Yesterday I participated in a very interesting forum on recall reform, sponsored by California Assemblymember Mark Ridley-Thomas. There was widespread consensus on the panel (which also included attorney general Bill Lockyer, attorney Karen Getman (former chair of California’s FPPC and a lawyer who worked on Gov. Davis’s challenges to various recall laws filed in the California Supreme Court), and Prof. Erwin Chemerinksy). But consensus on the panel doesn’t translate into consensus in California about the need for recall reform. The panel did not include a single person who favored the recall.
Ridley-Thomas’s proposed legislation (much of which would have to go into a proposed constitutional amendment voted on by the people) is ambitious. Among many other provisions, it would double signature thresholds for qualifying an initiative for the ballot. (I made similar proposals and others here back in August.)
At the forum, I urged Ridley-Thomas to split his proposal into two bills. The first would clean up some of the obvious inconsistencies and gaps in the law (e.g., what nomination rules apply to replacement candidates), and the second would include his wish list of proposed reforms. My guess is that he could build widespread consensus for the clean up legislation (and much of it could be done without constitutional amendment, because it involves only statutory changes). I predict significant opposition to more substantive changes. Some people think that the recall process worked fine last time (putting aside the two dozen lawsuits—many of which revolved around issues that would go away with clean-up legislation), and recall reform, in their view, arguably calls into question the results of the last election. This sentiment is expressed in two news stories on the proposed legislation, here at the Sacramento Bee and here in the New York Times.
The clean-up legislation is absolutely necessary to prevent confusion and unnecessary litigaion next time. We should not lose sight of this as the top priority for recall reform in California.