Gobernor Davis wants will ask the Supreme Court (California) to delay the recall election so that he can add his own name to the lists of replacements!!! The recall election is set for October, Davis wants to wait until March.
OK, I get this. He doesn’t really want to add his own name, because that would be incredibly stupid. He just wants to delay the recall in hopes that the recall fervor will lose steam. At least he should come up with a better, more plausible reason, fer chrissakes!
Do us a favor, Davis. Resign, for the good of the state! Then there would be no recall!
See, I had been under the impression that a recall election had the current person included as well. It just seemed to make sense to me, otherwise ~1 million folks who really wanted some other guy to win could just use it as a way to push the current politician out of office. Is it just me, then, who thought his request made sense? Admittedly, I’m not a Californian and have only been seeing the coverage that makes the national news, so perhaps I’m missing something obvious.
Excellent! I honestly thought (for a fleeting moment) that Gray Davis was a fellow Doper getting pitted.
But alas - merely another American politician of some indistinguishable policital colour.
However, rejoice! For once, howsoever briefly, another bit of useless, inconsequential American news hasn’t cloned itself a million fold around the world into my face - pleading the right to assume the mantle of “most important news story in the world - as at today’s date…”
Just once, I’ll be able to watch the news down here and not have an American news story lead the bulletin. Thank God.
I believe that there are two items on the ballot: 1) A proposal to recall Davis. If enough ‘yes’ votes are tallied, move on to: 2) A replacement for Davis
So I assume he’s not on the list of replacements, because a vote not to recall would actually be the same as a vote for Davis.
Happy
But that’s not really the case, now, is it? If 20 million people vote, and 11 million of them vote to recall him, he’s recalled. If there are 20 people on the replacement ballet, and Grey is one of them, you’d assume he’d get close to 9 million votes, as 9 million people voted to not recall him. But if he’s not on the replacement ballet, then somebody can (and, most likely, will) get 5 million votes and be governer (if he/she gets the most votes), even though 9 million people still wanted Grey.
[quote]
Attorneys for the Democratic governor’s campaign committee, Californians Against the Costly Recall, told reporters in a conference call that voters who want to retain Davis would have their equal protection rights violated if he is not listed as a replacement candidate.
The attorneys also said the October date would disenfranchise voters because counties would not have enough time to prepare, would have to use outdated punch-card machines because new voting systems aren’t ready, and would confuse or inconvenience voters by consolidating voting precincts to save money. Isn’t this similar to the grounds by which George W Bush stopped the recounts in Florida?
And if he does resign, wouldn’t the Lt. Gov. then become Governor Bustamante (and therefore, as you said, make the recall election on “Governor” Davis moot)? If that’s the case, then there’s no reason he should resign, yet. Just wait until the eve of the election, take a look at the latest predictions, and then resign if the vote to recall looks like it’ll be majority “yes”.
I certainly would love to see Cruz Bustamante (also a Dem.) replace Gray Davis.
If Davis succeeds in his argument, there is no point to having the first set of votes on the recall – it would make much more sense to simply do the second ballot with all candidates, including Davis, with the winner of a plurality taking (or, in Davis’ case, retaining) the governorship.
Which sort of defeats the purpose of the recall mechanism. The reason state law calls for the first vote is to see if over half of all voting Californians are willing to say, in effect “we want anyone but Gray Davis in the governor’s mansion; more than anything, we want that schmoe out.” Assuming the recall vote passes, allowing Davis on the subsequent ballot would circumvent the desires of the majority of Californians pleading “please rid of us of this incompetent idiot.”
The recall isn’t just a do-over election; it’s a specific referendum on the current officeholder’s performance. Davis’ argument effectively avoids the consequences of that referendum.
I do find it unlikely that this will be approved, thought. The petition for this was signed by several party figures, and the lawyers who signed this are, at worst, shills, and, at best, letting personal politics cloud their judgement.
Did anyone here see the July 25 episode of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO? He did an excellent job at lambasting this whole recall notion. I wish they had a transcript posted. He wasn’t suggesting that Gray Davis is a good governor but that you should probably live with him because he was voted in by people who bothered to show up to the polls. A recall gets started by disgruntled people leaving Target signing a sheet of paper. Davis is being blamed for many things beyond his control and in a state deep in the budget hole spending $60 million seems rather stupid.
An interesting side note: In the voting process, even if you vote against the recall, you can still vote for one of the other candidates. I heard this on the radio, so I can’t cite it, but it does explain why Davis would want his name on that list.
I doubt any of this will past court muster (although IANAL), but I’m hoping all the lawsuits are settled before the recall rather than after. Let’s have the vote and be done with it.
So what is leading your bulletin? Ugly buildings? Brush fires? Roo riots?
Boy, I just wish I could turn on the radio or TV here without being subjected to Outback Restaurant ads or seeing some Australian dude wrestling helpless reptiles.
If the “majority or Californians” want Davis out, it shouldn’t matter whether or not he’s on the ballot, because he wouldn’t be voted to retain the governorship. I think the recall system is flawed. As someone already mentioned, politicians are voted in by people who show up to vote and recalled by disgruntled non-voters who are harassed while leaving retail institutions. FTR, I signed the anti-recall petition.
A majority of what Davis is being blamed for was out of his control and no matter who, or what party they represented, they would have been in the same situation as him.
Don’t get me wrong-I’m no huge fan of Mr. Davis, but a politician is a politician is a politician. Most of people I know vote for politicians who will hurt us the least; not for the best candidate.
I have to go with Davis on this one. If 15 people run as his replacement, someone could win with only 10% of the vote, even if more people want Davis to stay in office.
If that isn’t disenfranchisement of voters, I’d be hard pressed to say what is.
In any case, I think the whole thing is absurd. If Davis gets the boot, his supporters could then start a petition to boot the new governor out, with Davis on the ballot to replace him. Where would we be then? $100 million down the drain with nothing to show for it.
I would hate to see millions of dollars spent to find out that a majority of Californians might vote to recall Davis, and then find out that the minority of Californians who voted against the recall would back-door Davis back into the governorship with their majority of votes against a splintered group of the majority votes on the rest of the candidates. That’s why the law (against the recall person re-running on the ballot) is there; to make sure money spent on this election is not wasted in vain.
As a republican business owner, I wouldn’t mind see Davis leaving, and I believe he will. I just don’t like his feeble time comsuming tactics (and the effort that will be wasted that should have gone into running California) to “unconvince” the majority of disgruntled Californians. I wouldn’t mind if he would just resign his post and let Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamonte take it before we spend all the millions on this recall election. I do miss the mega budget battles between Pete Wilson (Rep) and Willie Brown (Dem) at least they had California in their minds, hearts and words…Gray doesn’t.