Dissecting Newman’s Recall Response
— As I figured the Friends would enjoy this I have cross-posted this piece from my personal site. —
Enough signatures have officially been gathered to recall CA State Senator Josh Newman. Much to the chagrin of the CA (D)s about 1/10th of the 930K residents of Senate District 29 have added their signatures to the effort to remove him from office.
Senator Newman had the following to say about it:
“Thousands of voters have asked to have their names removed from the petition after learning they’d been lied to. The Registrar’s signature count reflects nothing more than a massive flaw in the recall system that has allowed paid, out-of-district special interests to trick voters into signing an intentionally misleading petition.
“Just over half a year ago, the voters of this district chose me to deliver principled leadership and aggressive advocacy for them in Sacramento. This is exactly what I’ve been doing since taking office, and I firmly believe they’ll see the truth beyond this cynical and underhanded recall effort.”
Let us dissect this bit peculiar partisan pity party for the sake of posterity.
“Thousands of voters have asked to have their names removed from the petition”
A little math is needed to dispel this talking point. 63,593 verified signatures were needed to put a legal and Constitutionally protected recall of Senator Newman in front of the voters.
With 68,484 verified signatures out of 96,516 collected during the signature drive one would have to assume that the “thousands” of signatures to which Newman is alluding totals more than 4,891 and that all of them are verified signatures. With 70% of all signatures being verified one would need 6,987 people to want their names to be scrubbed for the average to work assuming the percentage stays constant.
Considering the win at all costs because the ends justify the means mentality of the CA (D)s in their efforts to save Newman’s seat it isn’t beyond belief that loyal (D)s might have illegally signed the petition incorrectly in the hopes of derailing the count.
However, even if 10,000 people wanted their names removed it would have zero bearing on the results of the recall verification process if their names were counted amongst the insufficient 28,032 signatures.
“The Registrar’s signature count reflects nothing more than a massive flaw in the recall system”
A massive flaw that wasn’t an issue or a priority to the (D)s in the CA legislature until it looked like it was going to work against their interests. On face value this is a case of (D)s ignoring an issue until it is a problem for them while reaping the benefits when it works in their favor. To read Newman here one must believe that his party is okay with “massive flaws” in our government until those flaws are inconvenient. Out of the thousands of bills introduced into the legislature each year how many times was this “massive flaw” addressed before the Newman recall effort?
The (D)s went so far as to illegally pass legislation (SB96) mid-recall to save Newman from the wrath of the voters. When that failed owing to a stay of SB96 by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals they have now, today, introduced new legislation in the form of SB117, to do it again within the confines of the law.
The (D)s are claiming that the system was fine until it wasn’t and now it has to change now, NOW, NOW! before the flaws they were previously fine with bite them in the posterior. This is what substitutes for leadership in Sacramento.
“out-of-district special interests”
The (D)s literally fought and won a ruling from the FPPC to allow more “out-of-district” money to flow into Newman’s campaign coffers so he could fight the recall. There is no moral high ground in going lower because you believe your opposition went low. How much of that $1.5Million raised for Senator Newman thus far is from within his district? When asked he’ll dodge and claim to be playing by the other team’s rules to win at all costs.
“trick voters into signing an intentionally misleading petition”
This is the classic “Voters are too stupid to read” shtick. The recall petition stated up top what it was for and it was approved by the (D) Secretary of State. Why would the (D) Secretary of State allow “an intentionally misleading petition” to be circulated in the first place? Is Newman’s own party against him?
No, of course not. Newman is essentially arguing here that people are too stupid to read and surely didn’t read what they were signing and therefore the process is flawed and needs to be changed.
If people are too stupid to read then it calls into question the efficiency and value of our public education system as well as our very system of government. Were those voters too stupid to know for whom they were voting in the first place? So it was the will of the intelligent voters to put Newman into office but those same dumb, dumb dummies can’t be trusted to read a petition that might remove him. This is classic eat your cake and then have it too nonsense.
“Just over half a year ago, the voters of this district chose me to deliver principled leadership and aggressive advocacy for them in Sacramento.”
Instead they got a tax-hiking virtue signalling party politician who votes for legislation without a funding source (SB562 – Single Payer), legislation that puts our state at risk of losing needed federal funding (SB54 – Sanctuary State), a massive tax increase to fund things we already paid for without caring about how our previous money was squandered (SB1 – Gas/Car Taxes) and on and on and on.
One cannot abstain from a vote on Single Payer owing to a lack of a funding source and then vote for it while still lacking a funding source and call themselves a “principled leader”.
It should be noted that if you only count the 68,484 verified signatures and compare it to the election results that put Newman in office it would mean that 20% of the 317,962 voters want him out of office enough to sign a petition for recall.
Nearly 20,000 more people signed the recall paperwork than voted for him in the primary election. Will of the voters indeed.
“and I firmly believe they’ll see the truth beyond this cynical and underhanded recall effort”
And we end on the idea that voters are smart enough to see the light even though they were too stupid to read. THAT is cynical and shameful.
The clock has already started and the State has 10 days to certify the recall signatures and report them to the Governor who must then call a special election. The question now is whether or not the cynical (D)s will be successful in once against moving the goalposts mid-game to thwart the will of the voters.
Could one even have a plan to eliminate the car tax that DIDN’T involve removing the Democratic supermajority?
The whole “petition gatherers fooled us” shtick is bullshit.
Exactly correct and a great point.
If Travis Allen’s petition is passed by the voters and SB1 is scrubbed from the books the (D) Super-Majority will just pass it again unless you take that power from them.
To which the (D)s have responded that Newman is being targeted owing to the makeup of his district as though people mad about the highway robbery in question should run into the bluest parts of San Francisco to fight the good fight.
Yes. That would be a Referendum, not a Recall.
My response was to Just a Guy.
Yes and my point still stands. The referendum would be pointless if the (D)s maintained their super-majority.
Sorry, but voters are not only too stupid to read, they are too stupid to do a lot of things. Exhibit A: look at the dumpster fire of a president who is occupying the oval office.
Recall petition was absolutely, without question, deceiving. Of the 68,484 registered signatures, I’ll bet 68,480 didn’t read the petition. They just heard a paid signature gatherer tell them they could do away with the gas tax if they signed the petition, which we all know is not the case.
It’s politics 101.
Can’t get rid of the gas tax without getting rid of Newman (and the supermajority) first. Voters aren’t as dumb as you think they are.
Again, yes you could get rid of the gas tax without a Recall. The appropriate process to challenge a legislative decision is a Referendum.
In fact, if that were the true goal, a Referendum would have been more effective.
Even if the recall of State Senator Newman succeeds, the gas tax will remain in place.
It appears that it is not just the voters who unknowingly signed the recall petition that have been fooled.
Nobody’s dumb enough to play whack-a-mole with referendums against the supermajority. Get real.
You should run as a Democrat, Jane.
The two things, recall and referendum, are not mutually exclusive and in concert they make more sense.
The only people who have been fooled are those like myself who made the mistake of voting for Newman when he lied to us about his “centrist” beliefs.
Then by that logic the voters were too stupid to read the ballot statements or ballots themselves and vote for Newman and therefore his “will of the voters” who put him into office argument is moot.
Let’s play a game.
Let’s pretend that all of the signatories on the recall petition were “tricked” into thinking that the gas tax would be repealed. 100% were tricked. Follow me?
Ok. 160,230 voted for Newman out of 317,962 total votes in November. 68,484 signed out of anger at SB1 in this scenario.
So explain to me how Newman is representing his district using those #s.
There has always been a process for dummies to remove their signatures from a petition. Changing the rules mid-stream in an overt attempt to delay Newman’s removal is a disgusting affront to democracy and the rule of law.
The fact that Newman is going along with this is even more disturbing. Using power to corrupt the political process should put him in jail right alongside Leeland Yee and other Sacramento power abusers.
Yes, Newman fucked us for billions of dollars in taxes and now he wants to play the victim.
How much you want to bet that the ’10 day certification’ stretches out to more than 10 because of ‘reasons’?
Like the rest of 95% of all politicians, Newman’s a joke.
The bigger problem with Newman was his BLATANT use of veterans to position himself for the primary.
Silly, Ling Ling Chang didn’t see that a white former military guy who “claimed” to get veterans jobs, didn’t bother to look into this LIE. I believe Josh got fewer than three people jobs. Two of them helped Greg Diamond move and fix a leaky toilet. Most Americans use angieslist/craigslist and choose a vet owned contractor. Nobody needed Josh Newman’s FAKE kitchen table charity to support vet’s. Which Josh is NOT.
Newman needs to plop himself into Los Angeles city council where their proposed cure for homelessness is to build affordable housing. And this will be accomplished by adding five dollar fee to x amount square feet built by developers. Needless to say, this hike in fees will be passed along to the buyers making it more difficult for people to purchase these properties. Thanks to Newman and his ilk, the middle and working class are eroded into poverty by benevolent, political causes that don’t benefit anyone. We, the good people of California, are rebelling (sound familiar) against unfair taxation because Newman definitely does not represent our interests.
I was watching property brothers on DIY and saw ad/commercial for a no recall vote. I should of recorded it. It was pretty funny imo.
Recall signatures that first qualified back in August, qualify once again in October, and now qualify once more to collect dust for another three months of unqualified paper-pushing until January of next year when a date for the 2017 requested recall election of Senator Josh Newman will finally be scheduled…for yet an additional six months out to June of 2018.
Stymied voters will need to wait even longer for a mea culpa from the ever calculating and recalcitrant Senator Josh Newman who so passionately took to the senate floor in support of the red tape rewrite of California’s recall rules that he so pathetically inspired.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-recall-effort-against-sen-josh-newman-1508877848-htmlstory.html