The Recall Lesson
From William Lucy, Secretary-Treasurer
If you live in a state other than California, you may think the recall election that prematurely ended the term of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis has nothing to do with you. In fact, it has everything to do with all of us and with the fight to preserve democracy in the United States.
On Nov. 5, 2002, more than seven million California voters elected Gray Davis to a second term. Just 11 months later, a nearly equal number of votes reversed that decis- ion, putting actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the governor’s office.
But it’s the recall process itself, rather than the results, that is most instructive.
Go back nearly three years and travel more than 2,000 miles — to Florida, where democracy took a huge hit. Before the 2000 election, we thought we knew some basic things about the electoral process. We thought that our votes counted and that, through the power of voting, we could make those opinions heard.
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES. In Florida, we learned something very different. We learned that some people will do just about anything to generate the results they want; and that having the right friends on the Supreme Court can make the Anything into a huge Something.
Next, look at the redistricting drama that was recently playing itself out in Texas. A group called Texans for a Republican Majority fueled an effort that put 18 of the 22 Texas House candidates it supported in office. Once they got there, the group’s founder — House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — urged them to begin redrawing Texas’ congressional districts in the Republicans’ favor, and that’s just what they did.
DeLay didn’t care that the districts were redrawn two years ago — as they are every decade — according to data collected by the national census. He cared about increasing the number of Republican districts and advancing his party’s interests. What better way to deliver the state to George Bush and Dick Cheney in 2004?
Now, the lesson of the recall.
THE ISSA FACTOR. Originally intended as the remedy for conviction, corruption, infirmity or insanity, recall has been tried 32 times in California. The difference between those attempts and the one that unseated Gray Davis is the deep pockets of Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican. Issa was planning to run himself in what experts predicted would be a losing effort. His money funded the effort to collect the 1.7 million signatures that made Davis the first governor to face a recall since 1921.
But the governorship isn’t the only thing the GOP has purchased with Issa’s checkbook. With the seat comes a bully pulpit from which Republicans can preach the Bush-Cheney re-election sermon. Not a bad deal in the nation’s most populous state. In other words, buy one recall for $3 million, and you might get the 2004 election as a bonus.
Working families have a lot at stake in 2004. As we move forward, we not only have to fight back, we have to do it as we connect the dots from the recount in Florida to redistricting in Texas to the successful power grab in California. Together, those dots paint a picture of right-wing conservatives who will do almost anything to gain — and hold — power.
Finally, think about this: George W. Bush did not earn the job he holds. He sits in the White House mimicking the duties of a job for which he is unqualified. On his watch, more than three million Americans have lost their jobs. His irresponsible tax cuts have turned our historic $5.6 trillion surplus into a deficit that could reach $2.3 trillion over the next 10 years.
A state deficit of $38 billion was one of the reasons millions of Californians voted to recall Gray Davis. By that measure, George Bush’s time must surely be up. In 2004, let’s go to the polls and recall him.
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