Back in 2003, the California recall election of Grey Davis had over 100 candidates vying for the state’s top political spot.
The 2021 recall election will have substantially fewer options for potentially replacing Gov. Gavin Newsom, which may be good news for Californians tired of politicized drama.
California’s next governor could be a retired homicide detective, a marijuana reform advocate or a former mayor. Maybe the job will filled by a social media influencer, a tech executive-turned-pastor or a 1976 Olympic champion.Candidates fitting those descriptions and many more are on a state list released Saturday of 41 people who filed the required paperwork to run in the Sept. 14 recall election that could remove first-term Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.The lineup of candidates runs from the famous to the anonymous and includes 21 Republicans, eight Democrats, one Libertarian, nine independents and two Green Party members.
However, there is still drama to be had. One well–known name is mysteriously missing from a preliminary list that was just released: Conservative talk show host Larry Elder. Legal Insurrection readers will note that we reported on his entrance to the race, which was greeted with enthusiasm by independent conservatives through the state.
Elder is now disputing the list.
The official list of who’s running in California’s recall election of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom remained unsettled Sunday, with conservative talk radio host Larry Elder maintaining he should be included and state officials giving no details as to why he wasn’t.Secretary of State spokeswoman Jenna Dresner said all candidates who didn’t qualify were told why, but a spokesperson for Elder’s campaign said she did not receive any notification. The spokesperson, Ying Ma, said Elder submitted voter signatures from three counties and the campaign assumed the state hadn’t finished adding them together. Candidates must pay a nearly $4,200 filing fee or submit 7,000 signatures.Dresner did not answer whether Elder still had a chance to be included on the final list of candidates set for release Wednesday.
The Elder campaign believes his name will appear on an updated list being issued in the next few days.
Ying Ma, an Elder campaign spokeswoman, said she expected him to be on the final list of candidates issued next week. “Our campaign submitted every document required by the Secretary of State and the Los Angeles County Registrar” to qualify for the ballot, she said in a statement.It wasn’t immediately clear what requirement Elder failed to meet.
There was an on-line meeting of California’s conservative activists that focused on the recall election. Elder’s candidacy was greeted with great enthusiasm for a variety of reasons, including the fact he hails from Southern California and has a libertarian bent.
Should California officials be targeting his campaign already, that would be astonishing. It would also indicate how much the “Little Swamp” of Sacramento is concerned about this particular candidate. It would be hard to imagine a better endorsement for Elder.
Elder announced he filed suit Monday, “seeking an order from a court in Sacramento that would require Secretary of State Shirley Weber to list Elder as a candidate on the final certified list of candidates, scheduled to be issued Wednesday,” reports KTLA:
The Republican said in a statement late Monday that he filed all the necessary paperwork to qualify for a slot on the ballot, including over 300 pages of tax returns that are required to become a candidate. But the secretary of state’s office did not include Elder on a preliminary list of 41 candidates last weekend, saying he filed incomplete information on those returns.Elder’s campaign said he sued Monday, seeking an order from a court in Sacramento that would require Secretary of State Shirley Weber to list Elder as a candidate on the final certified list of candidates, scheduled to be issued Wednesday.“We’ve complied with everything the secretary of state has required of us,” said Elder, a popular voice on the political right whose show is nationally syndicated. “The politicians in Sacramento know I’m the only candidate who can beat Gavin Newsom. They are afraid, and they are using whatever shenanigans they can to try to trip me up. It won’t work.”“Frankly, this action by the secretary of state is not simply unfair and absurd but a dangerous and unconstitutional precedent,” said Elder, who also is an attorney.Meanwhile, the secretary of state’s office on Tuesday added another name to the list, making it 42 replacement candidates in the Sept. 14 contest. It wasn’t immediately clear why Democrat Armando “Mando” Perez-Serrato was a late addition.
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