California lawmakers intend to change the rules for recall elections without a ballot initiative, according to one of the organizers of the Recall Gavin 2020 campaign.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber and former Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson were among the panelists who commented at last week's Joint Hearing Assembly Elections And Senate Elections And Constitutional Amendments, which reviewed the requirements for removing a governor from office.
“Why would you be having a hearing on this unless you want to quash these types of things,” said Mike Netter, a co-organizer of the Recall Gavin 2020 campaign.
Mike Netter
| File photo
As previously reported, only 1,497,000 signed, verified petitions need to be collected to qualify for a recall election that gives California voters the chance to recall a governor.
The joint hearing is available for public view on the California Assembly website.
Among the requirements discussed at the hearing were the number of signatures needed to qualify a recall and the time allotted to collect signatures.
“The recall and the initiative process are written into the California constitution and revising and changing the constitution is a fine line,” said Netter. “They're not sure whether they'd have to put changes to a vote to the people or if the changes are something they could change on their own but they're obviously ill-informed and it's obviously very partisan.”
The rules for recall elections are governed by Article 2 Sections 13 through 19 of the California Constitution.
“They had a hearing to figure out how they can change the recall vote without changing the constitution,” Netter alleged. “I'd like to testify in front of them so that we can talk openly about a lot of things that they didn't cover, such as the fact Gov. Newsom was able to raise $70 million to defend his crown with no campaign limits on it. We shouldn’t have unlimited war chest funds for unions and special interest groups to keep a governor's office. That's a campaign finance issue that should be pounded home.”
Public commentary was allowed for one hour. Netter was among the attendees who testified for one minute.
“This is a great chance for the people to voice how they feel about it,” Netter said. “This is a direct attack on our democracy period, end of sentence, based on just the fact they would have to hear anything.”
The idea of separate elections for the recall question and replacement was also discussed.
"This was the first of a series of informational hearings that are legally required but they didn't come up with any recommendations," Netter said.
The next hearing had not been scheduled, as of Oct. 31.