California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 96 on the afternoon of June 27, only an hour after it was sent to him. It is part of the budget but it also changes the rules for recall petitions, effective immediately.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
Richard has made the very valid point in previous posts on this bill that allowing petition signers to remove their signatures without letting petitioners gather more to make up the difference is unfair. OTOH, here in Michigan we’ve had a case or two (one shared with California, IIRC) where there’s decent evidence petitioners were misleading signers as to the intent/effect of the petition — a situation where a process for removing signatures seems like the least redress a fair process could provide.
Anybody have ideas for how to balance the rights of petitioners and signers? Can a usefully prompt adjustment process be developed? Would “un-signers” need to sign affidavits explaining why they wanted to withdraw their consent, or should that make a difference at all?
This is terrible law. Recall petitions are already more difficult than initiative and referendum. There ought to be a legal challenge to this.
There needs to be a Referendum so the people can change the Recall requirements back!
Budget bills are not subject to referendum. The pretext that was used is that the procedure now includes a delay while the legislature appropriates money for the recall election. It would be clearly unconstitutional if the state could decide whether the recall should be held later rather than sooner based on the cost of the recall election. So instead, it builds an artificial delay while the legislature appropriates the money.
California provides for counting recall petitions on a flow basis. But it might permit county registrars to release counts less frequently. It also removes the opportunity for registrars to use sampling. Once it appears that a petition has enough signatures, there is a thirty business day period to permit processing of withdrawal. Signature collection may continue during this period, but it may cause a reduction of effort. If you have enough signatures, are you going to pay someone to collect even more?
To withdraw their name, the voter has to provide an affidavit to the voter registrar. About 0.001% of voters are likely to do that on their own. So the anti-recall group will be getting lists of signers and then pushing them to unsign. They can also use misleading tactics. They might pretend to be concerned about registration and citizenship status, and then infer that the Republicans want to deport them, even though the anti0ciculator knows their registration and citizenship status.
Recalls require an extraordinary number of signatures (20% of the gubernatorial vote). And voters can still vote to keep the official being recalled in office.
Both signatures and withdrawal affidavits are dated. It would be simple enough to determine the number of valid signatures minus withdrawals on any day. There is really no reason for a 6-week harassment period. The right to petition the government is a protected 1st Amendment right. There really is no reason to permit opponents to confront petition signers.
Still glad I moved out of there.
Jim thanks for insight. Are you sure they have right to get list of signers? That would be like violating voter privacy law