Price Cuts
Activists in California’s Alameda County — where I live — are attempting to recall District Attorney Pamela Price, who took office after winning more than 53% of the vote in the November 2022 election.
When I worked for the University of California, I was involved in litigation brought by Ms. Price, who prior to winning the district attorney job spent most of her career as a plaintiff’s attorney in civil cases. As a group, plaintiff’s attorneys do not play well with others. When you’re on the defense side, as I was, you grow accustomed to, even amused by, their pathological hostility. But Price stood out as especially mean and nasty, quite an achievement given the stiff competition. Nor did I think she served her client well; if someone needed a discrimination attorney and asked me for a recommendation, it would never have occurred to me to recommend Price.
So when she declared her candidacy for district attorney in 2022 (having lost the first time she ran, in 2018) I told anyone who’d listen that based on personal experience I considered her unqualified for the job: she wasn’t a good lawyer, and perhaps more crucially, she lacked the people skills essential to the post. I voted for her opponent.
Once she took office, the rest of Alameda County found out who she is. Among other astonishing acts of pettiness and ignorance of the law, she barred a credentialed journalist who had written critically of her from attending one of her press conferences. Even before then, many concerned citizens — including survivors of murder victims — had commenced the recall action.
But —
As unsuited to the job as I think Price is, I do not support the attempt to recall her. I don’t think the recall process should be used except in cases of corruption or other misconduct. Over the last few years in California, the recall process has been abused — at hefty cost to taxpayers — by losers seeking election do-overs. The most nefarious example is the pointless recall of Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021. Elections should be conclusive. If you disagree with the winners’ policies, organize to beat them next time around.
The recall forces don’t agree. Here is their (conspicuously broad) rationale for Price’s recall: “DA Price is failing us in her responsibility to enforce the law, prosecute criminals, and keep violent offenders off our streets.” That may be true. But there’s nothing corrupt about it, and depending on how things unfold, it may not even be incompetent. She promised to be a progressive prosecutor, one who who would go easy on young offenders and treat black and brown offenders as themselves victims of a racially-biased criminal justice system. I have concerns about that approach — especially when it comes to violent criminals — but she won fair and square, so from my perspective she gets to implement her agenda.
The California Constitution supports the recallers, though. Article II, Section 14(a) states that “Sufficiency of reason [for a recall] is not reviewable.” No judge, jury, or public official gets to decide whether a recall has merit. If the required number of voters signs a recall petition, that’s merit enough. (We should know in the next two weeks whether the Price recall petition contains the required number of valid signatures.)
It’s not as if I’ll gnash my teeth and rend my garments if Price is recalled. But given the current political climate, I think it’s important to take things down a notch. Judging by the response to a ballot measure last month, most of my fellow Alameda County residents agree. Measure B, which makes recalling county officials more difficult, passed with nearly two-thirds of the vote.
I think those of us in the exhausted majority see California’s weaponization of recalls as damaging to democracy, intimidating public officials who seek to enact new strategies and forcing them to campaign and fundraise when they should be doing their work. I realize this plea is almost certainly in vain, but make it nonetheless: just because we can recall elected officials, including the nasty and unqualified ones, doesn’t mean we should.
