California Recall

[autographedcat]

I spent a lot of time yesterday perusing various peoples reactions to the California election. Most of them were remarkably similar:

"Oh my god, I can't believe they elected Arnold" followed by one of a series of predictable Schwarzenegger jokes. The truth of the matter is that Arnold is entirely beside the point.

Yes, the California recall election is a travesty, but not because an action-movie star won. We've put actors in office before. Ben Jones, the guy who played good-ole-boy mechanic "Cooter" on The Dukes of Hazzard was a Congressman. So was Sonny Bono. We sent Ronald Reagan to the White House for goodness sake. The union has survived all this and more.

The recall was a travesty precisely because it allowed a moneyed minority of discontent demagogues to hijack the electoral process. Gray Davis was an unpopular governor, to be sure. And a lot of bad stuff happened on his watch, many of which he could probably be held directly accountable for. Having said that, we already have a process for getting someone you don't like out of office -- they're called elections, and they happen on a regular schedule. As unpopular as Davis was, I don't think you can reasonably claim that he was either criminal or incompetent. And being unpopular shouldn't be enough to hound someone out of office.

As for Arnie, hey, he might even do well. As Republicans go, he's surprisingly palatable to my moderately liberal palate. He's proffered himself to be pro-choice, pro-education, and (reasonably) pro-environment. He has to work with an overwhelming Democratic majority in the legislature. And while he won't win any diction awards, he's not an idiot.

I actually imagine that, while they claim to be pleased, the Republican masterminds behind the recall are secretly furious that they couldn't get one of their frothing wingnut pinheads into the Governor's Mansion -- there was probably only one good shot in that canon, and with it they got -- Arnold. A moderate movie star who is married to a Kennedy. I think I'm almost amused.

But I'm not amused at the lengths the pinheads will go to to undermine the legitimate democratic process. Maybe it's because, unlike the neo-cons, I actually take that whole Constitution thing seriously. I hope there are enough people like me to put an end to this nonsense soon, or we can chalk up the whole Great Experiment as a failure and move on.

Comments

[sdelmonte]

I think that too much democracy is a bad thing as it generates instability. A government is not something that should be "fired" without cause, and the notion of a recall can allow for that all too readily. We already have a system for dealing with poor elected officials in the form of regular elections, and not giving someone time to learn the job makes learning it impossible.

Think of an elected official as having a contract for the entire term. Unless he violates the terms of the contract - i.e. truly criminal offenses - he gets to serve that whole time. You dont like what you got? Then other ways to protest exist, as most states' legislatures serve shorter terms than their governors.

I think that the non-confidence vote in Europe and other places has served to undermine any sense of progress or stability. Italy and Japan have both gone throw stretches when they changed rulers annually, and have suffered weakened governments and economies with such changes.

The worst thing about the recall is the likelihood it will lead to the permanent campaign, to elected officials always being afraid to take a chance that something necessary might offend too many voters, especially as a recall process doesn't need a majority to start, just a lot of signatures.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

This is a policy argument, not an ethical one, and I don't have an objection to it. A strong advocate of term limits and constitutional limitations on government power, I'm not one to favor too much democracy. That's very different from saying it's somehow undemocratic for the majority to undo what the majority did in the first place -- and whatever the policy for initiating a recall process, it still takes a majority of the voters to pull a politician out. Given the huge turnout this election, odds are good that more people voted to yank Davis than ever voted to install him. I don't like the results, and I don't especially like the California law which makes it possible, for the same reasons that you don't. But it is not an undemocratic law, even if it is a bad one, and it is not unethical to make use of it while it's there.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's wrong to say that it's a bad law, and that it's antithetical to the spirit of the republic we live in.

For that matter, I strongly disagree with the notion that because it's legal, then there's nothing wrong with doing it. Doing the wrong thing is doing the wrong thing, and it is *absolutely* an ethical imperative. "Because I can" is the refuge of the bully and the scoundrel, and I want no part of it.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Antithetical to the spirit of a republic, and antithetical to the spirit of democracy are two very different things. I disagree that this is either, but I think a much stronger case can be made for your present argument than your former one. Democracy unbridled is in itself antithetical to the spirit of the republic we live in; reread the Federalist papers. But saying something is wrong, or even anti-American, and saying it is undemocratic, are not the same thing.

I think there is a strong difference between doing what is technically legal but evidently in contrast to the intention or spirit -- the legal loophole -- and doing *exactly* what a law was designed for the express purpose of enabling. California didn't leave an inadvertent legal gap permitting recalls; it *sought* recalls, wanted recalls, invited recalls. I do not necessarily believe it was good policy of them to do so but I do not think it is unethical to use the election laws precisely as they are supposed to be used.