Last Night's Surprise: Recall Amendment Referendum Passes

By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 3, 2010 7:40PM

If you voted yesterday and had to fill out the chad-free paper ballots, you received a second ballot asking if you were in favor (or not) of amending the Illinois Constitution to allow for the recall of a sitting governor. Call it yet another aftereffect of the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich.

With the Blago spectacle in mind, two-thirds of voters who went to the polls yesterday voted in favor of adding a recall amendment to the state Constitution.

If the Illinois Constitution does wind up being amended to include the power of recall, here's how it would work:

1. "A citizen or group of citizens gets mad and decides to try to recall the governor."


2. "The recall proponents get 10 state senators and 20 state representatives to sign on to an affidavit in support of recall. This needs to be a bipartisan effort, with no more than half the signatures from members of any given party. The affidavit is then filed with the state board of elections."


3. "The circulators have 150 days to collect what will amount to several hundred thousand signatures. The exact number is 15-percent of the total votes cast in the previous election for governor. To ensure geographic diversity, the petition will need at least 100 signatures from each of at least 25 Illinois counties."


4. "Within 100 days after the petition is turned in, the election board must determine whether enough signatures were collected. If all is good, the state has another 100 days to hold a special election for the recall of the governor."


5. "Candidates for governor will appear on the ballot at the same time voters decide whether to recall the sitting governor. This will act as the primary election."


6. "If the governor is recalled, the lieutenant governor will take over, and an election with the primary winners will be held within 60 days. The winner serves out the remainder of the recalled governor’s term."

Opponents of the recall amendment, like the ACLU and State Senator Barbara Flynn Currie, fear that the power of recall can be abused by special interest groups and political also-rans. Reasons for recall are not spelled out in the proposed amendment and there's a fear that politicians will become even more obsessed with polls in an effort to remove a governor that's in their way.

But there are two major reasons why some oppose the recall amendment. First, we can remove a sitting governor with the power of the ballot. The state Legislature also has the ability to impeach a sitting governor, as was proven with Blagojevich. As currently written, the recall amendment will face a court challenge from the ACLU. If you still think recall is a good idea, ask a Californian how Arnold Schwarzenegger ultimately fared replacing Gray Davis.