By David Woo, HANC Vice President
Looking at the recalls here locally, around the state, and country, it’s an interesting piece of history and really an abomination of the original intent of the recall. Recalls were creatures of Hiram Johnson, the progressive era governor in 1911 when Southern Pacific ran California. Johnson ran on breaking the control that big corporations had on the state, with the state legislature controlled by these corporations.
The idea was if state legislators can’t be counted on to do the work of the people, then the people can do it themselves. So we can put an initiative on the ballot with signatures and we can pass our own legislation that the legislature is too corrupt to pass. And at the same time if the legislature (controlled by corporations) does something horrible, we can put a referendum on it, put it on the ballot, and get rid of it. Added to this was the recall.
The idea of the recall was if you get someone in the governor's office or the state legislature that turns out to be completely corrupt, you can have a way to get rid of them. One of the first successful recalls was state legislator Marshall Black who was convicted of embezzlement and refused to resign in 1914/15. There was a flurry of recalls at this time, generally around corruption. Then there were no recalls until the 1990s, there were attempts, but none of them got the signatures to qualify.
Then we started to see recalls based not on corruption, malfeasance, or graft, but based on “we don’t like how that person voted in office” - and rather than wait to vote someone else in, we’re going to get rid of them right now. And we started seeing big money come into recalls (landlords, gun lobby, right wing of Republican Party) and paid signature gatherers, which really changed everything. Examples of recalls in the 1990s include two California Republican assembly members that worked with Willie Brown/Democrats, Paul Horcher and Doris Allen, and were recalled for going against their party. These recalls have been successful, and especially successful for Republicans, because recalls are low turnout elections.
Then, in 1983 there was an attempt to recall Mayor Diane Feinstein that made it to the ballot, based at the time on her vetoing domestic partnership legislation, denying a reproductive rights day, and signing a strict gun ordinance. This led the Feinstein campaign to get an opinion from the State Attorney General’s office that a recall election is not about a candidate - it’s an initiative - so there are no limits on contributions, allowing her to bankroll her fight against being recalled. This decision has stood, meaning there are no limits on donations to recall campaigns.
We see now with local recall efforts enormous amounts of money being poured in from wealthy conservatives and republicans. With paid signature gatherers, you could potentially put anything you wanted on the ballot for recall. The recalls we are seeing now really have nothing to do with the original intent of the recall initiative and referendum, with big money campaigns taking over the initiative, referendum, and recall.