There’s a popular meme going around from Price supporters that they hope will gain traction among undecided voters. A letter to the Chronicle yesterday is a perfect example: “I believe that recalls should be reserved for instances of true malfeasance only. It’s not appropriate to try to recall someone just because you disagree with them or their policies. That’s what elections are for. Deal with it and wait for the next election. And I agree with Pamela Price’s take that the…recall effort is an effort to undermine the election and, therefore, our democracy.”
Let’s disregard for now the fact that the letter writer is from Belmont, which isn’t even in Alameda County. Let’s also put aside that Belmont, where the average income is twice that of Oakland, is also a very safe city: the crime rate per thousand residents is about one-third that of Oakland. So we can safely assume that the letter writer perhaps doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency about getting rid of San Mateo County’s District Attorney that we do here in Alameda County.
Now to the letter’s substance. To begin with, this idea that the recall is “anti-democratic” is straight out of Pamela Price’s playbook. “These are election deniers,” she has said of us recallers. “They lost the election, so they want to have a do-over. Their candidate lost. And so, they want to have a second bite at the apple. And that’s undemocratic.” Let’s disabuse Ms. Price—who ought to know better—of that crazy notion. The voters’ power to recall an elected official is explicitly spelled out in the California Constitution. Article II, Sections 13-17 define a recall’s requirements. Nowhere does the Constitution say that State officials must rule on the validity of a reason for a recall. In fact, Section 14 says only that a “Recall of a state officer is initiated by delivering to the Secretary of State a petition alleging reason for recall. Sufficiency of reason is not reviewable.” This means that neither the Secretary of State, nor any other official involved in the process, may take into account the reasons for a recall; that person may have their own personal opinion, of course, but reasons in themselves are purely irrelevant, other than that they exist. In other words, there’s nothing at all “undemocratic” about a recall. Recalls are the essence of democracy. In fact, attempting to block a recall in and of itself is undemocratic. And—finally—when the letter write says “That’s what elections are for,” let me give him a bulletin: A recall is an election. Duh.
It’s obviously true that Pamela Price won the D.A. election, by a fairly thin margin of 53%. But once the voters realized what Price was and is up to, they turned against her. It’s like buying a used car that doesn’t run: you return it to the dealer and demand your money back. Is that a “second bite at the apple”? I suppose it is, in a weird sense, but it’s also a legal bite and a totally justifiable bite. And you know what, Madame D.A.? When a majority of the voters actually vote “Yes” on the recall, that will be the essence of democracy, too.
We’ve seen Price roll out other lies about her political opponents, besides the “undemocratic” mendacity. She’s also accused us as being out-of-town billionaires and MAGA conservatives. As I’ve said before, let Price stand at the tables where signature gatherers are working, and let her take a good look at the tens of thousands of voters anxious to get rid of her: normal, ordinary working or retired people, from Fremont to Berkeley, Livermore to West Oakland, most of whom, it’s safe to say, are Democrats. But of course, Price is so desperate to keep her job that she’s willing to say and do anything, no matter how false, to mislead voters. She simply can’t imagine that anyone would see anything untoward about what she’s doing.
Well, we do. Our impression is that Price ran for office intent on going soft on criminals, harassing police officers, and “decarcerating” i.e. emptying the jails of their aberrant occupants. Her behavior since getting elected has done nothing to change this perception. Crime is way up in the big cities and even the suburbs are feeling the heat. You don’t have to be an Einstein to conclude that Pamela Price—in office now for nearly a year—is a big cause of that awful fact, and that the longer she remains in office, the worse our crime problem will get. So, Mr. Letter Writer From Belmont, if you think Pamela Price is doing such a great job, why don’t you move to Oakland? I’m sure you can find a nice place in the Fruitvale.