Via Althouse comes this.
I’m also worried that the Wisconsin recall, which has drawn nationwide attention and money, will trigger a vicious cycle of partisan retribution. Your guy didn’t win in November? No problem. Start a recall drive now.
Most of all, though, I fear that the recall threat will make our elected officials even more timid and poll-tested than they already are. Sometimes, great leaders need to take unpopular positions…
In her own commentary, Althouse wrote, “On top of that, I’d say get rid of the recall mechanism altogether,” a notion that’s troubling to me.
Recalls are one of the mechanisms the citizenry has in place in order to hold their elected officials accountable, and removing the option of recalling elected officials does nothing but remove one layer of accountability from our government. While I appreciate the argument that recalls can be abused, leading to a perpetual cycle of regular and recall elections, the recall process (at least here in Wisconsin) does not lend itself to frivolous recalls. Gathering the number of signatures required to trigger a recall election is no small feat, especially statewide, as the individuals who tried to recall former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle learned.
While I’m open to arguments about how Wisconsin’s recall process can be modified to make it more effective, efficient, and free from abuses, getting rid of the recall mechanism altogether is a terrible idea.
This entry was originally posted at undoctrinaire.
Now that citizens know that any recall they sign will probably be on a public, searchable database, I don’t think Annie has anything to worry about. The recall mechanism has been effectively destroyed in WI.
Hopefully, once Fitzwalkerstan has crumbled, Wisconsin will legislate this travesty away.
It will be even more difficult to cross the threshold now that potential signers know their names will be put through a public wringer.
Sue, you beat me by seconds. Great minds think alike.
Please. When legislators and executives have engaged in misconduct, and the legislative process has grown so partisan that cheaters and thugs are not held to account, it is the people’s DUTY to step up and hold them accountable. If that is not allowed to happen, our form of goverrnment is over.
It’s either recalls or violence. I prefer voting as a way to keep these bastards in line.
I think it goes without saying that, as a general rule, Democrats are more vulnerable to the possibility of recall than Republicans given the constant state of irrational frenzy which has gripped rank and file conservatives. But, I also take it as a given that systemic election fraud has become a reality – Ohio. Florida, Waukesha, the list goes on. Then there’s voter suppression and redistricting efforts enacted by conservatives and of course, an election system and political infrastructure dependent upon astronomical amounts of moolah, dough, dosh, clams, beans. Conservative propaganda has proven quite effective in altering how voters think (that effort will only intensify in coming days), and the judicial system is pretty much given over to the right.
So, are there any political mechanisms remaining for the Left to stave off the conservative revolution that is running full steam ahead? Dianne Feinstein’s issue-argument doesn’t contextualize belief well at all. Belief in politics today is all encompassing, it’s winner take all, and for keeps with respect to the direction a state and the nation will take. If the electorate cannot exercise its will through recall then it risks being forever mired in the ideology of a political leadership that works against its interests. Restricting recall for corruption or misdeeds probably won’t make an impact on the vitality of conservative attempts to recall Democrats – they’re in a constant state of dirt digging for purposes of mud slinging in order to either recall Democrats or force them into resigning from office.
Save those who simply absorb and assimilate, belief is a constant struggle, it isn’t easy, but it’s all we have left. If conservatives follow their general trend they won’t even bother to lie about their motives. Belief could come into greater play then. But the real question is must the electorate simply accept the unacceptable in its political leadership? Don’t we have enough historical precedent to put that notion behind us?
The Declaration of Independence is a declaration of beliefs.
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
What follows? Grievances found upon a set of beliefs.
“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes…”
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
If this document means anything at all, then recall is a sound response on the grounds of belief. The preferable course, to my mind, is rendering recall obsolete by changing beliefs that lead to despotism, but that’s the subject for an entirely different post.