A dubious plot to protect Newsom
Since the GOP lost the White House and Senate last fall, Republican legislatures across the country have been furiously manipulating election rules to their perceived advantage. California Democrats appear determined not to be left out.
The Legislature’s supermajority Democrats were fasttracking legislation Monday to expedite scheduling of a gubernatorial recall election. The prevailing theory is that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s polls look solid now, and more time only means more opportunities for an unforeseen crisis or damaging revelation to give his opponents an opening.
Changing election rules for partisan advantage is unsavory in any context. But the plot to rush the recall is particularly noxious for a few reasons.
First, while tinkering with the scheduling of an election is not as offensive to democracy as suppressing
votes — the preferred approach among Republican legislatures — it does undermine Democratic criticism of such manipulation even as the party pushes crucial voting rights legislation in Congress. Last week, Newsom himself accused Republicans in Washington of trying to “rig the rules of American elections” in their favor, which is what his own party is doing for him.
Moreover, in moving to give themselves the option of skipping a 30day legislative review of the estimated recall costs, California Democrats are effectively undoing rules they invented to try to save one of their own a few years ago. The Legislature instituted the review period and other steps in 2017 to slowwalk a recall election targeting state Sen. Josh Newman, an Orange County Democrat, also for perceived partisan advantage. (It didn’t work.)
Finally, the Legislature moved to speed up the recall even as it was working to delay the election of a U.S. senator. A bill passed by the Assembly is designed to help keep Newsom appointee Alex Padilla in Vice President Kamala Harris’ vacated Senate seat for nearly two years before voters get their constitutionally mandated say in the matter.
Granted, with a regular gubernatorial election next year, the effort to end Newsom’s term early is a questionable exercise facilitated by the most permissive recall rules in the country. But the Legislature should focus on fixing that systemic problem. Changing the rules for every election that threatens a favored incumbent will only exacerbate the public disenchantment fueling the recall.