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Four Long Beach Councilmembers - Richardson, Allen, Zendejas, Saro -- Agendize Aug. 17 Council Item To Oppose Newsom Recall



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(Aug. 14, 2021, 7:05 a.m.) -- Four Long Beach City Councilmembers -- Vice Mayor Rex Richardson (lead agendizer) joined by Councilmembers Mary Zendejas, Cindy Allen and Suely Saro -- have agendized an August 17 Council item to oppose the petition-initiated recall election of Governor Gavin Newsom.

Their agendizing memo doesn't mention Newsom's name. Instead it recites recent Democrat partisan talking points, including an attack on CA's recall process itself.

...Since 1911, when California began approving recalls, 179 recall attempts have been made against state officeholders, and every governor since 1960 has faced as least one. Recall elections have become highly politicized, used as a tool to undermine the will of the people and remove someone from office who was fairly elected by a majority of voters, rather than as a tool to remove someone who is unfit for office.

The recall ballot will have two questions:

1. Should the elected official be removed from office?
2. If the official is removed, who should take their place?

If more than 50% of voters answer "yes" to the first question on the recall ballot, the candidate who wins the most votes in the second question will become governor. This means if a majority of California voters want to recall the governor, he will be removed from office and replaced with someone who will likely receive less than 50% of the vote.

This process undermines our democracy and perpetuates a dangerous precedent of electing a governor with a potentially very small percentage of the vote.

The next regularly scheduled gubernatorial election in California will take place on June 7 (primary) and November 8 (general) in 2022. The fiscally responsible and democratically appropriate course of action would have been for the governor’s opponents to wait for the 2022 election cycle to vote for an alternative candidate...

Similar resolutions are under consideration in many other cities across Los Angeles County, including in the cities of West Hollywood and Culver City.

Although cities cannot take positions in candidate elections, the recall is a ballot measure, not a candidate election. It is within the City’s legal rights to take a position on a ballot measure that will impact our residents.

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The Council item asks the City Attorney to draft a resolution that would put the City of Long Beach on record -- and potentially enable the use of City taxpayer resources -- to oppose the Newsom recall. An agendizing memo Fiscal Impact statement says "No Financial Management review was able to be conducted due to the urgency and time sensitivity of this item." [The Newsom recall has been pending for months.]

If a Council majority approves the Aug. 17 item, the issue may return for a second vote on the resolution itself. [Alternatively, the Council may try to direct the City Attorney to copy an attached West Hollyood anti-recall resolution; it's not clear to us if LB City Attorney Parkin would would approve such a maneuever.]

The Long Beach City Council is nominally non-partisan but (since Beverly O'Neill's political embrace of Bill Clinton) has become highly politicized. Seven of LB's nine Councilmembers are Dems (and elected with Dem-allied campaign contributions) and Mayor Robert Garcia actively campaigned for Hillary Clinton, then Kamala Harris and eventually Joe Biden with post-election lockstep support for actions by Biden...and Newsom.

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Aug. 15, 2:28 p.m. Added link to agendizing memo and added text indicating possibility of Council trying to avoid a second vote to approve resolution.

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Support really independent news in Long Beach. No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report. LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. You can help keep really independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.


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