Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Are recalls initiatives?
It has come to my attention that Attorney General Sinanian has been advising folks that the recall is an initiative, at least for the purposes of defining Primary Proponents and Opponents and for determining when the petition was turned in. While not bad policy, and perhaps the best we can salvage from election By-Laws which completely fail to consider recall elections, this interpretation isn't supported by anything right now. The Judicial Council may rule that such an interpretation is appropriate, as I have asked them about how these rules apply to recall elections, but it's premature right now to take it as decided.
Recalls are pretty clearly not initiatives. They are separately defined in the ASUC Constitution, and even have different voting dates (recalls within three meetings, initiatives at the next general election) and voting thresholds (2/3 for recalls, majority for initiatives). The recall petition was allowed to run online by the Judicial Council, which would be prohibited under the rules for initiative petitions. The election By-Laws conflate the initiative process (a set of rules for how petitions should be circulated) with initiatives (a constitutionally defined proposal), and suggest that the initiative process should also be used for Constitutional amendments (which are also separately defined from initiatives in the Constitution), but applying this process to recalls is a leap of faith already undermined by the Judicial Council's approval of online signature-gathering.
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