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**AUGUST 24, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

Recalling the Recall

As there's a distinct possibility that Democrat Gavin Newsom could be
replaced as California's governor by a Republican who claims support
from far fewer voters than Newsom does, sentient political beings are
looking into modifying or just plain abolishing the state's recall
elections. (As to that distinct possibility: Newsom will surely have
more than four million state voters who cast their ballots against
recalling him, even if a greater number do vote to recall; while
there's no way in hell that any Republican, running in a field of 45
candidates, will get the support of more than three million voters.)

But changing the recall, much less scrapping it, is no simple task. As
the recall has been part of California's constitution since 1911, it
will take a constitutional amendment to alter it. That either means
that
two-thirds of each house of the legislature must vote to put that
amendment on the ballot, or that voters can put it on the ballot
themselves if a sufficient number sign petitions to that effect. There
are probably enough Democratic legislators to put it on the ballot right
now, and enough rank-and-file Democrats who'd be happy to sign such
petitions, but one way or the other, changing the recall process would
have to pass muster with a majority of voters.

Despite the anti-majoritarian potential of a recall, as the current
episode makes grimly clear, I doubt California voters would be inclined
to abandon the process entirely. To be sure, the superiority of the
direct-election reforms of the 1911 Progressives has frayed to
nonexistence. Initiatives, which the Progressives devised as a way that
voters could sidestep a legislature then wholly owned by the Southern
Pacific Railroad, are now more prey to corporate dominance than the
legislature, as the more than $200 million spent by Uber, Lyft, and
their ilk on last November's ballot measure to enable them to keep
underpaying their drivers makes clear. (That ballot measure, happily,
was just struck down by a state court.) For its part, the recall has
become the last refuge of a minority party (the Republicans) unable to
win statewide elections (they've lost 37 of the last 37) save through
the recall process.

But despite these malformations of what once were good ideas, I don't
think Californians are ready to cede these powers back to the
legislature. In light of this year's recall circus, however, I do
think they'd go for an amendment that would make it much more
difficult for a Rush Limbaugh soundalike such as Larry Elder to become
governor of the state whose baseline beliefs he long has ridiculed. One
way would be to make the recall a two-step process. If the public
official in question is recalled, his or her deputy (if it's a
governor, then the lieutenant governor) would temporarily assume the
office, and then 60 or 90 days later (it takes time for California to
tally its votes), a round-two election would be held between the
recalled official and the candidate who placed first among those running
to replace him or her. The winner of that contest then ascends to that
office-either newly, or again.

An imperfect solution, and there are doubtless other ones as if not more
meritorious, but any would be a helluva lot better than handing
California over to Larry Elder or his Trumpian ilk.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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