Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely. This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).
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20.3.17
Confirmed: broken LA recall rules need repair
If we needed any more confirmation about the necessity
of changing Louisiana’s recall law, it came with the surrender
of a high-profile campaign against Jefferson Parish Pres. Mike Yenni.
In 2016, not long after his election, news reached
the public consciousness that Yenni
had engaged in inappropriate exchanges with a male minor willing to go on
the record that prompted Yenni to deliver a vague apology. Subsequently, both
parish and Catholic schools banned his appearance on their properties. The
Parish Council also asked formally for his resignation.
This led to a spirited attempt at a recall petition
against Yenni, requiring signatures of a third of qualified electors in the
parish within six months of registering the attempt. However, last week
organizers admitted failure with the deadline fast approaching, apparently well
short of the roughly 90,000 signers needed.
If nothing else, this demonstrates the uselessness
of the state’s recall procedures past a certain point. In fact, in its history,
no jurisdiction with more than 25,000 registered voters ever has triggered
successfully a recall. Consider that Yenni’s 2015 election drew not even 88,000
participants, below the target needed.
Compared to all other states with a recall mechanism
on the books, Louisiana
by far has the toughest standards. While the more relaxed one for lower-populated
constituencies – 40 percent of the qualified electors within the voting area
where fewer than 1,000 qualified electors reside in the voting area – seems to work
and has provided the bulk of the nearly 120 challenges
historically of the past half-century , the strictures for any populations
above act essentially as a glass ceiling not only for success, but also in just
giving the people a chance to toss an elected official.
If any official’s behavior could surmount this
obstacle, Yenni’s would have with a 70 percent disapproval rate after his
admission. That it didn’t ratifies the unrealism of the current standard for
higher-population constituencies; there might as well not be law at all.
So, reform is in order. Republican state Rep. Paul Hollis in
particular has pledged to introduce a bill to do just that, although he has yet
to reveal its specifics. He may choose from plenty of state models with much
lower thresholds such as Oregon and California, which consistently bring
officials with expansive constituencies to a revote of the people that sometimes
results in officers getting booted. Instructively, governing chaos never has
resulted from their dozens of successful high-level recalls over the past few
decades.
Hollis and reformers may encounter resistance in
the Legislature, as by relaxing the draconian rules legislators run greater
risk of the new process allowing voters to give them the heave-ho. But
Louisiana needs to pay more than lip service to the recall concept, so to avoid
disingenuousness on the issue policy-makers must see through such a change.
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