There are 14 measures on the Nov. 3 ballot, and I will be spending the next 14 weeks researching them so I can choose wisely – and help readers do the same. But one of them is already an easy yes for me: Proposition 5.
The California Legislature voted in 2024 to put the measure before voters (though too late for that year’s ballot) to fix a glaringly undemocratic feature of the state’s constitution that was made apparent during the failed recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. If Newsom had lost, he could have been replaced by someone who had received fewer votes on the same ballot.
The reason for that is the two-part structure of the state’s recall elections. First, voters are asked if they want to boot the governor, legislator or other state officeholder. If a majority say yes, that person is out as soon as the vote is certified.
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Part two asks voters to pick a replacement from a list of qualified candidates. The current officeholder is not allowed to be among them. The listed candidate who gets the highest number of votes wins, even if it’s only a plurality. There’s no runoff, which means that a sitting elected official could be replaced by someone with far less voter support. Elections are not supposed to work this way.
The problem is far from hypothetical. In 2018, Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) was removed from office after receiving only 42% support, or 66,197 votes, in a recall election. None of the six candidates running against him received more votes, and Ling Ling Chang won with just 34%.
In the regular 2020 election, Newman won the seat back, and it is not a coincidence that he is the author of the constitutional amendment that puts Prop. 5 on the ballot.
Mariel Garza
At the time of the 2021 recall election, I was an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times focusing on California politics and governance. I wrote repeatedly about the flaws in the state’s recall election rules and urged legislators to get a proposed reform to voters. Because voters approved the recall back in 1911, it requires their approval to change its procedures. And here, at long last, is the fix.
Crucially, Prop. 5 drops the second part of the recall election, making it a simple yes-no question. If the officeholder is removed by a majority of voters, the job would be filled by the process or person already in place to deal with vacancies. A recalled governor, for example, would be replaced by the lieutenant governor until the next regular or special election, depending on timing of the recall.
This change addresses more than one problem in the current system. The recall was created to be a tool to oust governors and other officials who were corrupt or unfit. Instead it has been brandished by those who disagree with the policies of the target. Whoever has the money to fund a recall campaign has a sneaky way to get a preferred candidate into power.
Indeed, Republicans in the Legislature voted against putting Prop. 5 before voters, but not because they had a principled argument against the reform. Republicans have been shut out of statewide elections for decades in California, and the recall loophole offers minority parties a workaround way to win statewide seats.
Paul Thornton
Another flaw in the current system is that asking voters to replace, not just oust, an officeholder fundamentally changes the whole exercise. Instead of settling the straightforward question of whether an elected official is terrible enough that drastic action is required, the election becomes a popularity contest.
Prop. 5 wouldn’t get rid of recalls, which are legitimate tools for citizens to remove elected officials. But it would vastly improve the process by making sure that an unpopular elected official isn’t simply traded for an even-less popular one.
