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<< What's Wrong with NAACP Command Performance? | Main | Bush- Sinking in Polls >> July 18, 2003Avoiding the Post-Recall ElectionAnyone notice that California has a lieutenant governor, who takes office if the governor leaves office? Apparently, the lieutenant governor, Cruz Bustamante has, and a provision in the California Constitution could be interpreted to mean that a successful recall vote of the governor just puts the lieutenant governor into office. Makes sense, since if recall is like an electoral impeachment, then the analogy is that when a President is impeached, you don't hold another election, you just have the vice-president take office. The key phrase in the California constitution is that after a recall vote is held, an election for a successor happens only "if appropriate." Such an election is obviously appropriate for offices where there is no second in command, but does seem inappropriate in this case. Oh, and who decides whether to call the second election in case of recall? The lt. governor, Cruz Bustamante. Imagine how pissed the rightwing will be if all their money and effort goes to putting the first latino in the governorship of the largest state in the country. Hell, it could suddenly make Bustamante a viable candidate for vice-president, a nice nightmare scenario for the GOP worried about courting latinos. Constitutional crises are fun for the infinite possibilities they throw up. Posted by Nathan at July 18, 2003 04:15 PM Related posts:
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsThat would be wonderful, if Bustamante had the guts to doom Davis by doing it. Another scenario floating around is that Davis could wait until the day before the election, see what the polls look like, and if it doesn't look good, resign, leaving Bustamante as governer. Election cancelled. Issa out a whole lot of money. Posted by: Jeanne at July 18, 2003 06:24 PM Next question: The CA lite guv position is a separately elected position, like in most states. So should it come to pass that Davis is out and Bustamante is in, how is the newly-opened slot of lite guv filled? Appointment? Special election? Posted by: Dr. Squid at July 22, 2003 05:38 PM I went further into the Sacramento rag, which has two editorials in the Sunday edition about recall elections. One is about Terry McAuliffe being an idiot and not recognizing that it's a really bad idea for Democratic Californians to go with Gray Davis (who can't be on the recall ballot) only and have no opposition to a GOP plurality just in case. The other is about the Walters column. A bit of history: The "if appropriate" language was inserted in 1974. Quoting the SacBee, "Election law experts say the "if appropriate" language appears to deal with recalls of appellate judges, who are not elected and are therefore replaced by appointment." If they say that, they're quite wet on that issue, for Article 2, Sec. 13 of the California Constitution says... Recall is the power of the electors to remove an electiveThat is to say, nonelected appellate judges can't be recalled. Seems as Walters got it right. There is ambiguity introduced by that phrase. I'm sure the writers of that language had reasons for putting it in that seemed pretty innocuous. But like most lawmaking, this new language seems to be fraught with Ye Olde Unintended Consequences. Ignore my previous dumb question in the last comment.
Posted by: Dr. Squid at July 22, 2003 07:13 PM Join the Linux community. Linuxwaves.net Posted by: Everard at July 6, 2004 11:54 AM Post a comment
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