-tom-girardi-lawsuit
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-06/tom-girardi-used-cash-clout-seek-political-favors
The recall wasn’t begun soon enough. The day Newsom overturned the voter approved measure to resume the death penalty, an unprecedented denial of the popular vote, he should have been 86’ed immediately. He singlehandedly decided it didn’t matter what the voters in the State wanted. . He has treated the office like his own private fiefdom with an authoritarian and autocratic style that is offensive to reasonable people, Democrat and Republican alike. Fortunately, we only have another year and few months left of his mediocrity.
So the recall wasn’t begun soon enough? Do you realize that the one we just voted on was the 5th attempt to recall the Governor since 2019? The first attempt was introduced on March 15, 2019 which was a little more than 2 months after Newsom’s term started (January 7, 2019).
https://tinyurl.com/63f39sp8
Clearly the recall rules need to be reformed. Right now they are just a do-over for the losers at the expense of the taxpayers.
The process should be reformed considering we just wasted $300 million of taxpayer money on a recall election that wasn’t even close. The recall process is being abused by the losing party that wants a do-over every time they lose an election.
To reform the process, the number of signatures required should be changed from 12% to 40% of the number that voted in the last election. If the governor is recalled, he should be replaced by the lieutenant governor.
Don’t despair – the election must be a fraud because 47 unheard candidates lost and and some didn’t like the result so the mail must be corrupt and all the County Clerk staff and all the drop boxes must be defective.
This 200 million dollar taxpayer cost nonsense is over. Now is the time to see if any challengers had any helpful ideas to govern the state besides the usual inflammatory spiels.
Obvious changes to the Recall statute are in order: more signatures should be required (like 25% of voters not 12%), no paying for signatures, and there should be a reasonable basis for the recall like illegal,
/ egregious actions or something besides whim.
The next gubernatorial election is a year away. That is the time to get on the ballot.
Agreed 100%.
I’m so tired of all of this “elder” abuse with our voting system.
Just think . . . only 1.5 million voters cost TAXPAYERS $270 MILLION.
What is this? Lefties complaining about government spending? I am down with saving tax payer money. Why stop at the recall?
How about the 160,000 homeless people that cost over $15 billion?
What about the the illegal aliens that cost $23 billion?
What about the inept EDD?
Need I mention your coveted choo choo train to no where?
Pensions?
$600 stimulus checks to illegals?
Free healthcare?
The list can go on and on…
Democrats that utter the words fiscal austerity should be laughed right out of the room.
When you do not require voter ID and allow mail-in ballots and even people to print their own ballots at home you do nothing but make it obvious that you are cheating the Democrats knew they could not win fair and swear so they cheated I don’t know if everyone seen the pictures from the TV where 400,000 votes went missing there should not be any more votes in America until we get to the bottom of what happened in 2020
The list of great accomplishments done by the governor is so large I can’t even begin to enumerate them. Then again, neither could anyone who campaigned for him either.
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I worked at a polling location in Concord. After 8pm when we printed out the report for the ballot scanner there were 76.7% YES votes at our location.
Most Republicans and others that love our country and the sanctity of voting in person on election day voted on election day.
Did anyone else work at the polls?
An older lady came in with a ballot that was mailed to her dead sister even though her sister died a couple of years ago, and when she got a ballot for the 2020 election she informed Contra Costa County Elections Office of her sisters passing. Now she is upset because it hurts her to be reminded that her sister is gone and wonders how many other ballots are mailed out to dead people whose relatives fill out the ballots and send them in.
So called glitches in SoCal only affected Republicans, when they showed up to vote they were told they already voted and were given a provisional ballot.
You should have to register to vote, with ID, prior to the election. To be allowed to vote in the PTA you have to be a member for 30 days prior to the voting for voter integrity.
Voting should have to be done in person on election day and ID should be required.
Only people with a disability should get a mail-in ballot and only if they request one. If they are registered as a mail-in voter and decide to vote in person they should have to surrender the mail-in ballot for a ballot to cast in person.
Ballot marking devices should print a ballot that shows what they voted not only print a QR code. There is no way to see what you voted. ‘
Look into the stock holders and investors of voting machines.
It’s to much to ask for ID to vote in California but its okay to ask for two forms of ID to go to a restaurant or to an unimportant Warriors game but something as important as who is elected to run our government one form of ID is racist. Well Newsom, Pelosi, and Biden and their minions are the most racist people there are. They want to make it hard on the poor black and brown people to eat and to enjoy entertainment. Because if they cant provide one for of ID to vote how the hell are they going to be able to provide a vaccine passport and a photo ID?????????
You say you want a revolution well there will be one coming.
Try to take away our God given rights and see what happens.
Did anyone notice that vote yes for recall rallies and medical freedom rallies were peaceful, nobody rioted or looted or started fires or killed anyone?
“So called glitches in SoCal only affected Republicans, when they showed up to vote they were told they already voted and were given a provisional ballot.”
This is not true. I personally know a Democrat in Ventura County, a MEMBER OF THE DNC at that, who found at the last minute that her voter registration had mysteriously vanished and she had to register again. She had voted in at least the last five elections and probably further back.
Boy that was fast. Getting scared liberals and green team?? What say you!
Took the populace a bit to get wise to your tactics. Now you all are running scared and you want to change the rules to fit your never ending-America destroying agenda.
First do away with your damn term limits. Both parties have to many on the dole career politicians who pander to the newest group that are dredged up.
This is not the end of the push back you will see and experience. Stop pandering to the entitlement crowd. You are destroying the fabric of America.
This Glazier is a weasel and sounds like Berman is one too
Hmm we got a lot of these weasels in government lately
Might have something to do with the reason government isn’t working for the people anymore
I went to my polling place to vote in person as my mail in ballot was never received. When I asked one of the poll workers if a vote had already been cast in my name since I didn’t get a mail in ballot, she said no, but that she had been hearing that all day. In some cases, she saw households where one person received their mail in ballot and others did not. I still have the informed delivery email from USPS on August 14th saying the ballot would arrive. This email includes a scan of the item, so my ballot existed at one point in time. Who knows where it is now, but we should ask those in charge to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to a “transparent process.”
If democrats wanted a republican out they would change the law in a heart beat and the press would be with them. The recall put a bunch of election workers back to work instead of getting welfare. Made work for sign printing workers and news liars.
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