Federal judge rejects lawsuit trying to block Gavin Newsom’s recall election

SACRAMENTO — A federal judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit that claimed the recall of California Gov. Gavin Newsom is unconstitutional, allowing the election to proceed.

The lawsuit centered on the recall’s two-question ballot. The ballots asks voters whether Newsom should be recalled, and if so, who should replace him.

The plaintiffs argued those questions violate the constitutional principle of “one person, one vote,” because they say Newsom’s critics get two choices while his supporters have only one.

Their case mirrored an argument, advanced in The New York Times, by University of California, Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Berkeley professor Aaron Edlin, who pointed out that Newsom’s successor could be elected with fewer votes than the number of people who vote to keep him in office.

The plaintiffs, Rex Julian Beaber and A.W. Clark, argued that the recall election should either be blocked, or delayed until the ballot could be amended so that Californians can vote for Newsom for the second question.

Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California shot down their argument.

“First, as a matter of logic and common sense, it simply is not true that plaintiff only gets to vote once while others get to vote twice. Plaintiff and all California voters have the opportunity to vote two distinct issues.

The first is whether the governor should be recalled. Plaintiff and all other voters have the opportunity but not the obligation to vote for a replacement candidate,” the judge wrote.

“Obviously, that vote only matters if a majority of the voters turn out to have voted ‘Yes.’ Plaintiff and all other voters have the same equal vote as to who the governor’s replacement should be.Voters do not need to vote on the recall in order to vote on a replacement candidate,” he continued.