| Recall would be a formidable and expensive undertaking. First, a recall initiative would require obtaining signatures of 25% of the registered voters in the state. Given the inevitable challenges to such a petition, to be successful , the recall advocates would probably need to gather signatures from 35% to 40% of the voters.
But the difficult challenge to a successful recall is not in the number of valid petitions. Any recall effort would mobilize the pro-Christie forces, and let's face it, the Tea Party GOP is much better organized than the progressive movement. Any recall effort would open the spigot of corporate money to the anti-recall forces. If a petition drive succeeds and a special election is targeted for November 2011, the initiative would fail, and this would ensure a large GOP turnout and allow them to easily take control of the state legislature. That would be the final nail in the coffin for New Jersey's middle class.
As I commented last March,
One of the things that separate Republicans from Democrats is that Democrats abide by the results of elections, while time and again Republicans act as sore losers and do whatever they can to subvert the electoral process.
Of course, the most egregious example of this Republican election nullification was in 2000 when the conservative-dominated Supreme Court unbelievably stopped the Florida recount and appointed George W. Bush president. But that's not the only example of Republican-backed election shenanigans. Back in 2003, when Bush's pal Ken Lay and his Enron Corporation screwed Californians with their energy price hikes, Democratic Governor Gray Davis was recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The acts that led to the protracted nightmare of the Bill Clinton impeachment hardly reached the status of "high crimes and misdemeanors" as prescribed by the Constitution, yet the Republicans spent over $50 million of taxpayer money pursuing this witch hunt. Even today, the "birthers" are relentlessly trying to undermine the 2008 landslide election of our first African-American president.
OK, you say - what about Richard Nixon? He was a Republican. But remember that the impeachment proceedings back in 1974 were for a real crime, and they gained traction when Republicans joined Democrats in calling for Nixon to resign. (Back then, many Republican legislators were honest.)
So while Republicans have no compunction to subvert the electoral process, Democrats believe in, and support, the results of elections. There was no serious effort to impeach George W. Bush, despite his disregard for the Constitution and due process.
What are the alternatives to recall? If the governor commits a crime, there's impeachment. But as a former prosecutor, if Christie has any skeletons in the closet, he certainly knows all the tricks to keep them hidden.
And suppose I'm wrong and a recall effort is successful. Then Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno becomes our governor. Given her political bent, her mediocre track record on the red tape commission, and her questionable ethics, would she be any better than Christie?
Our best approach is to organize, rally, cajole, and use the electoral process to keep both houses of the legislature in Democratic hands, work with the Senate and Assembly to ensure effective checks and balances against the country's most powerful governor, and identify, support, and promote a good progressive candidate to run in 2013.
America (barely) survived eight years of George W Bush. New Jersey can survive another three years of Chris Christie. |
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