Democracy Is at Work, Maybe Overtime, in Recall Voting

Tuesday was a beautiful day in Cypress. The sun shone brightly, and a refreshing breeze blew. Birds chirped; school bells rang. Somewhere a tabby cat played with a ball of yarn, while a little nipper said something cute to his mommy.

Yes, it was a beautiful day, but every day is beautiful when democracy gets out of bed and goes to work. And that was the order of the day in Cypress, where, once again, Big D was called to action--this time in a recall against three City Council members who, according to their opponents, just don’t get the picture.

Democracy’s clarion call led me to a garage on Suva Street, just inside the city limits separating Cypress from Garden Grove and not far from the proposed carpet warehouse approved by the three council members over many residents’ objections.

On this day, the garage was serving as a polling site, graciously rented out for $35 by Bea Coffey, who confessed to some second thoughts after she contemplated the number of people who might want to traipse through the house and use the bathroom. But when I dropped by in midafternoon, things were going OK, she said. “They were having a hard time getting people [to rent their garages], so I said yes,” she said. “They asked me if I wanted to sit in there [as an election official], and I said no.”

Coffey said she isn’t politically plugged in, but she did vote Tuesday. “It looks like from what little I’ve read about these people that they didn’t do their jobs, so I voted yes.”

Democracy has no bigger supporter than me, except for those occasional private moments when I yearn for a benevolent dictatorship. When I mourn the republic, it’s when I suspect the process is being monkeyed with, which is how I view most recall elections. Supporters attach a purity to them that is pure fantasy--witness the Fullerton recall of 1994 when one of three councilmen recalled in June was reelected in November. The other two didn’t run, depriving us of the chance of a possible total restoration of the vanquished.

So, standing there outside Bea Coffey’s garage, I was working myself into a lugubrious lather when Christine Drake showed up. She wore an election official’s sticker, but she’s basically your average citizen who just happens to live nearby and was checking on things at the Suva Street polling site.

Drake’s involvement in Cypress politics dates to the early 1970s, when her College Park neighborhood was developing and residents got behind a bond issue for a park. Over the years came the usual assortment of issues, involving both city politics and the school district. “There were a few of us who said we wanted to make this a good place for our children to grow up,” she said.

Now 50, Drake is one of those citizens who knows what’s going on. A registered Democrat, she said she votes on the issues, not party lines. She doesn’t like the normal election processes monkeyed with either, she said, opposing term limits on the grounds that voters have the right to elect someone as often as they choose.

For that same reason, I suppose, she embraces recalls. “It’s the American way,” she said. “It’s only in a democracy where you can do something like this.”

But is it a good idea? I asked.

“The voting public is pretty intelligent,” she said. “They know what’s a good thing and what’s a bad thing. The only thing is that money can sometimes cloud the issue.”

Orange County has become recall nutty in recent years. Drake isn’t worried about that and says that the Cypress recall isn’t solely linked to the warehouse vote. “There’s more story here than one vote,” she said, “but I can’t talk about it.”

And you couldn’t wait until the next election to vote them out?

“If you let things go too long, sometimes you can’t undo them,” she said.

We parted company, and I was glad I ran into Drake. “I feel like I’m a true-blue American,” she said, and she sure sounded like one.

As long as Orange County maintains its recall fetish, we need well-informed people like her to keep the system from being skewed by special interests ambushing officeholders when most people aren’t watching.

Say, did someone mention recalls?

In another three weeks, we get to do it all over again for the Doris Allen recall. Cypress voters are among the anointed ones who will take part in that effort too.

Let’s hope the weather holds. Let’s hope it’s another good day for democracy.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.