2021 California Recall

Links to each of the Dem candidate websites, and an endorsement of NO on the recall and Jacqueline McGowan as the replacement candidate.

Broken Process

Our recall process is so broken. The way it works is that there are two questions on the ballot. The first is a Yes/No question about whether the official should be recalled. The second question is a list of replacement candidates to select from if the first question garners more than 50% Yes votes. Everybody can select a candidate on the second question, regardless of whether they voted Yes or No on the first question, but the recalled official cannot appear among the list of replacement candidates.

Since the official up for recall needs to garner 50% of the vote, but the replacement candidate only needs a plurality, this process that can result in the ‘winning’ candidate getting a much smaller percentage of votes than the candidate being replaced. It’s completely undemocratic, and as bad as it is at the state level, it’s even worse at the local level. In my town of Santa Cruz (which had 2 recalls recently), councilpeople are almost never elected with anything close to 50% of the vote. That generally means that not a single city councilperson could withstand a recall vote if a group spends enough money to get the recall on the ballot.

It is astonishing that we’ve never fixed this. Dems have had a super-majority for years now. There are multiple ways of fixing our recall process, with the easiest being to simply allow the recalled candidate to be listed on the replacement ballot. There are more complex and better solutions, but that simple change would fix the most broken part of the process.

More astonishing than the Dems refusal to fix our recall law, is their strategy of not running any party-supported candidates on the replacement ballot. Not only that, but the Democratic party is recommending that people ignore the replacement question completely and leave it blank. What? Are you fucking kidding me?

The only possible explanation for this that I can come up with is that blank ballots might lend some credence to a Trump-like post-election court challenge or that the Dems will use the blank ballots to delegitimize the ‘winner’ and their super-majority to impeach the replacement governor. Those seem like really poor contingency plans as compared to simply supporting a Dem on the replacement ballot.

Vote NO on the Recall

Please vote NO on the first question on recall ballot. Please do that even if you don’t like Governor Newsom. If you want to punish Newsom, the time to do it is through the normal election process in 2022. For my part, I think Newsom has done an amazing job navigating us through the pandemic. Even though we were one of the first states with a Covid outbreak, our deaths-per-capita rank relatively low, and our economy came out of it pretty good too. We had huge budget surplus and 353,000 new businesses were created in 2020. All of this was accomplished in spite of the fact that we have more Trump voters than any other state, and the fact that, with covid, those anti-maskers can do outsized damage relative to their percentage. If you don’t agree with this assessment or you don’t like Newsom for another reason, you might have some valid arguments, and it might make sense to vote for someone else in 2022. That’s the time to express displeasure. For now, in 2021, vote NO on the recall.

Vote for a Dem Replacement

Please don’t leave the second question blank. It’s absolutely fucking insane that the Democratic party is asking us to do this. If there is a single lesson to be learned from our recent withdrawal in Afghanistan, it’s that we need contigencies. We can hope for the best outcome, but we need to plan for the worst. Let’s not just hand the state over to a MAGA Republican. It’s true that our supermajority in the legislature can limit the damage, but a governor still has a lot of power. In this case, a MAGA governor might be able to influence the congressional election by suppressing the vote. Or, even worse, some tragedy might befall 88 year old Diane Feinstein, and a MAGA governor might appoint her replacement and cost Dems control of the Senate.

Recommendation

I recommend voting for Jacqueline McGowan. Of the nine Dem candidates, her views seem to most closely align with Newsom’s and Democratic party values. She has sound, workable views on homelessness, and her Covid policies are science-based. The other areas she addresses on her website include reasonable policies on Water, Fire, and Criminal Justice. It is unfortunate that her candidate statement in the election guide focuses solely on Cannabis, which most Californians probably would not rank as one of their top issues, but it is her background so that focus is somewhat understandable. As far as her cannabis work goes, I reached out to one of my friends in that community, and he confirmed that Jackie is well-liked and respected within that community.

That all said, it might make sense to delay a short time before returning your ballot. Don’t delay so long as to endanger it being received in time, but maybe, over the next week or so, the Democratic party will come to its senses and rally around a candidate. If that comes to be, then, of course that is the candidate we should vote for. If not, then please vote for Jackie McGowan.

Dem Candidate Links

I’ve included a list of all the nine Democratic candidates below with links to their websites and a short blurb of my thoughts on their candidacy. Those thoughts stem from the information on their websites along with answers to the Ballotpedia survey questions for the candidates that chose to answer that survey. You can view the survey questions by going to the Ballotpedia page for this election an clicking on each candidate and looking for the survey answers link at the top.

1. Jacqueline McGowan — https://www.jackie4gov.org — Her history is as a cannabis activist, but she seems really sane. She didn’t sign the recall petition; She was surprised that the Dems aren’t fielding an alternative candidate; she has proper Covid policies; she recognizes that homelessness is our biggest issue. I pretty much agree with every single policy listed on the website (which is poorly designed, but … whatever).
2. Brandon M. Ross — https://ross4gov.com — I’m not in love with his stance on Covid policies, which are basically pro-vaccine and others move about at their own risk, but he does leave the door open for supporting more mandates if icu’s are overcrowded or a new variant that increases the risk to children comes along. I’m not in love with his idea that state income tax should be eliminated for everyone making under $150k, either. Everything else about him seems sane, and I am in love with his statement on homelessness (which mirrors my own core philosophy): “Every human being should be entitled to food, shelter and healthcare.”
3. John Drake — https://johnrdrake.com — He’s a kid, but at least he’s got a nice website where he clearly states his main issues, all of which I agree with. His FAQ answer about Covid is seriously misguided, though.
4. Joel Ventresca — https://www.joelventresca.com/index.html — He’s actually got some experience in governing, which is nice. On the other hand, he’s sort of a Bernie-wannabbee who expresses too much anti-Newsom vitriol for my tastes.
5. Kevin Paffrath — https://www.meetkevin.com — I originally had him as last on this list due to his horrific ‘solutions’ on homelessness and his full-on support of the recall. I moved him up a bit after learning that he is actually leading the Dem candidates in the polls. I’m still not 100% certain if he’s better than a MAGA, but I suppose that D next to his name means he is. How sad is it, though, that the leading candidates from each party are a talk show host and a youtube star?
6. Holly Blade —https://www.holly2021.com — She’s an odd mix of new-agey, social justicey, help-for-the-less-fortunate-ey, combined with a low-tax, anti-covid-mandate personal freedom fanatic. Also, some of her homeless solutions are a bit questionable, if not as draconian as Paffrath’s.
7. Daniel Watts — https://vbs.1f6.myftpupload.com — He’s mostly a free speech fanatic. He’s for free college too, which is fine and all, but neither of the only 2 issues he mentions on his website seem like California’s biggest problems.
8. Patrick Kilpatrick — https://www.patrickkilpatrick.com — His website doesn’t have much information about his campaign, but he did answer the BallotPedia survey, in which he states the the biggest challenge facing California is that film production businesses are fleeing the state. Also, he ran for office as a Republican in 2014.
9. Armando Perez-Serrato — https://mandocaliforniagovernor.godaddysites.com — He’s basically a Republican.