After some fits and starts, the recall effort against Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to be gaining traction. Proponents say they have collected over 1 million signatures.

Media reports of a half-million dollar donation to the effort plus rumors of even more forthcoming are getting the attention of California’s political establishment. If the required 1.5 million valid signatures are submitted before the mid-March deadline and subsequently verified, a special election will be held and California voters will soon thereafter vote on the recall.

That is, unless the California Legislature pulls another fast one as it did in 2017, passing a last-minute change to the rules or the election calendar.

Any such attempt would be extremely unwise, with public confidence in government already low.

On the ballot, the recall question would be accompanied by a separate question of who would replace the incumbent if the recall passed. (In the October 2003 recall election of Gov. Gray Davis, a total of 135 candidates were on the ballot as replacement candidates, including pornographer Larry Flynt and former TV child star Gary Coleman).

Recalls are not easy and are fraught with many unknowns. They are expensive and the complicated politics of multiple replacement candidates, each seeking a plurality of votes, makes the state’s “jungle” primaries seem simple by comparison.

Polling is unreliable in such an environment, and there’s a Wild West atmosphere to the process.  Nonetheless, recalls are a legitimate political remedy when the public loses confidence in an elected official. At least a million Californians have reached that point.

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