Legislation to lower the number of signatures needed to prompt a recall election advances from House Governmental Affairs. Instead of a calculation from the number of registered voters, the threshold of 30 percent is based on voter turnout from the election in which the official in question won. Eileen Carter spearheaded the No-Latoya recall in New Orleans…
“We’re asking for fairness and we’re asking for a way to get to a vote. Currently, that does not exist,” said Carter.
Founder of the southern Louisiana grassroots group, Home Defense Foundation, Mike Weinberger, said the current recall system is broken.
“This current system makes it impossible to recall an elected official,” said Weinberger.
Sulphur Representative Les Farnum also spoke in favor of the legislation. And while election recalls are not the norm, Farnum believes the option should be within reach.
“We ought to make it as easy as possible, within the boundaries of what’s reasonable, to set a recall election when you’re not doing your job properly, so the answer to all of that is to do your job properly,”
House Bill 212 passed in committee on a nine to three vote. The opposing votes were from Democrats.
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