Against Extra-Democracy: Three Recalls and California’s Election Obsession
As I predicted in last semester’s issue (Schwartz), in September, Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) easily defeated California’s second gubernatorial recall. To an outsider, the recall might seem like a triumph of democracy: voters were given the option to judge whether the governor, who had failed to deliver on many of his core campaign promises (most notably in addressing the state's housing shortage and delivering universal health care), was still worthy of holding office, and they overwhelmingly determined that he was. However, the context for the recall—and the two concurrent ones that will be decided in San Francisco next year—underlines the fundamentally unrepresentative nature of the process, and highlights why the state should seek to curb this extra-democratic institution.
The recall campaign faced by Newsom was the result of a particularly strange set of circumstances. The governor had already faced a recall effort over SB-1, which had increased fuel taxes to fund transportation infrastructure, but it had failed easily; Californians elected Newsom by a wide margin, and did not have any interest in replacing him so soon. Another recall was initiated in 2019 for ostensibly the same reason, but the signature collection campaign's methods reveal its true intentions. The California Republican Party mailed out signature forms to registered partisans, seeking to boost turnout among their base in 2020 rather than to actually recall the governor. They would have fallen short yet again, if not for the interference of a California judge and the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge declared that the pandemic necessitated an extension of the signature collection period, allowing the campaign to reach millions more voters than it otherwise would have, and bringing the recall to the ballot. (Stone) The party did not endorse any specific challenger to Newsom: the campaign was about smearing the state's Democratic leadership, not about a genuine issue with his governance, and it succeeded in driving endless coverage of the CA GOP even though it did not end in their favor. The recall was, overall, an unrepresentative smear campaign waged by a special interest in order to boost their visibility, not an expression of popular demand for change.
In San Francisco, where no Republican has held elected office in decades, we've seen the same pattern repeated. The city, despite its deep blue hue, is dominated by two highly polarized political machines, the nuances of which deserve their own article, but which are referred to locally as "Mods" and "Progs". In the wake of the extraordinarily slim victory of District Attorney Chesa Boudin and the skyrocketing property crime rates that have plagued his term, Mods have initiated a recall campaign that has already exceeded its signature goal. Similarly, in a rare moment of partisan unity, every supervisor in both factions (with the exception of Sup. Preston of D5) has called for the resignation of San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) Board Member Allison Collins, and the recall campaign for her and her peers—motivated both by racist statements made by Collins and the amateurish bungling of SFUSD's budget, renaming and reopening processes by the rest of the board—has already qualified. To be clear, this isn’t the view from nowhere—I'll be voting to keep DA Boudin and against Board President Lopez and former Vice President Collins in the spring. However, both campaigns represent the same pattern that the "Republican Recall" (as Newsom dubbed it) did. Recalls are in no way necessary for any of the incumbents involved: the members of the school board are up for reelection in the fall, while DA Boudin must run for another term in 2024. Even if certain parties have been flagrantly disrespectful of their constituents (KQED News Staff), they haven't broken any laws necessitating immediate removal. In the case of Boudin, whose election to succeed George Gascón was very high profile, it was abundantly clear to voters which way he would lead the DA's office, and they selected him to follow through on those campaign promises, controversial as they might have been. The school board's election was much further under the radar, dominated by the endorsements of special interests itself, but an uninformed electorate does not change the legitimacy of their election. Ultimately, even if the makeup and degree of support for each campaign has been different, the weaponization of the recall process has ultimately only served to benefit those who would make legitimately elected officials into wedges with which to boost turnout in more important races down the road. The requirement that would-be recallers only gather the consent of a fraction of the electorate guarantees that no recall will ever be initiated due to the will of the majority. Time-constrained terms and the requirement that officials run for reelection are powerful tools with which voters can keep their representatives accountable; in other cases, impeachment by their peers or indictment by law enforcement suffice. Of course, this is all contingent on the assumption that elections are fair and representative (the impeachment of President Donald Trump, for example, would have removed him from office if votes in the Senate were weighted by population) but California (in a puzzling unilateral disarmament [Skelton]) has its districts drawn by an independent commission and has avoided partisan gerrymandering.
The recall process, which only affects a few representatives each year, is ultimately just a symptom of our obsession with allowing the citizenry to vote on every issue put forward by special interests. Last year, San Franciscans faced an astronomical 25 ballot propositions (down from 42 in 2016!), many of which were written by corporations, unions (especially those representing law enforcement), and a legislature too cowardly or weak to do their job themselves. This process has given us constitutional amendments such as Proposition 13, which hamstrung the ability of the state to fund public schools, Prop. 8, which banned gay marriage statewide, and Prop. 22, with which Uber and Lyft wrote their own regulations against the will of the legislature. Even when they aren’t simply turnout drivers, as the three recalls have been, allowing political minorities to dominate the ballot regardless of what elected representatives want to do allows for demagogic populists to sneak in victories and relieves the legislature of the responsibility of governance. Expanding the franchise to make sure that everyone who wants to can vote safely and easily is a lofty goal; however, guaranteeing elections to every partisan with an axe to grind and every interest with a large enough war chest is not, and should be strongly curtailed by California’s legislature.
Sources:
Jensen, Thom. “Stats Show Crime in San Francisco Down in 2021.” NBC Bay Area, 12 July 2021, https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco/stats-show-crime-in-san-francisco-down-in-2021/2592418/.
KQED News Staff. “Censured SF School Board Member Alison Collins Sues District, Colleagues for Constitutional Rights Violations.” KQED, 1 Apr. 2021, https://www.kqed.org/news/11867599/censured-sf-school-board-member-alison-collins-sues-district-colleagues-for-constitutional-rights-violations.
Neilson, Susie. “We Obtained Never-before-Seen Data on How Chesa Boudin Is Prosecuting Cases. Here's What It Shows.” San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/We-obtained-never-before-seen-data-on-Chesa-16592626.php.
Schwartz, Reed. “Total Recall: What Can the Gavinator Learn from the Governator.” Arcadia Political Review, 1 June 2021, https://www.wesleyanarcadia.com/recents/2021/5/11/total-recall-what-can-the-gavinator-learn-from-the-governator.
Skelton, George. “Prop. 11 Lead Signals Voters' Reform Mood.” Los Angeles Times, 13 Nov. 2008, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-nov-13-me-cap13-story.html.
Stone, Ken. “Newsom Recall Drive Gets New Life: Signature Deadline Delayed to March 17.” Times of San Diego, 20 Jan. 2021, https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2020/11/06/newsom-recall-drive-gets-new-life-signature-deadline-delayed-to-march-17/.