The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals provided the latest twist in the already highly twisted California gubernatorial recall this week. It agreed with the ACLU that the use of punch-card ballots in several poorer districts would keep the votes of 40,000 Californians from being counted. Using Bush v. Gore as precedent, the 9th Circuit held this unconstitutional.
The case may now be heard by a panel of 11 judges of the 9th Circuit and will certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But it now looks likely that the recall will be put off until March, when newer voting machines are scheduled to be in place in all districts.
Hopefully, this postponement, in addition to avoiding the disenfranchisement of 40,000 voters, will allow California to reflect on and recover from the temporary insanity of the recall. Most of all, however, I hope that California Republicans will remember their long-standing respect for the nature of our political system.
My conservative friends have often reminded me that we live in a republic, not in a democracy, and while I think that "democratic republic" is closer to the truth, they have a point.
It is a point, however, that conservatives across the nation seem to be forgetting themselves.
The principle is simple. We elect politicians, let them serve their term and then decide if we want to re-up their contracts. Unless, that is, your state has recall laws. Like California. Only 12 percent of the electorate there needs to lend their signature to a petition supporting a recall election. After that, all a Californian needs to run is 65 signatures and $3,500.
While we all want responsive government, these laws are horrible ways of reaching that end. In states with recall laws, politicians are constantly running for election. Rather than be judged by their work over the course of their term, they can only be judged by the immediate consequences of their last policy.
Our system already promotes a political shortsightedness that can only evaluate policies in terms of their consequences two, four or six years down the road. These recall laws threaten to keep politicians from even that level of foresight.
California is not alone in its neglect of the important principles of our democratic republic. Like animals eating their young, conservatives in Nevada have launched a recall effort against Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn after he approved tax increases, much to the amusement of Democrats everywhere.
While gubernatorial recalls make the biggest media splashes, politicians at all levels of government have been targeted for politically motivated recalls, usually by voters who didn't support them in the first place.
Jeff Plale, my state senator, is only one example of this trend. Driven by the denizens of talk radio, the opponents of this conservative Democrat are attempting to recall him for the unspeakable sin of voting with his party in refusing to override a veto by our Democratic governor, a veto that allows underfunded school districts to raise the cash they desperately need.
These recalls are only a small part of a national phenomenon: Republican impatience. Time and time again, we have seen Republicans, unsatisfied with the results of an election, attempt to undermine the results rather than wait for their next chance. Most recently, Texas Republicans are succeeding in redistricting their state, which was last done just two years ago. By gerrymandering, the Tom DeLay-led effort will likely increase the number of Republican House seats.
Of course, the state wasn't supposed to be redistricted again until after the 2010 census, but Texas Republicans have ignored the question of whether they should redistrict, instead asking how they could get away with it. The Republicans end up the winners and the public and principle are the losers.
The California recall is yet one more attempt at this same result. This recall has plunged our political process into surreality. The 135 candidates include a billboard queen, a comedian, an adult entertainment star, a retired meat packer, a marijuana legalization attorney, a pornography publisher, several students, many lawyers and a middleweight sumo wrestler, among many others.
The leading GOP candidate has no political experience, announced his candidacy on a late-night talk show and is best known for killing people in movies -- well, also for becoming pregnant in Junior. But I digress.
This carnivalesque affair is costing already cash-starved California $60 million. The absurdity has even spread to the Penn campus, where Californians for Schwarzenegger lacks a single Californian.
But the saddest and most surreal aspect of this recall is how Republicans have abandoned republicanism. Perhaps with a few more months to think about it, California's conservatives will choose to put their principles above partisan politics. Call me cynical, but I'm not holding my breath.
Kevin Collins is a College sophomore from Milwaukee, Wis.
