40 thoughts on “Recall: The worst idea in SC politics in a long, long time”

1. bud July 22, 2011 at 7:47 pm

   I agree in principal but in this state it won’t matter. It’s like restructuring. Until the people really understand how government works and what it can and can’t do all of these changes, for good or bad, will do nothing more than serve as an exercise in re-arrainging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
2. Juan Caruso July 22, 2011 at 8:51 pm

   Well, brad, no one can doubt your sincerity of opinion about recalls.

   What does surprise me is how such a “populist” necessity could engender such ad hominem on Nikki.

   Asa former editor, certainly you could introduce readers to a more substantive history of recall petitions in progressive states (e.g. California), and what you consider failures and absence of triumphs.

   as I clearly recall, their was a hue and cry not long ago in the palmetto state for the head of at least one governor. To that local allusion can be added the names of many lawyers who have been especially foul and corrupt.

   Senator John Edwards’s name leap to mind almost immediately. Of course, you are entitled to your inexplicable, conflicted, emotional opinions.
3. Brad July 22, 2011 at 9:53 pm

   Juan, if I had not been in such a hurry, I probably would have expressed myself more elegantly than “It’s a bad idea, so Nikki Haley’s for it.” There IS a certain frustrated peevishness being expressed there, which affected my choice of words. So take what I said about the governor, or at least the way I said it, with a chunk of rock salt. That was Twitter writing, and it should have improved by the time I got to the blog.

   But, with regard to the ideas I am criticizing. I am not in the slightest bit “conflicted.” And I do find the fact that Nikki Haley would jump aboard with Democrats on this abhorrent idea to be quite revelatory of the reasons why I have had so many problems with her since her decision to pursue her recent rapid rise to power.

   It’s a perfect illustration of the problem with populism.

   I’ll go further. It was wrong of me to say, “It’s a bad idea, so Nikki Haley’s for it,” because there certainly is NOT a 100 percent correlation between the two concepts. Our governor not ALWAYS wrong. Far from it. Certainly not by MY standards, at any rate. For instance, she advocates things that I’ve pushed for nearly a generation, such as restructuring to put the executive in this state on an even level with the legislative (along with an independent judiciary, of course).

   But here’s an interesting thing to consider, something that I doubt the governor has considered (and if she has, she has dismissed it too easily): The impulse that leads people to consider ideas such as recall just happens to have been used very effectively to prevent restructuring. Opponents of eliminating the Long Ballot — the independent election of executive department heads such as the superintendent of education and the commissioner of agriculture — have used the very same emotional argument that our governor uses in defending her stance for recall. They say you must NOT take the power to make a certain decision away from the voters (even though you could easily demonstrate that vast numbers of voters know next to nothing, and perhaps nothing at all, about the candidates in those down-ballot races, which calls the value of this power into serious question). And our governor expresses the precise same thought, or perhaps I should say, sentiment: “Anything that empowers the voters, I’m always going to support.”

   As it stands, too many of our elected officials — particularly those whose terms are only two years — spend most of their time campaigning for the next election, rather than settling down to study issues in order to determine the best approaches for dealing with them. Why study an issue in any depth, after all, when you’re looking for nothing deeper than a campaign slogan, a bumper sticker?

   Our governor is perfectly comfortable with this, because she is in perpetual campaign mode, with her campaign staff in her office. And folks, that is a BAD thing for the voters, not empowerment.
4. Brad July 22, 2011 at 10:04 pm

   As for giving you some sort of historical overview on recall — I’m sorry I haven’t had time to put anything together on those lines. Today I’ve only had those few minutes in which I posted this, and these few minutes now that I’m spending on these comments. And I’m going to hit the sack soon because I have to get up at 7 or earlier on Saturday in order to be somewhere.

   But here’s the Wikipedia treatment on recall in the United States, which provides an overview.

   And here is a column I wrote on related ideas in 1998, in response to a Leonard Pitts column:

   Impeachment and removal are . . . a means by which to overturn an election, to undo a decision of the people. Yet the people have made themselves abundantly clear: They don’t want this decision undone.
   -Leonard Pitts

   In the above passage from a recent column (which we ran on Friday), Miami Herald columnist Pitts acknowledges that the Framers wanted to make sure that there was a mechanism for overriding the judgment of the people with regard to the presidency. Then he immediately suggests that the people should decide whether they will be overridden.

   But if the mechanism’s purpose is to override the judgment of the people, why should the judgment of the people stand in the way of the mechanism’s being employed?

   The answer is that it shouldn’t. If the members of the U.S. House of Representatives determine that a president should be impeached, then their job description requires that they impeach him, regardless of the polls. If the Framers had wanted the voters to make the decision, they would have said the president is subject to removal by a recall petition . Instead, they wrote that “The House of Representatives . . . shall have the sole power of impeachment.”

   A main organizing principle in the Constitution is the idea of checks and balances. Most of us understand that and applaud, to the extent that we see the wisdom of checking the executive with the legislative, and the legislative with the judicial. But the Framers also saw fit to check the electorate, with the impeachment process.

   That is not as popular. But it is an important part of our system. Mr. Pitts largely dismissed that fact in his column, which spoke instead to the completely opposite, and popular, notion that it is “the height of arrogance” for elected representatives to ignore “what they’ve been told by their ostensible bosses,” the people.

   Mr. Pitts admits that “lawmakers sometimes have a duty to do the unpopular,” but not when it means they’re “out of touch.”

   Well, which is it? Should they go by what they learn from being “in touch” or by conscience?

   I would say the latter. And so would have the Framers of our Constitution.

   And so would George Will, obviously. In his column on the opposite page, he offers a brilliant explanation of the virtues of the republican form of government. And yet, I still felt the need to write this column because I’m not sure Mr. Will’s elegant assertions are likely to win many converts.

   If you instinctively disagree with him, you are likely to find his apparent elitism as obnoxious as I find Mr. Pitts’ extreme populism.

   But you shouldn’t, because the idea that representative democracy is better than direct democracy is not based in the notion that elected representatives are smarter, more virtuous or in any other way superior to the people at large. It is based in the tested assumption that people who are delegated to represent their peers, and who therefore go off and study and debate issues, are in a better position to pass judgment on those issues than are the people who stayed at home.

   Take the average person off the street and require him to participate in the deliberative process, and he will generally render a better decision than he would have if you had left him on the street.

   People tend not to believe that these days. Mass media are part of the problem. Folks tend quite naturally to think that because they are immersed in news about Washington – blasting at them from their radios, beamed at them from televisions, tugging at them from their newspapers and magazines and Web pages – that they have formed judgments as sound as those they would form if they were in the Congress themselves.

   But they’re wrong about that. I know. For 20 years – as reporter, assigning editor, editor in charge of deciding what went on the front page – it was my job to be far more immersed in the news than non-journalists have to be in their worst nightmares. I had to know, and be able to explain, what was happening with regard to a bewildering array of local, national and international issues. But I was not required to make judgments about what should happen or to stake my reputation on that judgment.

   When I moved to editorial in 1994, it did become my job, not only to decide what I thought should happen, but to put it in writing for all to see. I quickly learned the difference between merely having the information and being required to process it into conclusions that can stand up to scrutiny. And I had to do it in consultation with a number of other people who may or may not approach the issue from the same perspective as I did.

   It had a humbling effect. It caused me to see many of my previous judgments – well-informed though they might have been – as insufficient. That’s because they weren’t tested to the same degree.

   Am I saying I’m a lot smarter than I was before? Maybe. But mostly in the sense that I realize how little I really know for certain.

   One thing I think about now, that I didn’t think about before, is this: What if, instead of having merely to decide what public policies (in my opinion) should be, I had to decide which public policies would be?

   That’s a daunting prospect. It demands a certain respect for the burden borne by elected representatives – even when the judgments they reach are different from my own.
5. Brad July 22, 2011 at 10:23 pm

   Note that last sentence. Perfectly true. Which leads to my dismay at my own impatience with our governor. It arises from my belief that she does NOT take these burdens as seriously as she should. But I could always be wrong about that, couldn’t I?
6. bud July 23, 2011 at 9:17 am

   I could always be wrong about that, couldn’t I?
   -Brad

   Sure you could. As a statistician I fully understand that ANYTHING is possible. But you have to play the odds. In the case of Nikki Haley the odds are pretty overwhelming that her decisions and choices will not advance the prospects of this state for a better future. But there is always a tiny chance that we’ll be wrong.

   Let’s take another example to illustrate this point. George W. Bush seemed like a reasonable sort of guy in the 2000 election. Setting all the craziness of that election aside I wasn’t really concerned that Bush would govern much differently than his dad. Although that wasn’t ideal it was at least tolerable. So the odds were good that our country would be okay after 8 years of a George W. presidency.

   Well those odds were disasterously wrong. Bush was a horror to this country in every possible way. He defied the odds and became the worst president since at least 1932. On top of that he proved to be a seriously unlikable sort to boot.

   Bottom line: Haley could end up as a decent governor. It probably won’t matter much since the governor has little power. Still, odds have been proven wrong before. Perhaps Nikki will prove us all wrong in the end. We can only hope.
7. Cicero July 23, 2011 at 12:22 pm

   Bud,

   I think it’s a little early to say whether George W. Bush was the worst president since 1932. Plenty of people found fault with Johnson, Nixon and Carter, not to mention Clinton.

   It often takes decades to assess a chief executive’s accomplishments.

   This is to neither laud nor malign George W. Bush. But if I recall correctly, Truman, for example, had horrible polling numbers during his presidency. Today, he’s rather well regarded.
8. Tired old man July 24, 2011 at 12:48 pm

   Recall is an initiative permitted the voters to respond to outrageous official conduct.

   Right now recall is a one-side affair, as the incumbent can always resign.

   The Greenville News calls for Ard’s voluntary resignation today.

   “The violations, taken as a whole and mixed in with some of his responses to Ethics investigators, make it clear that Ard should not continue to serve as lieutenant governor.”

   But it is not the ethical violations at issue here. Those have been adjudicated and Ard has been fined. To hold him criminally accountable likely would be double jeopardy.

   What is in play, however, is the absolute certainty that Ard perjured himself (or caused to have his legal advisor provide misinformation to an official body).

   That’s why he has to go, and will go.
9. `Kathryn Fenner July 24, 2011 at 1:23 pm

   How could anyone honestly think Clinton was among the worst Presidents? He had sex with an intern and lied about it. Otherwise, he ran the country exceedingly well–

   Nixon was an awesome President, until he crossed a serious line directly related to his being President.

   I disagreed with most of his policies, but I can admit that Reagan was a good President….
10. Brad July 24, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Here’s an interesting thing to consider, folks…

    Clinton — even without the lying, even with “just sex,” as his defenders like to say — did something that CEOs would be fired for. He was getting it on with the lowliest, most powerless person in the White House organizational chart, and doing it at the office.

    Ard mishandled some money, not in office, but having to do with his campaign. He’s paying it back.

    I say this not to defend Ard, but to point out that most, particularly most liberals (such as those who were out for Clarence Thomas’ head for making suggestive remarks at the office), would consider Clinton’s actions more egregious, if they were not inclined politically to defend him.

    As for Ard — the answer to the question in the lead headline in the paper today, “Does South Carolina need a Lt. Gov.?”, is “No.” Whether he goes or stays is of little consequence. I’ll be content either way.
11. Brad July 24, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    But — and here’s the point I was going to make, and forgot: If political officials had the honor to resign when they should, as Clinton should have done, and Ard should do, we wouldn’t be talking about recall. So I understand the emotional center of such calls.
12. `Kathryn Fenner July 24, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    Clarence Thomas did a whole lot more than “make suggestive remarks at the office” and Supreme Court is forever–no do-overs. There was absolutely no evidence that Anita Hill was anything other than grossed out, unlike Monica “Thong” Lewinsky. Plus, we would not have known anything about Monica L if there hadn’t been an unprecedented and unjustified witch hunt, courtesy of Ken Starr!
13. Steven Davis July 24, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    Isn’t it interesting that Andre’ comes out looking good when compared to Ard? Reminds me of the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for.”. To defend Ard, I don’t know if he has done anything that everyone else in the Statehouse has done, he just got caught.
14. bud July 24, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    If we had had a recall situation for POTUS back in 98 Clinton would have easily been re-elected. The public was absolutely correct on that issue.
15. bud July 24, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    What the Clinton situation involved was a GOP hatchet job on a dead-end Whitewater witch hunt. They happened to stumble onto a consential sexual fling that they exploited for purely political advantage. Clinton needed to fight this witch hunt and to resign would have been to give in to the disgraceful assault by the most disgusting elements of the GOP. Brad’s contention that Monica Lewinsky was somehow a victim is laughable. She kept the damn dress as a trophy for Pete’s sake. That just doesn’t square with this victim claim.

    As for Ard, he could be important is something happens to Haley. He needs to go.
16. Doug Ross July 25, 2011 at 9:09 am

    Saying Ard “mishandled some money” significantly understates the issue. “Mishandle” implies some grey area of activity that could be considered open to interpretation. What Ard did was willfully disregrad the clearly stated ethics rules related to campaign spending. He bought stuff with campaign funds for his own personal use. He also apparently lied multiple times to cover up his spending including making up a story about a trip to D.C. to see Senator Graham.

    Any regular public employee who did the same thing would be on the street very quickly without an option to resign. If Ard doesn’t have the moral backbone to resign (which evidence seems to imply he doesn’t) then he should be kicked to the curb.
17. Brad July 25, 2011 at 9:58 am

    It’s fascinating… arguments really don’t change over time, do they?

    Democrats’ very favorite defense of Clinton is the one I mentioned before — that it was “just sex.” Which is both untrue, and so what if it was? That alone was a firing offence. It CERTAINLY was something that would induce an honorable man to resign.

    Their second favorite was what we heard from Kathryn and Bud just now — that if there had been no Ken Ard, I mean Ken Starr, there would have been no lying. That is to say, no “lying” in the sense of falsehood, rather that in the archaic sense of “to lie with a woman.” Because we still would have had the second sense; he just wouldn’t have been caught committing THAT firing offense.

    That’s such a bogus argument. Let’s see, if aliens from outer space land, and in response the president does something that is wrong and dishonorable and illegal, he should not answer for it, because it was the aliens’ fault? Come on!

    Bill Clinton didn’t become an exploiter of women and a liar because of Ken Starr; it’s the way he was.

    Whitewater was one of the most foolish wastes of time in the history of political “scandals.” A total waste of time. It was a disgusting, tiresome display, and I barely paid any attention to it, but just waited and waited and waited for it to be over with.

    And then, much to my dismay, it accidentally turned up something that was a real problem, a real firing offense. And I could see that it was going to be traumatic for the country. I just had no idea HOW traumatic, or how deeply Democrats would resent it, or how long they would cling to that resentment. (That was really the most surprising thing about it. Newspaper editors were used to being despised and yelled at by conservatives; we didn’t get that from liberals because THEY thought, as did conservatives, that we were on their side. They were wrong, but at least their misperception kept them from bitterly yelling at us. Until Clinton.)

    I hated Whitewater, and longed for it to end. I also hated that the Lewinsky thing came up; I think it would have been great for the country if we had never learned just how bit a cad and a liar the president was.

    But we did find out. And the proper response was for him to go. Not to put the country through the trauma of impeachment, but simply to go.
18. bud July 25, 2011 at 10:26 am

    Democrats’ very favorite defense of Clinton is the one I mentioned before — that it was “just sex.”
    -Brad

    NOT TRUE! Clinton had an affirmative duty NOT to allow the scoundrels in the GOP to get away with a disgusting political witch hunt. That’s the critical argument.
19. bud July 25, 2011 at 10:29 am

    And then, much to my dismay, it accidentally turned up something that was a real problem, a real firing offense.
    -Brad

    Wow. What an unbelievable, and frankly sick, interpretation. You’ve outdone yourself here Mr. Warthen.
20. Brad July 25, 2011 at 10:29 am

    Wow. He had “an affirmative duty” to get away with his own contemptible conduct, because of the way the Republicans were behaving?

    Wow. Wow.

    You know, if Democrats are going to wait for Republicans to behave before THEY start behaving, we’re in for a long, long wait.
21. Brad July 25, 2011 at 10:33 am

    I’m like, “Wow.”

    And Bud’s like, “Wow.”

    We’re having a real dialogue here…
22. Karen McLeod July 25, 2011 at 11:00 am

    The Constitution makes no provision for recall by the people. Which is a good if statesmen are elected, and if those elected strive to put the common interests of the state or country first. However, when it has come to the point where the elected legislators prioritize their goals as 1) get re-elected, and 2) make sure the other party does not, then their decisions regarding impeachment/removal of any elected official are likely to be questionable, if not unethical. Our political situation has devolved to this low point. Now what do we do? I agree that pure democracy is unwise (and probably one of the worst tyrannies available to humans). At the same time, there needs to be a way to get the worst culprits out. I suspect, Brad, that your response is to hold the legislators accountable at the next election, but the elections are essentially being bought by those legislators who curry to those who have the big money, so unless those folks want a legislator out, they’ll keep buying the commercials that keep getting those guys elected. I, personally, don’t see an answer. However, I do think we need some means of getting rid of the baddies while the situation is fresh.
23. bud July 25, 2011 at 11:14 am

    The Waterwater episode was the event that turned American politics on it’s head. Until then the 2 parties disagreed on the substance of POLICY issues, some times very passionately, but were not focused on personality politics and hate-mongering. Then somehow the GOP started this investigation of something that occurred BEFORE Clinton even became POTUS. No one distinguished themselves well during that whole episode. And I don’t defend Clinton for his cadish (though non-impeachable) behavior. But the long-term implications of this were to change the political discourse in our country to making things personal, rather than policy oriented.

    The GOP is much, much better at this game than the Democrats. When George W. Bush actually did commit an impeachable offense by lying us into war the Democrats were helpless to respond. Of course they didn’t control congress until late in Bush’s presidency so the timing was not the best.

    Still, it’s pretty clear from all that has transpired over the last few years that the GOP has lost it’s way in dealing with issues in a grounded, rational way. The Democrats and Democrats alone stand in the way of a complete meltdown of our nation at the hands of the Plutocrats.
24. bud July 25, 2011 at 11:15 am

    Whitewater of course.
25. Brad July 25, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Clinton DID commit an impeachable offense, and he WAS impeached for it.

    I thought that was appropriate, even though I was sorry to see it come to that.

    Then the Senate failed to convict. I also thought that was appropriate. I did not want to see him forced from office.

    All I wanted was for him to do the right thing, and resign. But he did not have it in him.
26. Doug Ross July 25, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    I agree with Brad on Clinton. It wasn’t just what he did, it was who he did it with, where he did it, and what his job was at the time. It was also how he responded to the allegations.

    Clinton’s escapades were far worse than Mark Sanford’s and I thought Sanford should have resigned immediately.
27. Doug Ross July 25, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    But let me repeat, Ard should be gone immediately as well whether by his own choice or by whatever means necessary to force him out.
28. Brad July 25, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    Doug, you’re totally right about Sanford. He should have resigned immediately.

    And you’re right that what Clinton did was worse.

    What makes it hard for Democrats to see that is that they believe — and they are completely right — that Clinton was a much better president than Sanford was a governor.

    But that doesn’t change the fact that what Clinton did in that case made it imperative that he resign.
29. bud July 25, 2011 at 12:35 pm

    But Clinton didn’t resign. How did that make the country worse off? Clinton stayed on and the country was much better because of it.

    And by the way I didn’t think Sanford should have resigned either for his sexcapade. But he did abdicate his duties as governor while doing so and didn’t fully inform his staff. That was the more more serious offense and possibly THAT was an impeachable offense. But not the sex.
30. Karen McLeod July 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    If you are talking about lying under oath, there’s a good arguement that he should have resigned. If you are talking about his sexual indiscretion(s), well in a perfect world he should have, but if all of the elected folk who have committed sexual indiscretions had resigned after doing so, we wouldn’t have had enough people left to run the country throughout history.
31. Doug Ross July 25, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    @bud

    I didn’t realized Clinton informed his staff of what he was doing while he was cavorting in the Oval Office alcove with Lewinsky. Or maybe he was multi-tasking at the time.

    @Karen

    Maybe if more people were forced to resign due to those types of indescretions, we’d have fewer people in the offices with a penchant for doing it. The issue is a society that doesn’t just forgive bad behavior but celebrates it.
32. bud July 25, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    At least Clinton’s staff knew how to get in touch with him during his romp in the Oval Office.
33. Steven Davis July 25, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    @Doug – You mean there was no appointment to “not have sexual relations with that woman” in his appointment book?
34. Burl Burlingame July 25, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    We ALREADY have recall. Called “elections.”
35. Karen McLeod July 25, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    @ Doug, at issue is that power breeds arrogance, a conviction that they don’t have to behave like everyone else.
36. Herb Brasher July 25, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    If Clinton had resigned, the next election would have gone differently. And that had enormous repercussions for everybody.
37. `Kathryn Fenner July 25, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @Karen–research suggests that politicians do behave just like everybody else–they just don’t behave *better* than everyone else, as they would have us think. Look at the statistics on infidelity…
38. Karen McLeod July 25, 2011 at 11:57 pm

    @ Kathryn, Ah, but most folks have the sense to hide their behavior a bit better. The various politicians seem to assume that they can get away with anything.
39. Burl Burlingame July 26, 2011 at 3:39 pm

    Politicians are Type A personalities who keep pushing the envelope, and they do so inside a cocoon. People like Sandford were perfectly capable of having an affair without anyone finding out about it, but they couldn’t help exposing themselves.

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