A proposed amendment to the state Constitution would change the way California handles recall elections, increasing the number of signatures that recall-seeking petitioners must obtain, and automatically replacing a recalled governor with the lieutenant governor.
Assembly Constitutional Amendment 20 was introduced by Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles); Senate Majority Leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Assembly Judiciary Committee chairwoman Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro) are listed as coauthors.
The proposed amendment would not apply to the current recall election. It would eliminate the replacement election that has created a field of 135 candidates; instead, the lieutenant governor would take the governor's place if a recall election was successful.
The proposed amendment would allow the recall election date to be set by the chief justice of the California Supreme Court.
In addition, the amendment would make it harder to secure enough petitions to put a recall question on the ballot. Current law determines the number of signatures based on a percentage of the number of votes cast in the last election -- 12% of votes for statewide offices and 20% for district offices.
The amendment would keep the same percentages but base the thresholds on the total number of registered voters in the state or relevant district -- not the number of people who cast ballots in the last election.
"I think it will engender a very substantive debate," Ridley-Thomas said. "There's just an incredible amount of confusion this time around."
The proposed amendment would require a two-thirds vote in the Assembly and the Senate to be placed on the ballot for voters' consideration, where it would need a simple majority to pass.
Ted Costa, the original drafter of the petition that started the current recall, said Tuesday: "Realistically, their bill is just going to die and go away. Three months from now, I don't know that people are going to be as interested in this subject as they are now."
Hearing for Prop. 54 Lawsuit Moved Up
At the request of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, a judge in Sacramento has moved up the date of a hearing to consider a complaint against backers of Proposition 54 on the Oct. 7 ballot.
The FPPC sued Ward Connerly and his American Civil Rights Coalition last week, demanding that they be forced to disclose the sources of funding for Proposition 54, which would restrict the information that the government can collect about race and ethnicity.
