Recalls Are A Pain [Updated]

[Updated Nov 2, 2021 - For folks not in Anchorage, the recall has failed badly.  There are still by mail votes trickling in, but as of Nov1, No was well ahead.]  

While I'm strongly opposed to the Meg Zaletel recall, this post was supposed to mention that briefly as I talked about problems with recalls in general.  Not that they shouldn't happened when politicians act badly, but that they shouldn't be used to harass hard working politicians over policy disagreements with ridiculous technical violation charges.  

But as I tried to track down the details, I kept discovering odd things about the people behind the recall effort.  

Let me say here, Meg is a great Assembly member.  But that's why she's a target here.  These are an odd set of characters trying to get her recalled a few months before here actual reelection would come up.  (Though in fairness, court challenges delayed actual signature gathering.)

Sometimes blog posts often write themselves and I'm just the fingers that work the keys.  Right now there's a struggle happening with this post between me and the mysterious force that throws strange facts my way in an attempt to hijack a post.  This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I started.  

So let's use  the Meg Zaletel recall election as an example of an Alaskan recall vote.  

Step 1:  From the Alaska State Statutes:

"(a) An application for a recall petition shall be filed with the municipal clerk and must contain

(1) the signatures and residence addresses of at least 10 municipal voters who will sponsor the petition;"

Steps 2 and 3 and maybe 4, depending on how you count.  The Zaletel petition was rejected by the Municipal Clerk, but later approved - in part - by the Superior Court and then the Supreme Court.  

Step 5:  Getting enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot.

From Alaska Statutes:

 "the petition shall be signed by a number of the voters residing in the district equal to 25 percent of the number of votes cast in the district for that office at the last regular election held before the date the written notice is given to the contact person that the petition is available."

2019 District 4 Assembly Results

So, there were 9769 total votes cast in the district 4 Assembly seat election.  25% of that is 2442.  (Other sources say 2468).  I read a claim somewhere that they ended up with 4900 signatures, but I can't verify that.

You may notice that the person who came in second was Christine Hill.  She was the local Republican Party chair who passed out yellow stars of David at Assembly Meetings on mask mandates recently.  

Here's the district:

Basically, 

South:  Abbott Loop and a bit of Dimond

West:  Minnesota, C St, and Spenard 

North:  Campbell Creek, Lake Otis, 15th

East:  Along APU eastern border, a bit of Tudor, then Campbell Airstrip Road back to Abbot.

The original recall petition signed by, apparently, a group of 14 neighbors in Geneva Woods.  You only need 10 people to sign the original petition for the recall.  Then you have to get the rest of the 25% of people who voted in the election.  

This petition was ultimately accepted.  Another that claimed she limited public participation by limiting number of people who get go into the chambers was rejected because the Municipal Code explicitly allows for call in testimony.  

Basically, when there were over 15 people in the Assembly chamber, Zaletel (and all the other members present) didn't adjourn the meeting and leave.  Clearly a legalistic complaint that could have been made about all the other members of the Assembly.  And I'm sure the petitioners, who opposed the COVID restrictions, enjoyed the irony of using one as the basis of the recall.

The basic issue is that Zaletel is competent, rational, works hard, and but has different views - as does the majority of the Assembly - from the petitioners.  She also supported using the Golden Lion Hotel as a rehabilitation center.  The hotel is near the upscale Geneva Woods neighborhood almost all of the petitioners live in.  

As I was trying to track down details for this, I found several far right wing groups tracking this both in Alaska and nationally.  And we can see by the money being spent on this recall on both sides that this is much more than a typical recall.  This is part of the Trump encouraged attacks on all levels of government.  

OK, so that's what's happened regarding this current recall election which is a vote by mail election that ends on Tuesday.  

The $75,000 contribution to the recall campaign by Marc McKenna, head of McKenna Brothers Paiving, of course, raises questions.  One of the biggest users of paving are governments with streets to pave.  But I also learned that it was at a birthday party for Marc and his brother Matt in 2014, that the infamous Palin family brawl broke out.  I can't completely verify all that was reported in that link, but the BBC also reported on the party and quotes Marc's brother Matt.

So I really didn't get to say the things I was thinking about when I was contemplating this post so let me do it quickly now.

1. 
   It's hard to make a NO recall sign.  Look at the picture up top.  I think the NO RECALL part should have been bigger than Zaletel's name. Driving down the street you don't have much time to look and you can't be sure if the sign is telling you to vote yes or no because the no is too small.  [UPDATE Oct 25, 2021- walking through my neighborhood this morning I saw this]
   new and improved No Recall sign.  Compare to the one at top - the NO RECALL is much larger.]
2. It's important to have a recall option.  But it should be a little harder to get it on the ballot.  The problems with Meg Zaletel are NOT issues of her violating the law or misconduct.  These people don't like her politics and can't wait for the next election. 
3. They also tried to recall Felix Rivera in the last municipal election.  He represents District 4 with Zaletel.  That recall lost in the election.  BUT, that was a regular election.  More people show up at regular elections.  The recall crowd has more momentum in a special election.  
4. So, as good as Zaletel is, her not being recalled is not at all certain.  
5. That said, any day now there will be a recall drive started to oust Anchorage's Mayor Dave Bronson.  He's responsible, in my mind, of killing 50-60  people in Anchorage since taking office in July by not taking action to stem the spread of COVID.  In fact his actions have helped it spread rapidly making Alaska the top state in the country in terms of COVID infections per 100,000.  But the petitioners will have more specific violations.