Day: August 27, 2003

Grr. When all your representatives are busy, put me on hold. Please don’t ask me to try again later and then hang up on me.

Especially if, every time I call, I have to enter my account information and PIN.

Why do I think the California recall is a bad idea? Well, I tried to explain myself here, but I think this and this go a long way to explaining it, too.

Like Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who the state Republicans are trying to recall, “I believe someone who holds office should only forfeit that office if they’ve done something tremendously irresponsible or heinous, or if they’ve broken the law.” But why do the House Republicans want to change Pennsylvania’s constitution to allow a recall? Because he’s had the audacity, as House Republican spokesman Stephen Miskin says, to try and advance his agenda.

Tom Tomorrow quotes Charles Donefer, who writes:

If the recall wins and Tom DeLay can redistrict Texas in an off-year, then you can essentially kiss functioning political institutions goodbye for a generation. I’m not blowing things out of proportion here; I’m being completely serious. We used to have elections and redistricting at regular intervals. In between these political events was the actual governing, which is, depending on how you think, why you get elected in the first place or what you do to convince voters to re-elect you. Either way, there was a time to fight political rivals over who had control and a time to fight them over budgets, laws and the rest of the business of elective office. If redistricting or a recall election can be called at any time one party thinks it can improve its standing, then there won’t be time for governing. Right now, the Texas Senate isn’t doing the people’s business, they’re sniping at one another from across the state line – business has ground to a halt in that body.

You shouldn’t think that these are isolated incidents either. Democrats won’t stand for being on the defensive any longer. Already, there have been threats to redistrict Republicans out of Democrat-controlled states. If recalls go forward in other states, a Republican Governor could be in similar trouble very soon. I don’t think that Republicans know what they’re messing with.

Sure, we laugh at those silly Californians and make lame Terminator jokes about Schwarzenegger’s campaign, but is it worth it? I’ve been amused by the Recall Bush website and joked that Gary Coleman should use this as his campaign poster, but ultimately I think recalls do little to address the real problems of a state, but instead just make actual governing all but impossible, as Donefer says.

I ask again: when you don’t like an elected official’s policies, isn’t the normal course of action voting for someone else in the next election? Shouldn’t it be?

Taco Bell asks “Who says you can’t buy votes?” (Found through This Modern World.)

Walk into any Taco Bell in California between now and election day, and a beef crunchy taco will count as a vote for Arnold Schwartenegger. A chicken soft taco will be a vote for Gray Davis. And a grilled stuft burrito will be counted as a vote for “one of the other 134 candidates”. Schwartenegger is crunchy beef; Davis is chicken soft; and everyone else is just stuffed in there. Why, it’s almost like that thing they call humor.

I’d just like to mention again that I think this California recall election is a very bad idea.

I think there are three options: it’s going to rain, there’s an unexpected solar eclipse going on, or it’s the end of the world. This being State College, PA, my money’s on the rain. Although end of the world’s always a possibility.