Rash of O.C. Recall Efforts Testifies to Voters’ Mood

In the past three years, 19 recall attempts have been launched in Orange County by angry voters with axes to grind against their city councils and school boards.

So far, none have succeeded. Except for those currently ongoing, all have failed or have been abandoned, with two clear results:

Many weary elected leaders feel that it is open season on them because they are a close and visible target for people fed up with distant state and federal governments.

“People are extremely frustrated with Washington and Sacramento, but their only access is at the local level,” said Dana Point Councilman Mike Eggers, who was the target of a failed recall effort last year. “You can’t pigeonhole or corner the state assemblyman at the produce counter, but you can sure nail the city councilman.”

And many bruised veterans of unsuccessful recall campaigns have become cynical and dispirited, saying that the rules for petitioning to yank somebody from office are stacked against the people.

“City clerks try to ground you down and get rid of as many of your signatures as possible,” said W. Snow Hume, a leader of a recall attempt against four Fullerton city council members and its clerk.

He argued that the rules are devised to “keep the status quo” and keep recall efforts off the ballot.

It has been an exhausting process in Orange County, where 63 officials--city council members, school board trustees and a county supervisor--have been singled out for recall since 1990.

This era of unrest is marked by widely divergent causes as voters have been spurred to action on issues including tax hikes, development controversies, schoolbooks and a gay-pride parade.

Recall fever started with a failed effort to oust Mission Viejo City Councilman Robert Curtis over his support of a controversial annexation proposal in 1990. The recall qualified for the ballot, where it was whomped by more than a 2-to-1 margin, despite more than $500,000 spent on the campaign by Curtis’ foes.

Among all the recall efforts, only the campaign to dump Curtis has made it to the ballot. Eight others failed to get enough signatures to force an election, five were abandoned and five more have begun in the last three months and are still in progress.

Elected representatives and political consultants question whether this flurry of throw-the-bums-out sentiment is quite what Gov. Hiram Johnson and other reformers had in mind some 80 years ago when they adopted the recall process to control the corrupting influence of such powerful interests as the railroad.

“Recall efforts are the nuisance suits of politics,” political consultant David Ellis scoffed.

“Many are not even intended to get on the ballot,” he added. “They are intended to keep the incumbent off balance so he can’t raise money for his reelection. It’s the way to keep the heat on somebody in a (non-election) year.”

Before the string of failures, the last successful recall in Orange County happened in 1989, after Fountain Valley City Councilman Fred Voss pleaded no contest to a charge of soliciting a prostitute.

Normally, though, it isn’t easy to remove somebody from office.

“It’s really tough to recall someone who has been elected, even on a local city level, unless you can prove they have done something that is above and beyond their responsibility,” political consultant Eileen Padberg said.

However, what qualifies as an offense worthy of recall is in the eye of the beholder.

For example, a group of parents last month launched a recall campaign against four trustees of the Anaheim Union High School District, claiming the trustees failed to ban offensive books from the classroom.

The parents are upset because trustees didn’t ban “Ordinary People” and “The Great Santini.” Trustees upheld a committee that recommended keeping the books on an approved reading list, although they placed restrictions on “The Great Santini.”

“We did this because we felt there was nothing left for us to do,” said Treva Brown, a leader of the parent group. “I never would have thought of it except one night (board President R.A. (Molly)) McGee said ‘If you don’t like what we are doing, recall us.’ She gave us the idea. Maybe she thinks we can’t do it. . . . But we’re absolutely determined.”

Some political observers believe that recall efforts based on narrow issues such as schoolbooks rarely succeed.

Such issues, they maintain, just don’t rile up a broad enough spectrum of voters willing to put in the time, money and energy needed to get the recall on the ballot.

And as many architects of recall campaigns are painfully learning, the process is frustrating.

The first step in a recall effort is simply giving the targeted officials a letter with 10 signatures notifying them of the intent. After that, the process gets much more complicated.

Recall advocates must write a petition that must be approved by the city clerk or the county registrar of voters. The state election code regulates such things as margin spacing, print size and readability.

Often, a city clerk or registrar rejects a petition many times for procedural reasons before it is approved.

Then, recall leaders must get signatures from 10% to 25% of the registered voters in the city or school district. The smaller the city or district, the higher the percentage of signatures needed. Signatures must be gathered within 90, 120 or 160 days, depending on the number of voters.

Almost all recall efforts fail at this point, either because of a lack of signatures or because recall campaigns simply lose steam.

Eddie Rose, who led a failed recall attempt against four Laguna Niguel council members in 1990 in a squabble over an environmental protection initiative, said his drive didn’t get enough signatures because he didn’t have enough volunteers.

“It very much needs to be a team effort,” Rose said. “You have to have enough people who are not going to be intimidated.”

Even when a recall measure qualifies for the ballot, it is hard to win a majority of the votes in a special election when voter turnout is traditionally low.

Sometimes money and strong organization aren’t enough, as the Mission Viejo Co. and others learned when they spent the most money on a municipal recall campaign in state history and still failed by a wide margin to oust then-Councilman Curtis.

“You have highly educated voters who understand that people should not be removed willy-nilly from office simply because of controversial issues,” Curtis said. “Recalls really should only be used when there is a malfeasance in office. And I think people understand that.”

Hume, involved in trying to recall the four Fullerton council members and the city clerk, says the rules are “too onerous.”

“It’s a tremendous burden,” he said. “The state needs to rethink the requirements.”

But others argue that a successful recall should be the toughest thing in politics to pull off.

“Most people believe that we already have a good way to kick someone out of office--un-elect them the next time they run,” said Sandra Suthpen, chairwoman of Cal State Fullerton’s political science division.

O.C.Recall Attempts Since 1990 Date: 9/93 Place: Anaheim Who: Bob D. Simpson , Frank Feldhaus Reason: Street vending Outcome: Ongoing *Date: 9/93 Place: Anaheim Union High School District Who: Joanne Stanton, R.A. (Molly) McGee , Beverly Yourstone , Robert Stewart Reason: Book dispute Outcome: Ongoing *Date: 9/93 Place: Westminster Who: Charmayne S. Bohman, Charles V. Smith, Tony Lam, Craig Schweisinger Reason: Fire Department budget cut Outcome: Ongoing *Date: 7/93 Place: Stanton Who: Sal Sapien Reason: Utility tax Outcome: Ongoing *Date: 7/93 Place: Fullerton Who: Molly McClanahan, Don Bankhead, A.B. (Buck) Catlin, Anne M. York Reason: Utility tax Outcome: Ongoing *Date: 5/93 Place: Yorba Linda Who: John M. Gullixson Reason: Attempt to form high school Outcome: Abandoned *Date: 4/93 Place: Orange County Who: Harriett M. Wieder Reason: “Anti-business” bias Outcome: Abandoned *Date: 4/93 Place: San Clemente Who: Joseph Anderson , Scott Diehl, Truman Benedict, Candace Haggard Reason: Merged Police Department with sheriff Outcome: Petition drive failed* Date: 6/92 Place: Dana Point Who: Mike Eggers, Eileen Krause Reason: Development plan Outcome: Abandoned *Date: 4/92 Place: Orange Unified School District Who: Five trustees Reason: Demotion of three principals Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 9/91 Place: Westminster Who: Charles V. Smith , Craig Schweisinger Reason: Water rate hike Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 8/91 Place: Four Huntington Beach school districts Who: 19 trustees Reason: Property tax hike Outcome: Abandoned *Date: 5/91 Place: San Juan Capistrano Who: Kenneth Friess, Gary L. Hausdorfer Reason: Budget, tollway Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 5/91 Place: Brea Who: Wayne Wedin, Ron Isles, Carrey J. Nelson Reason: Conflicts of interest Outcome: Abandoned *Date: 3/91 Place: Stanton Who: Sal Sapien Reason: Civic center, auto yard Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 1/91 Place: Laguna Niguel Who: Paul M. Christiansen Reason: Environmental ordinance Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 11/90 Place: Laguna Niguel Who: Patricia C. Bates, James F. Krembas, Larry A. Porter, Thomas W. Wilson Reason: Environmental ordinance Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 3/90 Place: Santa Ana Who: Daniel E. Griset, Patricia A. McGuigan Reason: Gay pride parade Outcome: Petition drive failed *Date: 2/90 Place: Mission Viejo Who: Robert A. Curtis Reason: Slow-growth Outcome: Curtis won ballot measure by 2-to-1 margin Source: Individual cities, Los Angeles Times; Researched by ANNA CEKOLA and TERRY SPENCER /For The Times