Ballotpedia's Mid-Year Recall Report (2016)

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Recall elections in 2016: Mid-year report
Statistics
265 targeted officials 189 separate recall efforts
Notable recalls
Michigan Oregon Detroit, Mich. Austin, Texas Crystal City, Texas West Ada, Idaho

June 20, 2016
By Ballotpedia staff

Recall elections are on the rise across America through the first half of 2016. From January 1, 2016, through June 10, 2016, Ballotpedia tracked 265 elected officials targeted by 189 separate recall attempts. In comparison, Ballotpedia tracked 224 recall efforts in all of 2014 and 172 recall efforts in all of 2015. Ballotpedia found that 21.19% of targeted officials were successfully recalled in 2014, 15.99% were recalled in 2015, and 10.9% have been recalled thus far in 2016. Recalls begin when citizens gather petition signatures in an attempt to remove one or more politicians from public office. A successful recall petition campaign results in a special election where voters decide whether to keep or remove the official.

State-level politicians, including the governor of Michigan and the president of the Oregon State Senate, have been the subject of recall attempts thus far in 2016. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has been the target of multiple recall petitions due to his handling of the Flint water crisis. Two petitioners, Benjamin Lazarus and Reverend David Bullock, combined their recall campaigns; their current deadline to collect the necessary signatures is June 27, 2016. Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney (D), who has previously been the target of two unsuccessful recall campaigns, was targeted for recall due to his support for legislation that would ban the sale of electricity produced from coal. The petitioner failed to submit the necessary signatures to force a recall election.

Most recall efforts target local officials. For example, all five members of the West Ada School District Board of Trustees in Idaho were targeted for recall. One member resigned before the recall election, three members were successfully recalled on May 17, 2016, and a separate recall effort was dropped against the one remaining member. A group called Concerned Citizens of West Ada School District for Trustee Recall targeted four members of the board because it questioned the board's transparency and how members treated former Superintendent Linda Clark, who resigned from her position on October 23, 2015.

City council officials drew the most recall attempts in the first half of 2016, with 88 city council members targeted. In Crystal City, Texas, Mayor Ricardo Lopez, Mayor Pro-Tem Rogelio Mata, and Councilman Marco Rodriguez were all recalled on May 7, 2016. Lopez, Rogelio Mata, and Councilman Roel Mata were arrested on federal bribery charges related to an illegal gambling operation run by Ngoc Tri Nguyen. Rodriguez was targeted because of his arrest for illegally transporting migrants into the country. In Austin, Texas, City Councilmember Ann Kitchen faced a recall threat because of her efforts to regulate ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Uber. Kitchen advocated for the use of additional background checks on drivers working for these companies. The recall signatures were rejected, which ended the recall effort. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is facing a recall effort due to his hiring of two officials with prior law enforcement incidents.

What exactly happens in a recall election? Staff Writer Elisabeth Moore gives a 2-minute overview, including what it means and which officials can be recalled View other episodes here.

Statistics

Targets by state

California leads the way in officials targeted for recall with 63 through June 10, 2016. Michigan and Texas follow with 27 and 20 officials facing recalls, respectively. The map below displays the number of officials targeted for recall in each state, with darker shades representing higher numbers.

Notable recalls

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder

See also: Rick Snyder recall, Michigan (2015 and 2016)

Gov. Rick Snyder (R)

Governor Rick Snyder (R) was the target of multiple recall efforts in 2016 related to his handling of the Flint water crisis. After high levels of harmful chemicals were found in drinking water from the Flint River in 2015, Snyder, among many other Michigan officials, came under intense national scrutiny for the government's failure to quickly acknowledge and respond to the crisis. Four recall petitions were approved for circulation by the Board of State Canvassers, three of which related to the water crisis. The fourth petition addressed an executive order giving Snyder's office control of the state's School Reform Office, which was previously under the Michigan Department of Education.

Two of the petitioners— Benjamin Lazarus, a member of the Warren Consolidated Schools Board of Education, and Reverend David Bullock—joined together to undertake a single petition drive. Petition backers must gather 789,133 signatures within a period of 60 days in order to trigger a recall election; signatures must be filed with the secretary of state within 180 days of the petition's approval. Signature collection initially began on March 27, 2016, but at the end of May, Bullock announced that the petition drive would extend its deadline by three weeks, invalidating all the signatures collected during the first three weeks of the drive. While the move signaled that collection efforts had fallen short leading up to the initial deadline, Bullock also announced an endorsement from the state Democratic Party and asserted that the campaign had gained momentum in recent weeks.

As of June 15, 2016, the petition drive's website stated their current deadline as June 27, an extension of 32 days past the date collection initially began. If they succeed in their collection efforts, the earliest the recall would appear on the ballot is May 2017.

Oregon State Sen. Peter Courtney

See also: Peter Courtney recall, Oregon State Senate (2016)

Oregon state Sen. Peter Courtney (D)

Senate President Peter Courtney (D-11) was targeted for recall due to his support of a minimum wage hike, legislation that would ban the sale of electricity produced by coal, and for allowing the Oregon Veterans Lottery Bill to be cut from 3 percent to 1.5 percent. The measure, if approved by voters, would allocate a certain percentage of the Oregon Lottery revenues to veterans' programs.

Matt Geiger, the leader of the recall group Protect the People—Recall Senator Courtney, filed the recall petition because "Senator Peter Courtney puts special interests that give him big campaign contributions ahead of working families and seniors living in his community." Sen. Courtney was previously targeted for recall in 1993 and 2007, but neither recall effort collected enough signatures to make the ballot. Matt Geiger had until June 13, 2016, to submit the necessary signatures to the Oregon Secretary of State but failed to do so.

Mayor Mike Duggan in Detroit, Michigan

See also: Mike Duggan recall, Detroit, Michigan (2016)

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan faces a recall effort led by Rick Davis, a community activist also circulating petitions against Gov. Rick Snyder (R) following the Flint water crisis. Davis initiated the recall effort in September 2015 due to the backgrounds of two city officials appointed by Duggan. Department of Neighborhoods Director Charlie Beckham served 21 months in prison following a bribery conviction during his time as the head of the Detroit Water & Sewage Department in the 1980s. Corporation Counsel Melvin Hollowell received a ticket for receiving an act of prostitution in 2004, but the charge was dropped because a county sheriff's deputy wrote the ticket within city limits. Davis' effort was initially ruled as invalid by Wayne County elections officials, but U.S. District Judge Judith Levy ruled on March 31, 2016, that the petition drive could continue. The recall effort was ongoing at the time of publication, with 41,271 signatures required to force a recall election.

City Councilmember Ann Kitchen in Austin, Texas

See also: Ann Kitchen recall, Austin, Texas (2016)

Austin City Councilmember Ann Kitchen

Austin was the center of a heated debate over regulations on ride-sharing operators like Uber and Lyft in spring 2016. City residents approved Proposition 1 on May 7, 2016, which placed these operators under similar regulations to traditional taxi companies. City Councilmember Ann Kitchen also faced a recall threat due to her support for more strenuous regulations on ride-sharing companies. A group called Austin4All initiated the effort in January 2016 and submitted almost 5,300 signatures to the city clerk on February 19, 2016. These signatures were rejected due to a lack of notary stamps on March 4, 2016, and organizers ended the effort rather than starting a new signature drive.

Austin4All's effort attracted condemnation from Mayor Stephen Adler and fellow councilmembers Gregorio Casar and Leslie Pool. Attorney Fred Lewis also filed an elections complaint with the city, citing the group's failure to register as a political action committee (PAC) after spending $10,000 to gather signatures. The complaint was not resolved at the time of publication. Austin4All argued prior to the Proposition 1 vote that Kitchen did not represent the majority of city residents who saw ride-sharing as a way to improve city life.

Mayor and city council in Crystal City, Texas

See also: Mayor and city council recall, Crystal City, Texas (2016)

Crystal City attracted national attention in February 2016 after Mayor Ricardo Lopez, City Councilmember Rogelio Mata, and City Councilmember Roel Mata were arrested on federal bribery charges. The three men were accused of accepting money from Ngoc Tri Nguyen to waive tax payments on his properties and deny a license to a legal gambling operation that competed with his illegal business. Councilmember Marco Rodriguez was also in the spotlight for his January 2016 arrest for illegally transporting migrants into the United States. City residents organized a recall against Lopez, Rogelio Mata, and Rodriguez due to a lack of public confidence after these events.

The recall effort took a circuitous route to the May 2016 municipal ballot. Recall supporters submitted 1,200 signatures to City Clerk Selina Ramos in November 2015. Ramos refused to verify signatures and claimed that there needed to be signatures equaling at least 51 percent of the total votes in all races up for election during the last municipal election. On February 11, 2016, Zavala County Judge Amado Abascal ordered a review of recall signatures because the city charter only required enough signatures to equal total votes for the offices targeted for recall. The lack of quorum on the city council meant that a recall was not scheduled until March 8, 2016. All three officials were recalled on May 7, 2016, with recall supporters receiving 75 percent or more support for removal.

West Ada Board of Trustees in Idaho

See also: West Ada School District recall, Idaho (2016)

All five members of the West Ada Board of Trustees were initially targeted for recall in November 2015, and four were eventually recalled on May 17, 2016.

Four of the five members of the West Ada School District Board of Trustees first joined the board in 2016. The rush of new blood was a result of a recall effort that ultimately ousted four members of the board in May 2016. Another recall effort targeted the fifth member of the board, but it was dropped in January 2016.

A group called Concerned Citizens of West Ada School District for Trustee Recall targeted board members Tina Dean, Carol Sayles, Julie Madsen, and Russell Joki, who represented Zones 1, 3, 4, and 5, respectively, after former Superintendent Linda Clark resigned from her position on October 23, 2015. The board refused to accept her resignation and instead voted to terminate her contract on November 9, 2015. The recall group questioned the board's transparency and how members had treated Clark, who said she had been pushed out of office by the four board members.

The recall effort attracted state attention when Sayles and Joki filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction to stop the recall election. They sought a ruling on the number of signatures the recall effort needed to collect, since trustee elections had a much lower voter turnout compared to the district's 2015 levy vote. State officials weighed in on the debate, and Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail ruled against the two board members, saying the recall supporters had collected the correct number of signatures and allowing the recall to continue to the ballot.

State officials also proposed bills related to issues in the West Ada recall effort. Idaho Sen. Chuck Winder (R-20), a supporter of the recall, proposed a bill seeking to prevent board members who were targeted for recall from having a say in who their replacements would be. He worried that since a majority of the West Ada Board of Trustees had been targeted for recall, enough of them would resign in order to appoint replacements who were "of like mind." Winder withdrew his bill days later after he received criticism for writing a bill specifically related to a single school district, but two members of the West Ada Board of Trustees did resign weeks apart from each other, which gave the remaining members of the board the ability to appoint two new members who admitted to being opposed to the recall.

State Sen. Jim Rice (R-10) sponsored a bill in 2016 that sought to change the date of school board elections for better voter turnout and thus increase the number of signatures a recall effort would need to collect. Another proposal sought to expand the state's campaign finance laws to incorporate school board recalls and all ballot measures. Both measures were either rejected or did not move forward before the Idaho State Legislature's session ended for 2016.

See also

• Recall overview
• Political recall efforts
• Political recall efforts, 2016
• Laws governing recall
• 2015 recall analysis
• 2015 mid-year report