| Subject: news of the day 10/8/03 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 10/8/2003, 7:54 AM |
| To: election-law |
Already there is talk of a recall of Gov-elect Schwarzenegger. I have received a number of questions about this possibility over the last few days. It seems like an absurd political strategy to me, but there seems no impediment to such an action in California law. While Elections Code section 11007(a) prevents commencing recall proceedings against local officials until they have been in office for at least 90 days, Article II of the California Constitution provides no such limit against state officials.
The other question I have been asked is whether the signature requirement
would be 12% of the 2002 gubernatorial turnout or yesterday's turnout. Article
II, Section 14 (b) provides in pertinent part that "A petition to recall a
statewide officer must be signed by electors equal in number to 12 percent
of the last vote for the office..." Arguably, the last vote for the
office was yesterday, though there may be caselaw to the contrary that I have
not researched.
FEC Commissioner Brad Smith published "Campaign Finance Reform: Searching
for Corruption in All the Wrong Places," 2002-2003 Cato Supreme Court Review
187. Steven Sholk published "A Guide to New York Corporate Political Action
Committees" in the October 2003 issue of the Exempt Organization Tax Review.
Brian Kalt has posted Count Every
Vote?: Some Thoughts on Al Gore in Florida and Optimal Recount Strategy
on SSRN (forthcoming in THE FLORIDA PRESIDENTIAL RECOUNT CONTROVERSY AND ELECTION
REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES, Bernard Grofman and Henry Brady, eds., Cambridge
University Press, 2004). I have posted a working paper on SSRN, Congressional
Power to Reenact Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: The Evidentiary Quandary.
If you have recently published an article on election law that I have not
already noted on my blog, please drop me a note and I'll give the citation.
Even better, if you have a web link to the full text, provide that too.
The San Jose Mercury News offers this
report. See also this
Sacramento Bee report and this
Los Angeles Times report.
-- Rick Hasen Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-1211 (213)736-1466 (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org