June 06, 2003
(Updated) 'Recall Summer' Begins As Second Campaign Changes Name, Disavows A Supporter, and Officially Files
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Well, where to begin. First off, Dave Lister -- of what once was the Better Portland Alliance but is now the recallvera.com PAC -- posted a comment to the previous item here (and to the Portland IMC thread referenced there), which begins with the following:
Public comments have been made by some people associated with the Better Portland Alliance which may make the group appear to be more reactionary than it is in reality.
One guess who it is they are essentially cutting loose with this remark, presumably to allow for a more consistent and level-headed public face to their campaign. In a related note, the recall story in today's Portland Tribune contains this tidbit:
RecallVera.com was started in April as the Better Portland Alliance by Southeast Portland activist Jack Peek. Family health problems have forced him to curtail his activities.
Whether a necessary withdrawal, a shunning by his cohorts, or some combination thereof, I wonder if this means we'll miss out on all the potential fireworks between Jack Peek and Marvin Moore.
At any rate, as indicated earlier -- and as evidenced by the missive which just came across via the new, but not yet officially launched City of Portland website's notification system -- the recallvera.com (nee BPA) campaign filed this morning, and here are the details from the Auditor's office.
What follows is the 200-word reason for the recall effort, as filed (but reformatted for publication here):
The petitioners propose to recall Mayor Vera Katz for malfeasance in office and abuse of power in the following matters: Utilizing the Portland Police Department to enforce, or fail to enforce, City, County, State and Federal Law according to her political views. Protesters are allowed to shut down the City when the Mayor agrees with their views. Refusing to cooperated with the FBI with regard to interviewing those who may have had information on terrorist organizations during a time of national emergency. Cooperating with an eco-terrorist during a downtown building ledge seizure despite a court order to the contrary from Judge Robert P. Jones. Causing fifty million dollars of fiscal waste in the undertaking of the P.G.E. Park Stadium and the failed Water Utility computer billing program. Causing fifty seven million dollars of fiscal waste in forgiven or diverted or diverted property taxes through urban renewal schemes which allow the 'well connected' to live in tax free properties. Allowing deterioration of the downtown core by failure to enforce vagrancy and drug trafficking laws. Increasing business license fees and creating zoning restrictions which have forced a multitude of businesses to leave Portland.
Now it's not like, from a political standpoint, these are somehow invalid complaints to have (not that I agree with them all by any stretch of the imagination). But many of them also don't rise to the level of the sort of malfeasance that warrants a recall campaign rather than, say, running a candidate to defeat Katz in the next election (if she runs).
As I finish this up, another notice just came in from the city website, explaining how these competing recall efforts will play out in terms of actual recall elections:
Oregon Constitution Article II Section 18 (7) states:
"After one such [recall] petition and special election, no further recall petition shall be filed against the same officer during the term for which the officer was elected unless such futher petitioners first pay into the public treasury which has paid such special election expenses, the whole amount of its expenses for the preceding special election."
NOTE: Per the Oregon Constitution, the first committee to submit signatures and have them verified would be the one to appear on the ballot. If that election does not result in the recall of the elected official, a second election would not be held until the second committee paid the City the costs of the first special election.
So there you have it. Portland now officially has two competing mayoral recall campaigns underway, only one of which (if either) will result in a recall election, since I can't conceive of either effort being able to raise the money for a second attempt should the first one fail.
And all of this just as we head towards the months in which various potential mayoral candidates are expected to announce their intentions, Mayor Katz included.
In some sense, it's not just the start of Recall Summer, but the start of the 2004 mayoral campaign as well.
Update
In the tiny bit about the recall campaigns in About Town item of today's Oregonian, there is the following:
Portland voters have never recalled a mayor, although mayoral recall efforts made the ballot in 1932 and 1914. The last successful voter recall of a City Council member came in 1952.
Earlier this morning, I asked Susan Francois of the City Elections Division if there'd ever before been a period in Portland history during which two competing recall efforts were operating simultaneously. "To my knowledge," said Francois, "it is the first."
Update
Then there's this KGW report, which fails to mention the RVKC effort, covers only the BPA effort, and asserts that the BPA campaign "recently filed a petition to recall Katz as mayor" which doesn't quite convey the fact of the matter, which is that they only just filed today.
Most of the report, in fact, the recycled from pre-existing statements by the BPA and Mayor Katz, which might explain the lack of context or apparent unfamiliarity with the underlying stories involved. It's just recycled press releases.
Comments (1)
The One True b!X on 06 Jun 2003
Interestingly, as an aside, the state publishes a manual about recalls.