Yes, There Are A Number Of Us In California Who Are Awake Instead Of "Woke"
A lovely bit of news from Reason -- a state senator who cast the deciding vote in a major gas tax hike was shown the door by voters.
Buh-bye! Buh-bye!
He was outraged. (Which is so adorable.)
Steven Greenhut's piece has this subhead:
State Sen. Josh Newman cast a deciding vote in favor of a much-maligned and dramatic increase in gasoline taxes. He was promptly shown the door.
Greenhut writes:
If voters had second thoughts about bouncing California state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) from office in a high-profile recall election held during the June 5 primary, his self-centered stem winder on the Senate floor should disabuse them of any such regrets. I was left humming the chorus from a 1980s rock song: "Don't go away mad, but just go away." It wasn't the classiest way to end a short and undistinguished legislative career, but at least it's over."It saddens me colleagues, Republican colleagues, that despite all your nice sotto voce words, not a single one of you had the integrity, the decency or the courage to stand up and say ... this is wrong, this is an abuse of the recall process," Newman said, comparing the recall to a "crazy dream." He complained that some colleagues sat "idly by" while others "actively abetted" the recall. "Getting someone recalled, getting someone thrown out of their job, getting somebody like me who only wanted to serve, expelled--it's pretty personal."
His words were highfalutin--the Italian phrase for "under the voice" was fairly sophisticated for a Senate floor speech--but his arguments fall apart upon examination. For starters, there isn't anything wrong or abusive about recalling a politician because of his vote. The recall process, like the initiative and referendum processes, have long been a part of the California Constitution, dating back to Progressive Era reforms advocated by Gov. Hiram Johnson.
The state Constitution's recall provision places procedural limits on how to recall elected officials, but it places no limits on the rationale for doing so. As the California Secretary of State's Office explains in its guide to recalling sitting politicians, "Recall is the power of the voters to remove elected officials before their terms expire. It has been a fundamental part of our governmental system since 1911 and has been used by voters to express their dissatisfaction with their elected representatives."
All together now: Buh-bye! Buh-bye!
And let's hope your colleagues are paying attention.
Which is to say...check out sneaky California "budget trailer bills." Dan Walters writes that they're "meant to implement the state budget" but used "to enact far-reaching policies that have virtually nothing to do with the budget, and without any of the traditional safeguards, such as waiting periods and public hearings."
Yoohoo, voters?!
Trailer via @emilyfromTV
It's funny how every politician who gets recalled or impeached claims that their removal is an abuse of the process.
Bill Clinton wrapped himself in the mantle of "defending the Constitution" during and after his impeachment fight. Defending it from what?
Conan the Grammarian at June 22, 2018 5:23 AM
Your musical interlude https://youtu.be/Q8Tiz6INF7I
I R A Darth Aggie at June 22, 2018 6:09 AM
He kind of looks like a more haggard version of Martin Sheen in that top picture.
Implicit in all his tantrummy behavior is the idea that his colleagues not only should have, but actually could have done anything to stop this.
They can't. That's the beauty of recall elections. They would be utterly meaningless if the state senate (or any senate) had any control over them at all. They could simply prevent their own recall.
Not sure how I feel about recall elections, but I do like the fact that there's no required rationale for the voters to remove someone from office. There wasn't any required rationale for placing them in office, either.
You can vote someone in for any insipid ol' reason you want. "He reminds me of mother." "He has nice eyes." "My grandfather used to live in his neighborhood."
All perfectly valid reasons for voting someone into office. Seems appropriate that they can removed for those same reasons.
Patrick at June 22, 2018 7:09 AM
Blaming California Republicans is so precious. He may as well blame monsters under the bed, because neither of those things actually exists.
Cousin Dave at June 22, 2018 7:56 AM
Now if we could just recall the citizens who voted to raise the bridge tolls again ...
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at June 22, 2018 9:48 AM
"Now if we could just recall the citizens who voted to raise the bridge tolls again ..."
How else do you keep the B&T trash out?
smurfy at June 22, 2018 3:07 PM
This guy didn't get removed because he hiked a tax. He got removed because Californians refuse to pay for the stuff they think is free. You know. Roads. Bridges... Have you ever seen the number of State agencies CA thinks they HAVE to have?
So he was the only name they could recall.
Radwaste at June 22, 2018 3:16 PM
not that it matters, but, what is or would have been his vote if there were an impeachment for Trump?
Would he have claimed that was unfair?
charles at June 22, 2018 5:18 PM
"You can vote someone in for any insipid ol' reason you want."
well. ALMOST. There are some reasons that make you deplorable.
bw1 at June 25, 2018 5:47 PM
Amy, I hope you're not inconsistent enough to think that hiking the gas tax is a good reason to recall him.
Raising the gas tax is just about one of the most libertarian and consistent with this country's founding ideals things a politician can do.
Gas taxes are use taxes, a very libertarian concept because they involve people paying for the government services they use rather than subsidizing services used by others. They are also how the Founders preferred to fund government.
Gas taxes are road-use taxes used to pay for building and maintaining roads. Since the more one drives, the more gas one buys, one's gas taxes are proportional to the wear and tear one puts on the roads. The heavier your vehicle, the more wear it puts on the road, the more gas it consumes, and the more gas tax the owner pays. It's a marvelously fair system.
The problem is, as cars have become more efficient, the proportionality has changed. One can drive much further, and thus put a lot more wear and tear on the roads, on a gallon of gas. As a result, the gas tax paid to drive each mile has declined, while the road wear from driving that mile has not.
There are two ways to remedy this. One is to raise the gas tax. The other, which many leftist politicians are pushing, is to mandate that all cars have tracking systems that upload their data to the gas pump while fueling, and calculating the use tax on the miles driven and on which roads they are driven. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, er, the fact that the government gets its hands on tracking information for every car. That's just a coincidence.
Very rarely, a tax increase is not a bad thing. This is one of those instances.
bw1 at June 25, 2018 5:59 PM
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