“Face the wrath” of whom? The voters? A hypothetical Governor Elder has a 0.5% chance of being reelected in his own right. The Legislature? Governor Elder would have no chance of having any items on his agenda passed by the California Legislature regardless of what he does. They could impeach him, but I’m not sure how Democrats would justify impeaching a Governor for exercising his clearly legal authority to name a replacement Senator.
On the other hand, if he were to swing the Senate to the Republicans, he would be worshipped by Republicans nationally. He would instantly be in the mix as a potential Vice Presidential candidate in 2024. He could write his own ticket – Fox News host, grossly overpaid speaker, etc.
As mentioned, the Legislature could change the law regarding filing a vacant Senate seat over the Governor’s veto if they want to. But that would take time they’d need to start that train right away rather than waiting for Feinstein to kick off.
The problem is what would they change it to? California’s election system, yet another pearl of wisdom emanating from a ballot initiative, doesn’t have party nominations for Senate elections. Dianne Feinstein hasn’t, strictly speaking, been the Democratic candidate for anything since 2006, so by what mechanism could the California Democratic Party be given the right to choose her successor?
She did indicate (as permitted by the law) a preference for the Democratic Party, but that seems pretty flimsy compared to a situation where someone was, legally, the nominee of the party.
The harm of a bad appointment could be mitigated by a law requiring an immediate special election, but “immediate” for a federal election takes at least 40 days due to federal absentee ballot laws.
I’d rather the governor be stripped completely of the power to fill the vacancy. That’s too much of a holdover from when the government picked the Senator instead of the people. Just leave the seat open, until filled by the voters.
Maybe 60 days from the vacancy until the (open) primary, to give a little (but not too much) time for campaigning. And then another 60 days until the general. If we can afford governor recalls, we can afford Senate special elections.
I’m not a huge fan of low-turnout off-cycle elections*, especially for something like the Senate where one seat can have so much importance. The US Constitution requires special elections for House seats, but frankly I’d probably go with same-party appointments there too if someone gave me some white-out and a quill.
*To stay on topic, this is also one of the many problems with recall elections!
They probably assumed he is as corrupt as the governor, although in that case they probably should have specified that the lieutenant governor gets the boot when the big guy goes. Are they elected on one ticket in California, or is it separate lines on the ballot?
Me too. Scott Brown and Doug Jones shows that. I like the system that requires the Governor to pick from 3 candidates of the party where the previous senator caucused with.
I’m not sure I understand why this is highly unlikely. Given the bogus nature of this recall and the supermajorities in both houses of the legislature it strikes me as highly likely.
Unless of course the California Constitution is much more specific about the reasons a Governor can be impeached than the US Constitution is about Federal impeachment.
The scenario you suggested seems to be "as soon as Cox/Elder/whoever is elected, the Democrats in the legislature just immediately impeach them on site even if they haven’t necessarily committed any misconduct.” You don’t see what a terrible look that is for a democracy, what a terrible precedent it sets? Maybe I have more faith in the legislature not doing the wrong thing than you do. I dunno.
As far as I understand (and I might be wrong), the definition of what qualifies as impeachment in California pretty much consists only of “misconduct in office.” A pretty wide brush to be sure.
It wouldn’t be a terrible look for a democracy in this particular instance because there’s roughly zero chance of anyone other than Newsom winning democratically. The US Constitution requires all state officials to take an oath to the Constitution, and someone whose election was in blatant violation of that Constitution (the 14th Amendment in this case) would be committing misconduct literally from the first instant of their administration.
If this were already a settled legal matter, then you’d be right. But it’s not, so the legislature impeaching the incoming governor because they agree with a couple of guys who wrote an op-ed? That’d be a pretty terrible look for a democracy. Apparently, Newsom himself doesn’t seem to want to touch it, so I think he agrees.
Having a recall law that allows someone with 49% support to lose to someone with 10% support is a terrible look for democracy too. Having someone with no democratic legitimacy whatsoever as head of government of the largest state in the union would be a terrible look for democracy. California’s dumb-ass law creates the potential for a situation where there is no good look for democracy.
The general lax attitude in the USA toward reforming democratic procedures can take us into a lot of dangerous places that don’t have good ways out. Ideally, California would have fixed this horrible situation a long time ago. But it didn’t. Hopefully the voters of California steer clear of the iceberg, because the lifeboats aren’t so sturdy.
Oh, for sure, it would be terrible electoral politics for Newsom to personally advance it.