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Posted on 09/28/2003 8:49:14 PM PDT by Mark
Los Angeles Daily News
No-confidence vote (Back in 1911 Hiram Johnson spelled out value of California's recall option)
By Gary Galles
September 28, 2003 -
Ever since the proposed recall of Gov. Gray Davis first made the ballot, those displeased by the prospect have attacked recall as harmful to democracy and inconsistent with the spirit that led to its inclusion in California's Constitution.
Recall opponents even quote Hiram Johnson, California's 23rd governor, who ushered the recall into statewide existence. They cite Johnson's remark that "the electorate has rendered its decision, a decision conclusive upon all its representatives," which they say means the 2002 election results must remain inviolate for four years.
But such selective quoting, combined with self-serving analysis, cannot be squared with Johnson's arguments for the recall process, which he made most famously in his 1911 inaugural address.
Recall was intended to supplement Californians' right to vote in regularly scheduled elections with the equivalent of the no-confidence vote that can trigger new elections in parliamentary systems.
According to Bruce Cain, director of the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies, "Its thrust ... is that people who voted for you last time suddenly feel betrayed."
That certainly describes a large number of Californians today.
In Johnson's first inaugural address, he argued for the recall's universal application. "The first step in our design to preserve and perpetuate popular government," he said, "shall be the adoption of the initiative, the referendum and the recall."
At a time when railroad interests had essentially taken over Sacramento, Johnson charged that "nearly every governmental problem ... has arisen because some private interest has intervened or has sought for its own gain to exploit either the resources or the politics of the State."
If one substitutes unions, trial lawyers and other big Davis donors for the Southern Pacific Railroad, those words still ring true today.
Johnson pledged to remove all those not solely serving the public, then asked, "How best can we arm the people to protect themselves thereafter?"
Answer: Recall.
"If we can give to the people the means by which they may accomplish such other reforms as they desire, the means as well by which they may prevent the misuse of the power ... and an admonitory and precautionary measure which will ever be present before weak officials ..., then all that lies in our power will have been done in the direction of safeguarding the future and for the perpetuation of the theory upon which we ourselves shall conduct this government," Johnson said.
Some would still object, saying the governor should not be recalled since he has not done anything provably criminal or impeachable.
But that's a red herring, as in 1911, California's Constitution already allowed impeachment for "misconduct in office." Its recall provision clearly says that "sufficiency of reason is not reviewable."
In other words, it is sufficient for a recall that enough citizens are dissatisfied with an elected official's performance, even if weak leadership and paying more attention to fund raising than the general interests of the state are not criminal offenses.
By giving the people the power to pass laws on their own through initiative, or to replace politicians at will, Johnson envisioned a state with a more active, engaged and responsible populace.
"I do not by any means believe the initiative, the referendum and the recall are the panacea for all our political ills," he said, "yet they do give the electorate the power of action when desired, and they do place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves."
The intent of these reforms was "with public servants whose sole thought is the good of the State, the prosperity of the State is assured, exaction and extortion from the people will be at an end."
They were to prevent politicians from using the coercive power of their offices to sacrifice the general welfare to those special interests willing to pay for the privilege.
Our governor would seem to be a prime target for such reform.
Not only did Johnson make clear that the recall was to provide citizens a means for reining in abusive government, he described the attacks that would be made against it.
"A storm of indignation will meet us from all of those who have been parties to or partisans of the political system ... obtained in the past," he said, "and particularly that portion of the public press which is responsive to private interest and believes that the private interest should control our government, will, in mock indignation and pretended horror, cry out against the desecration of the public service and the awful politics which would permit the people to rule.
"Much, doubtless, will be said of destructiveness, of abuse of power, of anarchistic tendencies and the like," he said.
Replace "private interest" with any of the special interests that have made Davis famous as our "pay to play" governor, and Johnson is describing the hue and cry being raised against the current recall campaign.
Johnson neatly sized up the real motives of those who might denounce recall and its "circus" qualities. His judgment is as sound today as it was in 1911:
"The opponents of direct legislation and the recall, however they may phrase their opposition, in reality believe the people cannot be trusted," he said. "... If the people have the right, ability, and intelligence to elect, they have as well the right, ability, and intelligence to reject or recall."
Recall opponents like to decry the "abuse of the recall system," claiming they represent Johnson's spirit when in fact they are diametrically opposed.
Their attitude is closer to the old Will Rogers quip that "on account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does."
Recall opponents ignore the fact that the process exists to provide a means of self-defense for Californians. Recall has been triggered only because many feel the governor has failed the public and become a tool of special interests.
And that's exactly the role Hiram Johnson had in mind for it.
Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. Write to him in care of Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA 90263.
I like that quote. Even if enough voters dislike the color of his shoes that he sniffs, they can recall him with enough voters to sign the petition.
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