We are living in troubling times and the situation has become critical on at least three fronts: water, fire and politics.

We approached the Labor Day weekend with unprecedented hurricane, water and wind damage from the Gulf Of Mexico to New England. Our current Federal and State officials have responded quickly and surprisingly comprehensively but it will still take months to address the immediate needs, and years to rebuild better to handle what will certainly be continued increasingly severe storms.

Changes in ocean temperatures as well as water and air currents have also brought years of drought on the Pacific side of the USA, all the way to the Rocky Mountains. It will take decades, if not centuries to rebuild our forests, water resources and infrastructure to adjust to and prepare for this continuing struggle against drought, fire and population growth. Legislation currently staggering through Congress to Build Back Better will hopefully start the long struggle to adapt to our changing environment.

The third conundrum is political. In 1911, California added Article II to the state constitution providing for Recall of elected officials. I can understand that rare circumstances may arise when voters should have the ability to shorten the term of office of an elected official who is corrupt, incompetent, and/or mentally or physically incapacitated or advocating policies that people consider to be detrimental. But as we are seeing in many federal, state and local areas, political mechanisms to redress grievances are being weaponized to achieve political power struggles rather than legitimate power changes best addressed in regular elections. These political schemes cost taxpayers millions of dollars that would better be used to fix real problems that people are facing.

To compound the potential tragedy of a Recall in California, the process adopted has severe flaws. One ballot is provided with a YES or NO recall provision but the same ballot also provides for choosing the replacement should the voters decide to recall the present official. If as few as 50% plus any tiny fraction vote to recall the incumbent, the other candidate with the most votes (not a candidate necessarily acquiring a majority of the total votes cast nor the existing elected lieutenant governor) becomes the new governor to finish out the existing term.

It is possible if 100 people ran to replace the existing official and each got about 1% of the votes, we could get a new governor who got less than 2% of the votes cast but still the largest number of any replacement candidates. This borders on political insanity in a state claiming to be a democracy of majority rule. This year, we have over 40 people trying to replace our current governor, so the hypothetical I present or one close to it are not that unlikely.

I favor the first choice since the line of succession was already established in the original election, and this mechanism would save money.

Article II of the Constitution of the State of California needs to be amended to either:

1) Have the current duly elected Lieutenant Governor replace the recalled governor since he/she was elected to replace a governor in event of death etc., or
2) Any candidates who wish to run against a governor facing recall should have to participate in a preliminary vote to choose one candidate to face off one-on-one against the incumbent being recalled as would happen in a normal election.

I would also favor that any individual, organization, political party, etc. that promoted the Recall petition should have to pay all costs for the Recall/elections that would otherwise become the financial burden of state taxpayers.

No Recalls should occur until the State constitution is amended to fix our representative republic and the democracy we claim to be.

~ Raymond Leo Blain

Masters in Public Administration University of Southern California and worked as a consultant for a combined total of 15 years for the California Departments of Health and Social Services (1990-2005).