Total Recall

John Fund reports on the growing movement to recall California Governor Gray Davis.

While I do not agree with Davis's policies and think that his fiscal performance is driving the state into the ground, I do not necessarily support the recall. A recall of a sitting government official should take place only in the case of extreme malfeasance or gross negligence/incompetence in my opinion. In this case, perhaps the latter is true.

Carl DeMaio of the San Diego-based Performance Institute notes that California's general budget grew by an average of 9.4% a year from fiscal 1997 through 2002. Revenues grew dramatically too--by 27% during Mr. Davis's first term. But spending went up 36% during the same period. If the state had only held spending growth to the increase in population and inflation, it would be enjoying a $5.5 billion surplus now.

The Republicans lost the last gubernatorial election fair and square. Their candidate, Bill Simon, ran a terrible campaign against Davis. With the hurdle for a recall being so low (900K signatures), my fear is that the losing party in elections will turn around and start a recall campaign the moment that they lose an election. I'm much more in favor of the process described here.

A group of fiscal conservatives hope to avoid that kind of runaway spending in the future by making the recall effort a referendum not on Mr. Davis personally but on a constitutional amendment to limit taxes and spending. California had such a limit from 1979 until 1990, when a union-backed measure emasculating it narrowly passed. A new limit would be modeled after Colorado's 1994 Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which limits the growth of government to increases in population and inflation growth, rebates all extra revenue back to the taxpayers, and requires a referendum on all tax and fee hikes. As a result, Colorado is one of the few states without a severe budget crunch today.