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CALIFORNIANS ARE VOTING on whether they approve of their democratically elected governor, and if not, who should replace him.
Here is a look at how the recall election works in the most populous and wealthiest state in the United States.
What’s the question?
There are two.
The first is: “Shall Gavin Newsom be recalled from the office of governor?” It’s a straight yes/no requiring a simple majority (50% plus one vote) either way.
If the answer is “no,” normal service is resumed, and Newsom serves out the remaining 18 months of his term.
If it’s a “yes,” part two comes into play: “Who should replace him?”
Whoever gets the largest number of votes in that question – regardless of whether that person even wins an absolute majority – takes Newsom’s job.
Who’s on that list?
Not Newsom. The sitting governor is not allowed to put himself forward. His Democratic Party has not endorsed a candidate either, so if he loses, the field is wide open.
Most of the list of 40-odd challengers are Republicans; chief among them is talk radio star Larry Elder, a Black former lawyer who benefited from affirmative action and now rails against it.
Others include former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, defeated gubernatorial candidate John Cox and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner.
There is also a YouTuber called Kevin Paffrath, a self-described Billboard Queen and a Green Party candidate whose manifesto is simply “Can you dig it?”
Didn’t Newsom win his election?
Handsomely. In the 2018 vote he got almost 62%, against Cox’s 38%.
That majority is not surprising given how heavily California leans left. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by two to one.
Newsom’s mandate should take him to January 2023.
So why are they voting again now?
Every governor in the last five decades has faced at least one recall attempt. Usually those efforts fail.
But California’s electoral rules mean that the bar to getting a recall up and running is quite low. Malcontents need only gather signatures equivalent to 12% of the number of people who voted in the last election – in this case, that figure was 1.5 million.
California’s population is around 40 million.
Attempts to recall Newsom were plodding along and looked like they were going nowhere, even as Covid-19 and the unpopular lockdowns hit.
But then he was snapped having dinner at the fancy French Laundry restaurant without a mask, and with far more people than his own social distancing rules allowed.
That crystallised the idea that he was elitist and out of touch with people, and propelled the petition over the line.
Is everyone happy about it?
Critics say the relatively small number of signatures required to trigger a recall means the process is too easy.
They further charge that the structure of the question means the incumbent could get 49.9% of the vote and be out on his ear, while a challenger takes his job by scooping up just 15% of ballots.
Democrats complain that the Republican-led recall is an attempt to hijack the state’s government; seizing power in extraordinary circumstances when they could never do it in a regular poll.
Republicans say it’s not partisan, and insist many Californians are annoyed with Newsom’s handling of the pandemic, particularly financially burdened small business-owners, and parents whose children were kept home from school.
Whichever side of the argument they fall, what most people agree is that the cost of today’s ballot – at around $280 million (€237m) – is a lot of money.
What’s likely to happen?
History is on Newsom’s side.
Only one recall has ever succeeded: Arnold Schwarzenegger ousted unpopular Democrat Gray Davies in 2003.
Arnie, who ended up running the state for more than seven years, was the Golden State’s last Republican governor.
After a shaky start, Newsom now seems set to avoid a similar termination, with respected poll-crunching website fivethirtyeight.com predicting 55% will vote to keep him.
- © AFP 2021.
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Enough, FFS!! Enough is enough.
No self respecting human can say this act of pure savagery was done on their behalf.
May the innocent victims of these animals rest in peace.
Tragic event and an awful way to die.
..Glen you don’t perhaps work for a living do you? Your here more than me!
Early retirement Royston
Rocket Science must take a lot out of ya! ;-)
These ‘soldiers’ are brave enough to take up arms and fight for their cause, but too cowardly to come forward and admit responsibility for their actions.
What ” soldiers” are you talking about ?
I’m assuming that those responsible label themselves as ‘soldiers’. I could be wrong, maybe they call themselves something else.
Soldiers don’t do that
Terrorists do !
See my previous comment.
Surely there should be a warning on the third picture down that there are clearly visible human remains!!! These poor people and their families deserve some respect and this picture should be taken down!
Sorry about that, Fiona. That picture wasn’t meant to be there at all.
I’d say its pretty hard to publish a picture by mistake.
..yeah after the Lady spotted it! Bad form guys..
The news has been showing pictures of body’s since yesterday.
Please remove it then.
Hi guys,
The picture was in there by mistake and was removed within minutes.
It was a genuine error on my part and in no way was meant to be exploitative. Had I meant that, I could have used it as the main picture.
Paul
Why would you put a picture of bodies as the main picture?
You visited an article with a subject indicating that it was going to show pictures of a plane crash site where almost 300 people have died and now you are complaining because the pictures show the horrific scene in full?
Wow. Just wow. What did you expect to see when you visited this article?
Have to agree Cupán Tae – the subject matter is grim and while it’s unsettling and harrowing to view such footage, from a journalistic point of view I don’t criticise organisations/media that publish such pictures. It brings home the awful reality of what happened.
@ Cupán Tae
Some people aren’t happy unless they are offended at least once a day.
Why would a family member scroll down through an article that’s headed “In pictures: The MH17 crash site”?
Because the journalism saying is, if it bleeds it leads.” To get more hits on the article or the site, he could have used that photo as the main article image. Obviously he didn’t because it wasn’t intended that way. But some news outlets will do that as the intended purpose.
Do you remember crash plane in Russia, 4 years ago with Polish president Lech Kaczynski and many Polish politicians? It was an accident-they said. Yes, probably it was. But until today Russian government (or president of Russia?) doesn’t want to give back this plane, recorded tape and they don’t want to investigate what really happen there. Please, don’t do the same mistake again-these top Russian politicians understand only the language of straight and power. If all nations cannot speak on the same way-it may happen again. They don’t care about passengers or their families. It would be sad if this tragedy won’t be a good lesson how to speak with Putin. I hope you have no any doubts he supported terrorists on Ukraine land?
Under international laws, nether the Rebels have any right to take the FDRs since they are not a recognised country and since the aircraft was in Ukrainian airspace the Russians have no right to have it.
International law didn’t stop Russia from taking Crimea.
Will this be another Lusitania or pearl harbour ?? If this was indeed Russia , it would have to be proven , they can’t get away with it , then again media convinced us all there was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq !!!
They have been steeping up security recently at airports emphasising to charge up your smart devices before flying etc.
Just how exactly do they plan on preventing another one of these? It’s a new level and it’s scary.
It’s not new John, this had happened before & in the Ukraine..
Point taken Royston but it’s still going to cost the passenger as now airlines will have to consider every route near a war zone and use an alternate. What is new to me is that someone can take down a plane from the surface at 33,000 feet. Normally they try and get them coming in to land etc. That’s what I meant.
Also happened in Iraq several years ago, just goes to show no matter how many hoops they make you jump through at security and how many bottles of water they take off you, if someone wants to do something badly enough they’ll always find a way.
John point taken but your assuming it was a deliberate attack?
The airline was allegedly shot down by a very sophisticated missile system designed primarily to take down large NATO bombers during the Cold War..
Perhaps it would be wise for airlines to avoid areas of conflict where these systems are active..
Personally I think this could have been avoided, there was a lot of Anti Aircraft defence systems active in this region over the past few days. Why this was not taken onboard by the relevant air authorities is something we will have to learn over the coming days..
John – “airlines will have to consider every route near a war zone”. I agree. If implemented the vast majority of the Middle East and a large country in Eastern Europe will be no go areas for commercial airlines.
Barry the Iraq event was a smaller shoulder launched missile intent on targeting a western military or commercial aircraft.. To joe public it seems the same but it’s not. The Malaysian Airways aircraft was transitioning the airspace above Ukraine & flying at 10k above ground, well past the capabilities of the best shoulder fired rocket..
Well aware of the facts of that incident thanks, the plane was still shot down by an a$$hole wasn’t it? My point was in reply to John’s original comment on threat levels and preventing things like this i.e. you can’t.
“What is new to me is that someone can take down a plane from the surface at 33,000 feet.”
The Soviet-designed Buk missile system can be used to engage targets at an altitude of up to 85,000 feet depending on the version. Missiles capable of engaging targets at extremely high altitude have existed for over 50 years.
Please remove the picture of the dead bodies. Most news sites have chosen not to show them, I didn’t expect to see it here.
You should see the news sheets
So you went into an article titled MH17 crash site, and complain when it shows the crash site? What did you expect?
Third photo down shows dead bodies, out of respect it should be removed,
They should be given 24 hours to hand over Igor Strelkov or else the world should take over the territory that he is controlling like he was boosting about taking another bird out of the sky just 20 min after the flight crashed
Putin the s***bag had to have armed them so now it is time the world turned it back on russia
We need world leader that are not going to shy away from holding the s***bags that did this to account
Is it normal for an airliner to fly over a war zone?
Apparently is was flying 1000ft above the warzone area. Could only think they did that to save money instead of using fuel to go around it.
Mark, yes on a particularly busy and active flight path linking two continents
Yep! I flew over Iraq (bagdad to be precise, twice between 06 & 09), although the airline removed the names of the city from the onscreen map you could still make out the Euphrates down in the city.. I guess they just didn’t deem the height we were at as a threat..
@ Jason
Think it was 33k feet?
I read it and also heard it on news talk. That’s all.
I mean 1000ft above the air/sky area that is deemed a no flyzone. Not as in flying 1000ft above the ground.
More than that even from the information I saw. No-fly zone extended up to 4,000m while MH17 was at an altitude of 10,000m.
I see. Thank you gentlemen.
Why did Ukraine traffic control tell the Airline to drop its altitude.
This horrific event also raises a question regarding civil aviation routing – why in Gods name are passenger aircraft flying over a war zone in the first place? A major rethink required to protect passenger welfare.
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