The Daily Signal - Recalling Governors: A History of Voters Who Had Enough

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Voters in 20 states have the option of tossing their governor out of office before the end of his or her term. Still, since 1921, gubernatorial recalls have made it to the ballot in only three states���North Dakota, California, and Wisconsin. However, recalling local officials and state legislators has been more common. The concept of recalling politicians commonly is thought of as part of the progressive movement of the early 20th century. But the debate over recall goes back much further, and states do it differently. "Some have what's called a political recall law, like California, like Wisconsin, like Arizona, where you could do it for whatever reason you want to," Joshua Spivak, an authority on recall elections, says. "Other states have a very severe limit and those states ... rarely have recalls or have many fewer recalls, and then have almost none on the state level." Spivak, senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College in New York, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the history of recall elections just days before California holds another one. Spivak is the author of a new book on the topic, "Recall Elections: From Alexander Hamilton to Gavin Newsom." We also cover these stories: America is on track to default on the national debt if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling by mid-October, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns.  Top Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee express concern over the fate of Americans and Afghan allies stranded in Afghanistan. Workers remove a large statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, September 9th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we share the Daily Signal's Fred Lucas's conversation with Joshua's Fibik. He is the author of the book Recall Elections from Alexander Hamilton to Gavin Newsom. They discuss the history of recall elections in America. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

And now on to today's top news. America is on track to default on our national debt if the debt ceiling is not raised by mid-October. That's according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Yelan sent a letter to House and Senate majority and minority leaders on Wednesday morning, telling them that the U.S. will likely exhaust extraordinary measures and run out of cash in October if the lawmakers don't act quickly to raise the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling was reset on October 1st to $22 trillion. Up until now, the Treasury Department has used what is called extraordinary measures to keep the U.S. from defaulting.

Yellen has been encouraging lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling for months, warning that failing to do so could cause irreparable damages to the U.S. economy and global financial markets. Republicans are hesitant to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts, and debt reduction programs in place. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference Wednesday that former President Trump is responsible for a portion of America's growing debt per the Hill. During the Trump administration, which amassed over $7 trillion in debt, and that's what this debt ceiling lift is paying for.

People say, oh, you just want to spend my note? No, we're paying the credit card, the Trump credit card, with what we would do to lift the debt ceiling. And when President Trump was president, we Democrats supported lifting the debt ceiling because it's the responsible thing to do. I would hope that the Republicans would act in a similarly responsible way.

Pelosi did not specify how Congress will act to raise the debt ceiling, but she told reporters that the measure will not be added to Democrats' $3.5 trillion spending package. In a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, top Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee expressed concern about the fate of Americans and Afghan allies remaining in Afghanistan as the Taliban forms an interim government, Fox News reported.

Representative John Katko from New York and Representative August Flugher from Texas said they were particularly worried with the appointment of Sir Ajadine Hakani as Interior Minister, a role that places him in charge of Afghanistan's borders. Hacani leads the Hacani Network, a Sunni Islamist militant organization designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2012 by the U.S. government. Hacani himself is on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists. The congressman also expressed worry about increased terrorism as a result of the influence of the Hacani Network, writing,

We are concerned that this newfound power in the hands of the Hacani Network may further exacerbate circumstances leading to Afghanistan becoming a terrorist safe haven, accelerating plotting against the United States emanating from Afghanistan. The Biden administration says it has no plans to formally recognize the Taliban government. One of the largest Confederate statues in America has been taken down. For over 130 years, a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stood on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. But on Wednesday, construction crews removed the statue of Lee sitting atop a horse. The statue was over 20 feet tall and rested atop a 40-fit granite base.

The statue's base was covered in graffiti during riots that followed the death of George Floyd last summer. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam ordered the statue to be taken down last year, but the removal was delayed due to litigation until a recent court ruling. The Lee statue was moved to an undisclosed state-owned facility until officials decide where it will be located permanently. Pop singer Brittany Spears' father, James Spears, filed a petition Tuesday asking to end his conservatorship over his daughter, a role he has had since 2008. His conservatorship over his daughter attracted attention after the New York Times released a documentary in February called Framing Britney Spears that highlights the singer's legal situation. The film sparked public outcry and resurgence in the fan-driven hashtag Free Britney Movement. Brittany Spears has not filed a petition to formally end the conservatorship, but petitioned the judge in the charge of her case to remove her father as conservator.

Matthew Rosengarde, the attorney representing the singer, confirmed he will continue to investigate her father's alleged mishandling of her finances. In a statement Wednesday to Fox News, Rosengart said, this filing represents a massive legal victory for Britney Spears as well as vindication, having exposed his misconduct and improper plan to hold his daughter, hostage by trying to extract a multi-million dollar settlement, Mr. Spears has now effectively surrendered. There is no settlement. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for September 29th. Now stay tuned for Fred Lucas's conversation with Joshua's Pivik as they discuss the history of

recall elections in America. Conservative women. Conservative feminists. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen and every Thursday morning on problematic. women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are particular interests to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. This is another right side of history edition of the Daily Signal podcast. and our guest today is Joshua Spivick.

He is a senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College. And he is the author of a great new book, Recall Elections from Alexander Hamilton to Gavin Newsom. And thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. One of the things I thought was really interesting about the book is that recall elections was an issue. in the 1912 presidential election, particularly between President Taft and Teddy Roosevelt. President Taft was very offended by the notion of recall elections, whereas Teddy Roosevelt was a big champion. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, so it is really interesting that what I would think of as the most exciting election in U.S. history. You have three presidents, the past, the present, and the future president, all facing off against the. each other. And you've had a lot of other factors, including the first real presidential primary taking place that year. It was never clear why there's this big divide between Taft and Roosevelt Taft was Roosevelt's hand-chosen successor. And many of the Republicans who, in the end, eventually supported Taft, were Roosevelt supporters and Roosevelt friends. And this issue is one of the clear examples of the debate and the divide. So Taff vetoed the Arizona and New Mexico Constitution because they contained a provision allowing for the recall of judges. And that was

really, well, the recall was itself a controversial issue. The recall of judges was particularly controversial. And Roosevelt was very offended by Taff veto. And he proposed an idea that was not only recall of judges, but also something called the recall of judicial decisions. Judicial decisions at that time were very hotly charged, somewhat like today, but perhaps even more so, especially the Supreme Court decision tossing out a income tax law that was eventually overturned by the 16th Amendment. And that issue led to this idea that the voters would be able to collect enough signatures and overturn a judicial decision. This would be on the state level, not on the federal level. So Taft, and a lot of Republicans felt this was really a step or a hundred steps too far,

and this helped precipitate a break. Roosevelt eventually, after losing at the convention, partially due to primary losses, not really primary losses, but losses in the south where there weren't any Republicans. He broke off and formed the Progressive Party that's better known as the Bull Moose Party. But the recall issue turned out to be a major precipitating factor in that break. And as far as the judiciary recalls, how many states have that today? Well, most states do not. Most states do not have a recall on the state level.

None have anything like judicial decision. Oh, okay. That was actually one state adopted at Colorado, It was tossed out by the Supreme Court and basically died and nobody's ever talked about it since. It's a really odd lacuna in American history that this was a big issue. But judges are rarely faced recalls. There was one in California in 2018, and that judge was removed. and the previous one that I've seen was in 1982 and then 1978 in Wisconsin, both in Wisconsin.

Usually they do engender threats of recalls when O.J. Simpson, some of the O.J. Simpson decisions ended up with threats of recalls. But in general, judges are sort of protected. Right, right. And you're right in the book that when recall provisions were being debated within state legislatures and so forth. Opponents of recall, that's what they focused on more than anything else, essentially, right? Because that was sort of something that probably scared a lot of people and undermining separation of powers. Yeah, exactly. Not only the separation of powers, but they felt like there should be some conservatism in the process.

And once you get the judges involved in this, well, trouble could happen. And maybe judges are facing recalls for very basic provisions, very basic deals that they've approved from prosecutors and defendants, and they just get the blame. So I think that is part of the reason the judges have generally avoided it. The other reason is there's less value in a judicial recall because it's not as partisan. The position, how often, I mean, on the state Supreme Court level, sure, but. For most of the judges, there's less elections and there's less, it has become less of an issue. Perhaps that will change. That certainly could change especially as redistricting and other issues become more of a judicial area of concern.

I believe something like 20 states allow for the recall of governors. But so far, we've only seen this make it to the ballot in three states. California, Wisconsin, North Dakota. Do you think on some level the scarcity of these recall elections might speak in favor of? Because, I mean, one of the arguments you sometimes hear against it is, oh, it could get out of control, it could set this bad precedent. Yes, I think that's true. Actually, there was another recall that would have gotten on the ballot in 1988 in Arizona, but the governor was impeached on the same day that the recall was going to be scheduled, that they were scheduling the recall, not the day that. it was held. So it is it is very scarce and part of this is it's tough to do. It's tough to get

the signatures. It's tough to get people motivated that much to get that many signatures. And in some ways, you know, we've seen governors where perhaps the threat of the recall could end up could push people to resign without the threat of a recall. Maybe they've done something wrong. Maybe there's good reason for them to be kicked out. but just having that what Hiram Johnson, the guy who pushed for the recall and others called The Gun Behind the Door, may help lubricate the process. You mentioned the book, 2015, I believe, in Oregon. There was this, it sort of pushed the governor there to resign.

John Kitts, Tabor. Exactly. He had a lot of different issues. Now, part of what helped get that out is that his successor, was going to be the same party. I think that, you know, just the natural political issue of a recall makes that a challenge. But having somebody on the same party who will take over, okay, well, you know, maybe this guy will be removed with the recall. And in Oregon, they don't even have an impeachment process.

So the recall was absolutely necessary to get him out if they wanted him out. As far as the first case of a governor being recalled, that was in North Dakota. Could you talk about that and some of the circumstances behind it? But that's a very kind of odd recall to our mind because it's so long ago, and it involved two Republicans effectively facing off against each other. Perhaps not surprisingly North Dakota's Democratic Party wasn't that strong. But a number of Republicans, in the 1918 election, a group came in and the nonpartisan League, that was the name of their group, they came in to office and they put in some provisions that included banking reform and methods for people to, it felt like kind of socialism to the opposite. It involved grains. It's not so simple to think of it today. And that guy, Lynn Frazier, was the governor and the attorney general and the commissioner of agriculture all were reelected. They won

in 1920. But there's a downturn in 1921, and a new group comes in, and they put recalls on the ballot against all three of them. And the actual result is pretty interesting because they won, the governor, Lynn Frazier, won in 1920, 5149. And then in 1921, he loses the recall 5149. But there is a footnote to this. Frazier 18 months later, or less than 18 months later, wins re-election to the U.S. Senate for the first of three terms. So a recall is certainly not the end of the road if you don't want it today. forward to Gray Davis in California, for the most part, ended his political career. Could you talk about that and how maybe the California recall saw Arnold Schwarzenegger become governor differed from what we saw with Scott Walker in 2012, and that was a third

time. It won on the ballot, but Walker was actually the first governor to survive a recall. Right, exactly. So the Grey Davis one was quite. interesting. Part of that was due to the blackouts that happened a year before or a couple years before in California. Part of it was also that he got involved in the Republican race for the Republican primary for the governor against him in 2002, where he helped support a more conservative candidate against the LA mayor. And then Davis went on to win by

But he was already below the threshold that he would have needed to succeed to win a recall. He got 47% of the vote. You needed 50% to win your recall race. So that's not a good sign for Davis. So the combination sort of helped push it along. Davis was not particularly popular at that moment. And the recall became somewhat of a circus. And there were a number of different candidates once they realized that you did not have to put much into

get on the ballot for the replacement rate he needed for the time it was $3,600 or so and 79 signatures, I think. So it was pretty easy to get on the ballot, so a lot of people did. And Arnold Schwarzenegger obviously was the most famous, but there were plenty of others, including Gary Coleman, a porn star, billboard model, the owner of Hustler, and all different types of figures. And so this really worked against Davis. Additionally, there seemed to be a less partisan fervor on it. While partisanship was very important, Davis ended up getting 76% of the Democratic vote and 88% of the Republican vote went against them. It just felt less of a partisan issue than, and especially with somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger who did not feel as partisan,

than in other recalls we've seen. The Walker one felt extremely partisan and very much a part of the current political environment. And I think that the result was interesting in that Walker finished almost the same result as in his election in 2010. He got 52-something in the election in 2010 and 53 in the recall. States are very different on this, right? I mean, California, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, I mean, those three states, you can pretty much bring up a recall for almost any reason, often policy-based, whereas there are some states that would require some sort of scandal or malfeasance or other things, right? Yes, there is this divide, a big divide between how states treat recalls. Some require have what's called the political recall law, like California, like Wisconsin, like Arizona, where you could do it for whatever reason you want to.

Other states have a very severe limit, and those states rarely have recalls or have very many fewer recalls and have almost none on the state level. And there you have to have a showing of cause, a statutorily delineated cause, and very frequently it's malfeasance or crime. And it's harder to get on the ballot, and it's going to involve a lawsuit, and it's going to involve a lot of different challenges. So while people try it, they frequently don't go anywhere, and they just give up pretty early on. So that divide in 11 of the states that have a recall law for the state level have a political recall law. Eight or nine, Virginia has a very different law, have the malfeasance standard. The 20th state, as I said, is Virginia. They actually have a recall trial.

It's not clear that it's allowed for governor. It may not be. It probably isn't, but you have to include them in there. And what they would have is you get enough signatures. And then there's a trial and a judge decides whether the official should stay or go. So it's not actual an election. Right. It's kind of very odd.

I don't know anywhere else in the world that has that. There have been pushes for federal recalls, but that's probably not something that a state could constitutionally do to a federal official, right? Right. You know, the federal recall law goes all the way back. It was in the Articles of Confederation. Some states had it four articles of Confederation members who were appointed by the states, and you would just be able to, it was whether the legislatures could remove that official, who was their delegate to the Articles of Confederation.

Then in 1787, when we had the Constitutional Convention, the first draft was, or what we could think of as the first draft of the Constitution, It's called the Virginia plan or the Randolph Plan, though it was really probably written by Madison. And that had a provision for a recall of what would become the House of Representatives. But it was tossed out of that law without comment pretty early on in the convention. But afterwards, there was a very intense debate over whether U.S. senators should face a recall. And again, at that time, senators were appointed by the legislature. So it wasn't clear, could the legislature say after a year, no, you've got to come back.

Alexander Hamilton was one of the big opponents of this. He had intense debates in the New York Constitutional Convention opposing this provision, and in the end it did not succeed. It was left out of any amendments. It was left out of the Constitution. There were other provisions. People would use something called instruction, where they would claim this right, where the legislature could send the note saying, you must vote this way and you should resign,

if you have any honor, if you do not vote this way, to a U.S. senator, and sometimes people would resign. Eventually, that idea sort of died out. But it never got through to the federal level. The only time, there have been lawsuits, there have been attempts, and they've all failed. The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on it. But if you look at the term limits decision, U.S. term limit B. Thornton in 1995, you would see both the decision and the dissent, the dissent written by Clarence Thomas, really suggests that they would not be at all amenable to recalls for U.S. senators. Okay. You noted that largely Republicans have supported this, it seems, in more recent years, more conservative Republicans.

in most cases probably. But this is recall itself really came about and became popular through the progressive movement. That seems sort of interesting in itself. I mean, it's something that was pushed by progressives in the early 20th century and more recently has become something that the right has used. Yes. Well, it should be pointed out that a lot of those progressives in the early 20th century, probably a majority, were actually Republican.

Right, right, right. The Republicans had that big divide. So, in fact, that the people who pushed the recall in California was the Lincoln Roosevelt League, showing that there were both, you know, those were the big heroes of the Republicans at the time and still today. And a Republican governor, Governor Johnson, right? So they were, it was really a Republican, it was a progressive idea, but the Republicans were, as always, everybody's a very different party than they were back then. You know, it is, to some degree, the Republicans who are pushing it, and part of that, I think, is what's happened out west. So recalls are really popular, the further west you go. The Eastern Sea Board, a lot of them do not have recalls.

New York doesn't have a recall law. Pennsylvania doesn't have a recall law. South Carolina doesn't have one. But every state west of the Mississippi, except for Utah, which actually rejected it barely in 1976, has some sort of recall law. law on the books. Some of them are just on the local level, but they all have it. And I think part of what's happened is that Democrats have done better in the West, which, you know, the recall is an obvious way to fight that and a way to push back at that. However, there's still plenty of uses for Democrats choosing against Republicans, as we saw in Wisconsin primarily, but also

in Arizona and Michigan in 2011. Okay. I think that's everything that we're looking at. Is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners? So the recall is, it's a very interesting provision, and it's sort of a statement of what type of elected government do you want. And this is, it goes back really to Edmund Burke, where should your official be a trustee, somebody you're appointing or electing because of their greater knowledge, their greater wisdom, and they may oppose you, but you want them in office because they're better at us.

Or should that person be a representative, a delegate, an advocate for your position? You don't want them to vote just because of what they think they know best. You want them to be there as the best person who could, push the positions you believe in. And the recall is really a thumb on the scale for the second model. And I think that's in many ways where we're going, where we've always been going as a society, where we want people who are following our lead, not leading us in government. So that's really, in many ways, the philosophical underpinning to the recall. All right. Well, thanks for joining us for this and it's been a great talk and I would suggest everybody check out the book recall elections from Alexander Hamilton to Gavin Newsom. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal

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