PETITION SIGNERS SHOULD REMAIN ANONYMOUS

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has long been an advocate of government transparency. We have also defended individual privacy. With his Senate Bill 663, Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, put these values at odds. His bill would let targets of recall campaigns find out who signed recall petitions and also let targets try to get signers to remove their signatures — a change from how election officials alone have access to petition signers’ names to validate their signatures now. Newman says the change would allow recall targets to respond to false or misleading allegations against them.

This argument may have substance, but on balance it doesn’t hold up and Newman’s standing to make it is shaky. He was decisively recalled in 2018 by voters in his district not because of false or misleading allegations but because he had voted for a state gasoline tax hike. He responded with a bitter diatribe about being a victim of political “abuse” but still managed to regain his Senate seat in 2020.

Newman’s bill won initial approval from a Senate committee on April 12. But this week, thankfully, he withdrew his legislation, saying Republicans were wrongly saying it was a hyper-political attempt to thwart the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom even though it wouldn’t have taken effect until next year if enacted. But the main criticism of the bill, whether from Newsom recall supporters or others, was that it would open up petition signers to harassment.

In this era of doxing and toxic social media trolling and hate campaigns, this concern is legitimate. If Newman revives his bill in the 2022 legislative session, as seems likely, here’s hoping his colleagues choose not to expedite political harassment. Recall signature-gathering campaigns are a referendum on the politician, not everyday people.