| Our previous discussion of the recall of a U.S. Senator in New Jersey got a lot of interest, so I thought I would go ahead and discuss what the recall ballot would look like. As we discussed before, the proposed recall of Senator Bob Menendez would involve the Tea Party collecting an astonishing 1.3 million signatures, on forms explaining the cost of a special election, plus rulings in federal court that overturned all precedent. So, this discussion is for fun rather than worrying about a likely possibility. Also, I want to make clear I don't support a recall.
New Jersey's Title 19 (19:27A-15, 19:27A-16 and 19:27A-17) lays down the rules for the hypothetical recall. The recall would either occur as a special election or on a general election date, but that would be decided in the original petition to be supported (or not) by the public. During the election campaign, the recall committee will have to follow all the campaign contribution rules of a regular campaign committee during the election, as would the "recall defense" committee (Menendez could transfer his money to it.) Can you imagine how negative that campaign would be?
Once recall election day rolls around, the ballot would have the following language as the first question:
Shall Robert Menendez be recalled from the office of United State Senator?"
...with the choice of "Yes" or "No." The actual ballot will not have any reasons for the recall, although the sample ballot will. If "Yes" gets a majority, Senator Menendez's term would terminate upon the certification of the election results. (Again, we're hypothetically assuming the courts have approved the recall and the U.S. Senate will accept the results.) If "No" gets a majority, Menendez continues as if there had never been a recall election. Furthermore, he'd be safe from recall for another year. Oddly, our genius legislators actually wrote the law without any provision for a tie, which would not be a majority of "Yes" or "No," but perhaps I am getting way too hypothetical.
Now, because this is a recall election for a U.S. Senator and not a Governor or a Legislator, the ballot would also elect a successor with the second question:
Nominees for successor to Senator Robert Mendendez in the event he is recalled.
Rob Andrews
Frank LoBiondo
Len Flynn
Gregory Pason
Whoever gets the most votes wins, if and only if "Yes" wins the recall. Now, for this ballot, I chose Rob Andrews for the Democrats to annoy Senator Lautenberg, Frank LoBiondo to annoy the Tea Party, and a couple of independents from the actual 2006 election. In real life, I wouldn't get to choose the ballot--the major party nominees would be chosen by the state committees (19:13-20). The recall law is clear that Bob Menendez could be the nominee for the Democrats. Independents could qualify by petition: "Candidates may also be nominated within that time period by petition in a manner similar to that used for direct nomination by petition for a general election." Since those petitions are not that easy and they'd have about 14 days, I don't think we'd see as crazy a ballot as the California Davis recall. In particular, there would be only one Democrat and one Republican with party approval. Yes, Menendez could hypothetically be recalled but be chosen by the voters as his own successor, which seems to me would have no effect at all.
Since we're having fun, what about if we recalled Governor Chris Christie by collecting that astonishing 1.3 million signatures and then winning the recall election? The Lt. Governor, Republican Kim Guadagno, would just be promoted to Governor for the remainder of the term. |
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