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Alameda County voters will be deciding next month whether to change a section of the county’s charter that governs the recall of elected and appointed county officers.
Measure B, which is a measure that was placed on the ballot by the county’s Board of Supervisors after a 3-2 vote in November, aims to update Section 62 of the county’s charter by replacing current language with language that will make it so the county follows California state law that governs the recalls of county elected officers.
According to the ballot argument in favor of voting yes on the measure, the section in the county’s charter was passed in 1926 and because of the significant change in the county’s population and voting processes, changing the language to align with state procedure is warranted.
“Alameda County’s recall provisions are outdated, likely illegal as written, and need to be fixed,” according to the vote yes for Measure B argument. “The simplest and least costly course of action is to replace the existing recall provisions (Section 62) with those identified in state law.”
Alameda County Board Supervisors Lena Tam, Elisa Márquez and Keith Carson have all signed the ballot measure argument in favor of supporting Measure B and have all expressed their interest in fixing this issue as soon as possible, even with the fact that Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is currently facing a recall petition.
“We have the possibility of a recall, we are … in a situation where we practically cannot comply with our charter, because of the provisions that are outdated,” Tam said during the Nov. 14 supervisors meeting.
“We’re not going to be that motivated to do this when we’ve got so many other things as a practical reality in the future if we don’t make these corrections now which are needed now,” Tam added. “We owe it to the electorate to do our due diligence, get the corrections to the charters on the ballot and have them decide whether or not this is something we should move forward with.”
The measure would require a simple majority to pass on the March 5 ballot.
According to the impartial analysis by the county counsel for Measure B, the county charter’s current procedure to recall both elected and appointed officers from the county states that a set number of signatures of the recall petition has to be equal to at least 15% of “the entire vote cast within the county for all candidates for the most recent election for the governor.”
But according to that analysis, several current charter recall provisions are outdated or possibly unlawful, which creates uncertainty about how an election would proceed.
“For example, it is unlikely that the current charter provision requiring people who circulate recall petitions for county officers to be registered voters of Alameda County complies with current law,” the county counsel’s analysis claims.
It also states that the U.S. Supreme Court has found requirements similar to the ones in the current county charter for circulating recall petitions to be unconstitutional and that some timelines for the recall election in the current charter are shorter than those used in current state elections.
Those timelines include the number of days the Registrar of Voters’ Office has to verify petition signatures, which is 10 days, and the requirement that the election take place 35 to 40 days after the Board of Supervisors calls for the election.
“Current state law provides the Registrar of Voters with 30 days to verify petition signatures and in most circumstances provides for an election to take place within 88 to 125 days of the call to hold the election,” according to the analysis. “As a result, the current charter’s provisions create uncertainty about how a recall election would proceed pursuant to the charter’s terms. The Registrar of Voters would need to reconcile these provisions to create a process consistent with the existing law.”
If approved in March, the measure would delete those provisions and instead would state that, “California state law applicable to the recall of county officers shall govern the recall of County of Alameda elected officers.”
The argument to vote yes on Measure B states that the county is the only one in the state that “has recall election rules that substantially deviate from the state law’s key recall procedures.” It reads that adopting the change would align Alameda County with the rest of the counties and that by using state rules, it will make the recall election rules clearer and more transparent.
It also states that voting yes on Measure B would help avoid long and expensive legal battles that would be at the expense of the taxpayers.
“Here’s what we know: two of its provisions have been found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to the vote yes on Measure B argument. “Other provisions reference state laws that no longer exist. It’s a mess — and it will be challenged in the courts if we don’t fix it.”
However, one significant change that would come from the measure, if approved by the voters, is that county officers who are appointed could not be recalled, which matches the state’s law and procedures.
“We do not support using recalls to remove appointed officers,” the vote yes for Measure B argument states. “Elected officers are the people we can and should hold accountable for the work of the people they appoint.”
This is one out of many issues that opponents of Measure B have on the proposed changes to the charter language.
“Measure B would take away the people’s right to recall appointed department heads who abuse their power,” according to the rebuttal arguments against Measure B. “In 1926, Alameda County voters were guaranteed: ‘The charter would give the people the right to recall any appointee of the board.’ Measure B breaks that century-old promise.”
According to the rebuttal arguments for Measure B, Supervisors Nate Miley and David Haubert both oppose Measure B, which has been made clear during their statements in the Nov. 14 board meeting.
However, both said during the meeting that their reasons for not wanting to place the measure on the March 5 ballot aren’t because they necessarily disagree with the need to change the charter. They just didn’t think it was the right time to do so given that there is a recall campaign against Price and the fact that ever since the measure was first brought to the board’s attention back in October 2023, there has been a lot of confusion regarding the specifics of the measure.
“I do feel that appointed county staff shouldn’t be subject to a recall but, once again, I don’t think the timing is right to address that with a charter amendment that also deals with a recall that is complicated by an existing recall effort that’s presently afoot,” Miley said.
Other arguments that the rebuttal to Measure B states is that the measure will make it more difficult to recall bad public officials because it would require 27% more signatures to qualify a countywide recall, it would delay recall elections by several months and it would eliminate people’s rights to elect a replacement for recalled politicians and instead make county supervisors appoint a replacement.
The rebuttal argument also states that supervisors would be able to overturn any recall election by appointing the removed official back to the same office.
It also states the claim by the supporters in favor of Measure B that any recall efforts that are underway wouldn’t be halted is misleading.
“Recall campaigns are underway right now. Three county supervisors rushed Measure B onto this ballot to hinder them,” the rebuttal against Measure B states. “They are unfairly changing the recall law in the middle of the process.”
But according to the argument to vote yes on Measure B, “the rules for recalls currently underway will not change as long as they submit their signatures by March 5.”
