Letters

"Recall is a far-too-blunt instrument to address displeasure..." TRUE

Just because his poor decision in eating out, which was not criminal ( restaurants were allowed to be open to serve ) and following other guidelines created by health officials, he has done his job.

Businesses that had to close are angry, workers are angry because they have lost income, but the blame belongs to the Pandemic. Had it been taken seriously to begin with by the previous President, so many of the negative policies would not have had to be put in place. Put the blame where it belongs and it's not Newsom or the Democrats.

Gov. Newsom is doing his job, and doing it well. When it comes time to vote and you feel someone else can do a better job in the face of a crisis, like another Pandemic, vote that person in. That's the democratic way of government.

It looks more like a Political Move, trying to get Newsom and other Democrats out of office by angry Republicans and non Democrats. Classic ~

Recall is also the Only way any Republican has Any chance of being elected to statewide office in CA. Its use is cynical and anti-small-d-democratic.

Lacking the voter suppression and gerrymandering opportunities that exist in other states, the third-Party local GOP resorts to the Recall, hoping that Dems and Independents - who separately outnumber them - will stay home in a special election.

Minority rule is bad policy. As the letter suggests - if you don't like him, vote Mr. Newsom out next year.

Attempting to Recall Govenor Newsom is a waste of tax-payer dollars. Newsom did not to do anything illegal, he used his best judgement biased on science. The Republican are playing armchair quarterback on the best plan to deal with a Pandemic.

I agree with Claudette and Citzen Paine. When we did not like how one of our leaders was handling the Pandemic, we voted the other guy out of office in a landslide.

Under Governor Newson, California has the nation’s second highest unemployment, lowest percent of kids at school, and 7th worst COVID-era mortality. Looking at Florida, their unemployment is half California’s, all their kids can go to school, and the state's health outcomes are better. Governor Newsom's decisions relating to school openings are based on trying to please the California Teachers Association and are not based on the epidemiology studies that have been out there for months indicating that teachers are not at increased risk for developing Covid-19 as a result of teaching in the classroom. Leading medical expert from UCSF have stated quite a while ago that it is safe for teachers to be in the classroom. Governor Newsom is aware of this science, but chooses for political reasons to ignore it. Please see this video (Web Link of leaders of school districts in the Bay Area and Dr. Noble from UCSF speaking on the topic. Whether a recall is the right avenue, reasonable people can disagree, but let's not say that Governor Newsom has followed the science, when clearly he has not.

I'm opposed to the recall because the recall system is fundamentally flawed. It allows a majority to decide that the current office holder is not their favorite, and to have that person replaced by a plurality of votes.

That means that if 49% of people want to keep the office holder, the office will go to whoever gets the highest number of votes, and the current office holder can't be one of the candidates. So if the candidate with the highest votes gets 35% in a three way race, then that person replaces somebody whom 49% of the people wanted.

When Davis was recalled, Schwarzenegger got more votes than the number of votes to keep Davis. But that was a flawed way of looking at it. Those who wanted to keep Davis could not choose him among the contenders if he got recalled, and some of the people who wanted to keep Davis picked Schwarzenegger as a preferred replacement. The percentage of voters who did that didn't have to be very high to show that if Davis had been on the ballot, he would have won.

Thus, the recall does not reflect the will of the people. It shows that a person does not have majority support, but it lets a replacement in who has potentially less support.

The solution is to change the recall process so that we merely call a new election. Let the incumbent run against those who might replace the incumbent, and whoever gets the most votes gets the job. That would more accurately reflect the will of the people. A candidate need not have a majority of votes to get elected in the first place if there are more than two contenders, and even with a run-off or primary, the top vote getting might not be the candidate's first choice. That means that anybody who wins could potentially lose in a recall even without a shift in support, or even different candidates.

@ Hatch; "I'm opposed to the recall because the recall system is fundamentally flawed. It allows a majority to decide that the current office holder is not their favorite, and to have that person replaced by a plurality of votes."

Just curious; do you support elimination of the electoral college in favor of electing the President by popular vote?