Know your city charter
Update: Someone has got it in their head to try this. Via Hoggard, who has more.
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This story from my colleague Margaret Moffett Banks has prompted a lot of discussion in the local blogsphere, including a question by Laurie in the comments at Ed’s joint:
"Lord, if there is a way to recall her, I'd sure like to do it."
My current bailiwick is the state capital, but back in the not horribly distant past I covered the city council and got to know the city charter a little bit during the downtown baseball debate. For those of you curious about the answer to Laurie's question, click here and look up Chapter II of the City Charter, Subchapter D, Article 2, sub-section ( c ):
(c) (1) The voters of the city shall have the power, which shall be known as the recall power, to remove from office any member of the City Council.
More after the jump.
The provision works much the same (and is part of the same Subchapter) as the petition the folks trying for a local minimum wage ordinance want to use.
More from the subsection:
(2) Voters seeking the recall of any member of the council shall proceed by way of a recall petition addressed to the council identifying the council member concerned, requesting his/her removal from office and stating the grounds alleged for his/her removal. With respect to any council member elected at large, any recall petition must be filed with the city clerk and must be signed by qualified voters of the city equal in number to at least 25% of the qualified voters of the city who voted at the last preceding election of city council members. With respect to any city council member elected from a district, any recall petition must be filed with the city clerk and must be signed by qualified voters of that council member's district equal in number to at least 25% of the qualified voters of such district who voted at the last preceding election for its city council member.
To answer the logical next question, the County Board of Elections, 2,933 votes were cast for one of the two candidates in the last District 1 City Council election. That would mean a petition would need 734 signatures of voters in the district to trigger a recall election.
However, the statute could be argued to mean the number of people who showed up at the polls that day rather than those that actually voted in the race. Some people come out to vote for mayor and not their council member, or for a referenda on the ballot and not the council elections.
I don't have a quick and dirty way of getting that (probably) higher number from home. But if one assumes a 5 percent under-vote in the race, that would bump the number of needed signatures up to 770.
To answer the third logical question, I can't remember there ever being a recall election in Greensboro, and don't remember reading about one in my research on a history-heavy story I researched a few years ago. But I stand to be corrected on this point.
My guess - and it is only a guess - is that it has never been used because by the time anyone goes through all this rigmarole, the next city council election has rolled around anyway.
Comments (1)
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Interesting...even if we couldn't get enough signatures, maybe getting out the information would help in the next election.
Posted on February 27, 2007 7:42 AM