Bill Is Proposed to Revise California's Recall Process [View All]

[Freddie Stubbs]

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 — California Democrats, for the time being at least, are no longer talking about the possibility of initiating a retaliatory recall against the governor-elect, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But a move is afoot to make it more difficult to pull off another recall of a governor if the citizenry is again seized with the desire to upend the established order in Sacramento.

Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Democratic member of the State Assembly from Los Angeles, has introduced an amendment to the California Constitution that would significantly increase the number of signatures needed to put a recall question on the ballot. The amendment would also provide for the lieutenant governor to automatically succeed a governor who is recalled, thus eliminating the replacement ballot that provided so much entertainment here during the recent recall vote.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born bodybuilder and actor, won the replacement election, trouncing the Democratic lieutenant governor, Cruz M. Bustamante, who would have become governor under Mr. Ridley-Thomas's amendment.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/national/22CALI.html?ex=1067400000&en=f8c01c43fc4b4870&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE