Recall Election

"Continental Divide," David Edgar's two-part epic play set against the backdrop of a gubernatorial election in a state that seems to be California -- though it's never identified -- officially arrives in California today as the production opens at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Since the play's March premiere at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., California has gone through its real-life gubernatorial drama.

There are good reasons for most of the city's campaign finance laws. Individual contribution limits are intended to keep a single donor from purchasing the support of a candidate. Public financing is intended to level the playing field between incumbents and challengers. Limits on gifts help deter graft. But Los Angeles has one regulation that doesn't show up in many other places, and it doesn't make much sense: Candidates who raise money for an election cannot carry that money over if they fail to win in the first round and face a runoff for the same office.

The board of directors of the Charter Oak Unified School District has set Jan. 21 as the date for a recall election of district school board directors Carol Cherry and Ann Hall. Cherry and Hall, proponents of an already approved district reorganization plan, have become the focus of continuing community opposition to the proposal. The Los Angeles County registrar of voters two weeks ago validated enough petition signatures to require the recall election.

Cristina Garcia can thank Robert Rizzo and the seven other Bell officials charged with corruption for her job in Sacramento. Garcia was elected to the state Assembly based largely on her footwork in Bell with an activist group that pushed for reforms in the working-poor city and championed a recall election that upended the City Council. Although the 58th Assembly District doesn't include Bell, it borders the city and is part of the same southeast Los Angeles County corridor where cities have been plagued by corruption.

South El Monte Mayor Stan Quintana was thrown out of office Tuesday in a special recall election. Widely criticized for his role in an alleged hit-and-run accident in October, Quintana was defeated by about a 3-2 margin. The final tally was 591 for recall and 365 against. Quintana had lied about his involvement in the accident, fabricating a story to explain the damage to his car, police said.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has rescheduled a recall election against three Hawaiian Gardens councilmen for Dec. 17, the same day city voters are set to decide whether to eject a fourth council member. Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne offered minimal explanation for pushing back the election, which she originally scheduled for Dec. 3. Attorneys representing the council members, however, have argued that a consolidated election would save the city tens of thousands of dollars.

Seven people, including a UC Irvine administrator, filed for the Laguna Beach Unified school board recall election by Thursday afternoon's deadline, the Orange County registrar of voters reported. The candidates are seeking board seats that will be open only if a majority votes in the special election Sept. 22 to recall three incumbents: Janet Vickers, Carl Schwarz and board President Charlene Ragatz.

The county registrar of voters certified this week that organizers of the petition drive to recall Mayor Charles V. Smith and three other City Council members have gathered sufficient signatures to force a recall election. City Clerk Mary Lou Morey said the registrar finished verifying signatures Monday. Each petition had more than the 6,938 signatures required to put the measure on the ballot, she said.

Spokane Mayor Jim West, embroiled in a City Hall sex scandal, will face a recall election Dec. 6 now that opponents have gathered enough signatures to put his fate on the ballot. Elections Supervisor Paul Brandt said that workers stopped counting after verifying 12,684 signatures, 117 more than needed for a recall election. West, 55, is accused of misusing his office by seeking dates from young men over a website and offering them gifts, trips and jobs at City Hall.

County elections officials said last week they have verified enough signatures on a petition to call a recall election of three Somis Union Elementary School District board members, but not soon enough for the matter to be placed on the Nov. 3 ballot. Each of three petitions to recall board members Debby Carpenter, Miguel Mejia and Alda Perry included more than 400 signatures. The county verified 334 on each document, enough to warrant a recall, election officials said.

There was a wee dram of good news for Democrats coming out of the Wisconsin recall election Tuesday. While a solid majority of voters chose to retain their Republican governor, Scott Walker, a similar majority told exit pollsters they planned to vote for President Obama in November. It is small solace, however. Barack Obama carried Wisconsin with 56% of the vote in 2008 and has been expected to recapture the state with no great effort this year. To celebrate a likely victory that was already supposed to be in the bag seems like throwing a party because the sun rose again this morning.

There are reasons not to extract too many lessons from Gov. Scott Walker's convincing victory in the Wisconsin recall election Tuesday. For one thing, he faced a weak opponent in Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and for another, he vastly outspent Barrett to win by 7 percentage points. Most important, voters seemed to understand that a recall wasn't the right remedy for Walker's actions. As California was forced to learn the hard way, the recall is a better device for removing a governor who has engaged in misconduct than for punishing one over policy disagreements.

Surrounded by dozens of supporters at an evening campaign rally in Madison on May 30, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin's tumultuous recall election, had something encouraging to tell the crowd: The fact that his opponent, Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was outspending him by more than 7 to 1 was no big deal. “He's got the mountains of money,” Barrett declared. “I've got you.” Now, Barrett probably wishes he'd had the mountains of money.

Scott Walker made history this week in Wisconsin, becoming the first governor ever to successfully beat back a recall attempt. That means in the entirety of these United States just two governors have been yanked from office before their terms expired, Lynn Frazier and Gray Davis. Of the two, just one survives: California's Davis. (Frazier, recalled in North Dakota in 1921, has been largely forgotten, save when people write stories like this one. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate, where as a pacifist and isolationist, Frazier unsuccessfully sought a constitutional amendment outlawing warfare.)

It should surprise no one that I'm opposed to the recall of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor whose fate will be decided Tuesday. But that's only in part because I support what he's been trying to do in the Badger State. I'm also against recalls as a matter of principle. In 2003, I was one of the few conservatives opposed to the recall of Gray Davis, arguably the worst California governor in modern memory. Davis didn't deserve to stay in office, but the voters of California deserved to keep him. Democracy depends on accountability, not just for individual politicians but for their parties and programs.

MILWAUKEE - Just ahead of Tuesday's recall election, a new Marquette University Law School poll shows Republican Gov. Scott Walker holding a 52%-to-45%  lead over Democratic challenger Tom Barrett among likely Wisconsin voters. The survey, conducted mostly before Walker and Barrett faced off Friday in the first of two televised debates, shows voter sentiment remarkably hardened, with just 3% of those questioned saying they were still undecided. While that may seem tough news for Democrats and public employee unions who led the charge for the recall, another new survey released by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake tells a different story of a race that has tightened to a dead heat, with both candidates polling at 49%. The Lake poll, conducted mostly after last week's debate, show independents turning toward Barrett.

The Rolling Hills Estates City Council has voted to hold the recall election of veteran Councilman Jerome Belsky in conjunction with the Nov. 8 general election. The council asked the County Board of Supervisors to consolidate the elections and appropriated $8,000 to cover county costs of verifying recall petition signatures and conducting the election.

WASHINGTON - Recent polls have pointed toward a victory for Republican Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin's June 5 recall election. But here's the clearest evidence to date that national Democratic party officials believe their side is losing: Democratic officials are playing down the potential impact. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) insisted in a television interview that a loss for the Democratic candidate in the recall, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, wouldn't have any implications for other races, such as the presidential election.