California Recall - True Democracy
I was sitting here reading about the California recall and I began to think about the hypocracy of some regarding it. Likely the most ardent supporters of Gray Davis or at a minimum those declaring the recall a sham would likely be the first ones who would declare that we could never have true democracy.
Here we have a process that has generated a wide array of candidates, over 100. It required a $3500 filing fee and a few signatures. It isn't controlled by two parties. Anyone and literally everyone can find a way to run.
There isn't a primary closed off to voters of one or another party. There isn't some arcane process keeping all sorts of third parties from getting a foothold, running one or even muliple candidates.
In short it is everything that someone would complain about regarding a regular election.
I think it will be interesting to see how this little experiment turns out. It might lead to some serious general election changes.
From California, land of the free and the freaks,
Nick
Here we have a process that has generated a wide array of candidates, over 100. It required a $3500 filing fee and a few signatures. It isn't controlled by two parties. Anyone and literally everyone can find a way to run.
There isn't a primary closed off to voters of one or another party. There isn't some arcane process keeping all sorts of third parties from getting a foothold, running one or even muliple candidates.
In short it is everything that someone would complain about regarding a regular election.
I think it will be interesting to see how this little experiment turns out. It might lead to some serious general election changes.
From California, land of the free and the freaks,
Nick
Comments
Originally posted by trumptman
From California, land of the free and the freaks,
Nick
and the fruits and nuts
Of course, if you like this so much, would you like to see this nationwide?
the point is that any system where it requires less than the majority to induce a recall spasm is not a democratic form of government. that aside, yes the current pool of canidates places a strange but broad face on this farce, and as BR has said I would have like to have seen this in a real election.
The lack of any system for a run-off election is not, however, good for democracy.
With such a wide array of candidates, the winner of this election (presuming Davis is booted) is likely to be someone that most people voted against. The winner could even take the governor's office with only 10% of the vote.
Suppose candidates A, B, C, D, E and F have a few differences, but all come reasonably close to being at least acceptable to the majority of voters. Candidate G comes along, who has some wildly enthusiastic supporters, but he's not just unacceptable, he's repugnant to the majority.
The election is held, A-F garner around 10% of the vote each, G gets 15%, and the remaining 25% is split among other candidates. Now, thanks to this "democratic" process, your next governor is someone that most voters hate even more than Gray Davis.
The way this should be done is that if no one garners more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates then compete against each other in a run-off election. Having a run-off wouldn't necessarily make the system "perfect", but it would at least greatly increase the odds of the electoral process reflecting the will of the electorate to a higher degree.
Even without going to such an extreme as my hypothetical example, I'd say there's a good chance this election will turn out such that more people vote to keep Davis than vote for any one of the replacement candidates. If 35% of the voters want to keep Davis, he loses his office, and is replaced by someone who only gets 30% of the vote, how democratic is that?
[i]
From California, land of the free and the freaks,
Nick [/B]
Please don't forget Enron, Duke and all the other energy mafia middle-men scumball parasites who committed massive fraud while bilking California out of $$$$ BILLIONS.....and these criminals are still living high on the hog and will undoubtedly escape prosecution. They are one of the prime causes of California's financial ruin.
Regarding candidates, even though he has no chance of winning, Peter Camejo of the Green Party gets my vote for the simple reason that former governor Ronald Reagan regarded him as "one of the most dangerous men in America", which means (Camejo) must be on the right track.
Originally posted by running with scissors
the way i see it is they elected him, they should be stuck with him until the end of his term. this "i want to take my vote back" bullshit, doesn't sit to well with me.
If only it were that simple.
Davis spends to select Republican candidate
Riordan falls thanks to Davis
Davis spent more than Riordan or Simon in the REPUBICAN primary. Davis was unopposed but spent millions to distort the record of Riordan who is a very moderate Republican. He is pro-choice and pro-homosexual and that scared the hell out of Davis. So Davis decided to pick who he would run against. He unleashed more spending on negative ads about Riordan during the Republican primary than both candidates spent campaigning combined.
Likewise Davis intentionally covered up and lied about the size of the deficit. Right after the election in suddenly doubled in size from a supposed 20 billion which had already been addressed (more like shifted and hidden) to 38 billion.
Lastly we have this...by Sammi Jo
Please don't forget Enron, Duke and all the other energy mafia middle-men scumball parasites who committed massive fraud while bilking California out of $$$$ BILLIONS.....and these criminals are still living high on the hog and will undoubtedly escape prosecution. They are one of the prime causes of California's financial ruin.
Davis received the campaign contributions from them. Davis signed the expensive long term contracts with them, and also Davis signed the bond bill that bailed out the "bankrupt" arms of the electrical companies that had the parents turning profits.
In otherwords when he could have stood up against them, he instead colluded with them. I'm sure if Bush had done what Davis did, you would see how signing contracts with the evil power companies is a sign of "ding, ding, ding" that's right folks... helping them.
Nick
Originally posted by running with scissors
if he broke the law, that's one thing, but it seems to me that everyone is just whining about the sorry state of the economy and just looking for someone to scapegoat.
I wouldn't say he has broken the law in a way you could prosecute. That is why there is the recall. Likewise political parties have sort of agreements that amount to etiquette. They aren't written down per se. One of them is, you pick your candidate, we pick our candidate, then the gloves are on and so is the fight. Davis intervened in the Republican party and took out the candidate he was likely to lose to. It was the first recorded time an incumbent ran ads during the opposing parties primary. Every other time they just sat on the cash and waited to spend it for the general campaign.
A good example of this is Dean on the Democratic side. Dean is painted quite moderate by some. He supports gun rights, things of that nature.
Could you imagine Bush unleashing about 30 million of ads on Dean right now and on top of it if he distorted Dean's views?!? How would 30 million of "Dean wants to put guns in the hands of criminals" play during the early part of the primary?
It isn't illegal, but it isn't letting a party get their best foot forward ideologically and candidate-wise as well.
Likewise the lying about the budget. It isn't a prosecutable offense but the accounting gimmicks and shifting got him just past the election and then he came clean.
Nick
Originally posted by billybobsky
the point is that any system where it requires less than the majority to induce a recall spasm is not a democratic form of government.
I just thought that this was an important point that got ignored. The Recall is not 'True Democracy' if this is the case.
Originally posted by running with scissors
but i do care that someone in an ellected office can conceivably be forced into a recall by a group of bitter opposition that, as has been pointed out, have less than a majority. gee, i can't see that being abused.
The interesting question becomes if it's possible to have a meaningful recall system that's not too open to abuse.
On the one hand, following the California model, an abusive but well-organized opposition minority could force recall elections on the incumbent any time their favored candidate failed to become that incumbent, so long as they can meet the number of signatures required, which is well below a majority. Even if the recall were doomed to fail, the opposition would be able to abuse the process to bludgeon the incumbent.
On the other hand, how do you check to see if there's a majority supporting the recall before having the recall election? It would be a bit silly to have a vote on whether or not there was going to be a recall vote, and besides, that indirection would only beg the question of how you decide to put the vote for the recall vote on the ballot.
I think the best you could do, with only slight tinkering with the current system, is raise the required signature count higher. Expecting the required count to actually reach as high as a majority of the registered voters would be way too stringent, however -- after all, petitions are generally small samples of the electorate only, and this process doesn't actually remove any elected officials, it merely put the question of their removal up for a vote.
Where the magic signature number should be, I'm not sure. I think for recalling a duly elected official the required number of petition signatures should have to meet a higher standard than what's require for other ballot initiatives, perhaps even as high as 10-20% of the registered electorate.
I can see other possibilities:
- Official sampling polls -- done like opinion polls -- to roughly gauge public sentiment for a recall. A strong measured desire for a recall would be required, as high a 75%, to put a recall on the ballot. (Just brainstorming -- probably a dumb idea.)
- Allowing counter-petitions to block petitions for recall elections. These would probably have to be held to a higher signature count standard than the original recall petitions.
- Require a 75% legislative vote to put a recall on the ballot.
At any rate, I think the worst part about the current recall system in not how the incumbent is voted out, but the no-runoff system that can replace the ousted incumbent with a winner who receives an under-50% (perhaps greatly under) share of the vote.Originally posted by sammi jo
Please don't forget Enron, Duke and all the other energy mafia middle-men scumball parasites who committed massive fraud while bilking California out of $$$$ BILLIONS.....and these criminals are still living high on the hog and will undoubtedly escape prosecution.
Enron executives are not subject to the laws of the land. They'd pretty much have to off someone in a public square to be in danger of prosecution.
Originally posted by bunge
Do people really think this recall is worth this much money?
55 million, when the state is spending a billion more a month than it takes in?!?
A drop in the bucket to stop the flood.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
...we could never have true democracy.
Do you know what a "true democracy" is? It's when you have four men and one woman and you take a vote to see if the woman should be raped. In other words, it's mob rule
Buy a clue
Originally posted by Dale Sorel
Do you know what a "true democracy" is? It's when you have four men and one woman and you take a vote to see if the woman should be raped. In other words, it's mob rule
Buy a clue
Well thank you for your definition. I hope never to have my anus in company around you when a group is deciding what movie to watch. That whole mob rule thing you subscribe to just doesn't gel well with me.
Nick
the way i see it is they elected him, they should be stuck with him until the end of his term. this "i want to take my vote back" bullshit, doesn't sit to well with me.
Great idea if CA were a closed system, but since their system is interlocked with the rest of the nation, more closely with those states surrounding it, the ineptness of the leadership in CA would idirectly affect the rest of the nation.