Yes, you can recall the Red Queen, Jan Brewer

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

So here's the scenario: Let's say that the Arizona Supreme Court rules that the Red Queen, er, Governor Jan Brewer, acted in excess of constitutional and/or legal authority by removing the chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission later this month, and reinstates Chair Colleen Mathis. That would be an express rejection of the legal arguments advanced by the Governor and the Senate her Star Chamber, and their media echo chamber.

The Court will have expressly found that the Governor and Senators acted in violation of the Arizona Constitution.

Several readers have asked, "Can we impeach the Governor?" The technical answer is "yes," the practical answer is "are you kidding me?" Here is why.

The Arizona Constitution, Article 8, Part 2, addresses impeachment:

Section 1. The house of representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment. The concurrence of a majority of all the members shall be necessary to an impeachment. All impeachments shall be tried by the senate, and, when sitting for that purpose, the senators shall be upon oath or affirmation to do justice according to law and evidence, and shall be presided over by the chief justice of the supreme court. . .

Section 2. No person shall be convicted without a concurrence of two-thirds of the senators elected. The governor and other state and judicial officers, except justices of courts not of record, shall be liable to impeachment for high crimes, misdemeanors, or malfeasance in office, but judgment in such cases shall extend only to removal from office and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit in the state. The party, whether convicted or acquitted, shall, nevertheless, be liable to trial and punishment according to law.

Two words: "GOP super-majority." First, you will never get a simple majority in the House to issue articles of impeachment. Second, you will never get a two-thirds super-majority in the Senate to convict because in this particular case, two-thirds of the Senate, the GOP super-majority of 21, are co-conspirators with the Governor and aided and abetted her violation of the Arizona Constitution.

This lawless legislature is never going to consider impeachment. Period.

I anticipate that your next question is, "Can we recall the Governor?" There was a failed effort to recall the Governor earlier this year. Petitions were taken out, but the number of petition signatures gathered fell woefully short of the number needed to trigger a recall election. Which it turns out is a good thing.

The Arizona Constitution, Article 8, Part 2, Section 5 pertains to restrictions and conditions for recall:

Section 5. No recall petition shall be circulated against any officer until he shall have held his office for a period of six months, except that it may be filed against a member of the legislature at any time after five days from the beginning of the first session after his election. After one recall petition and election, no further recall petition shall be filed against the same officer during the term for which he was elected, unless petitioners signing such petition shall first pay into the public treasury which has paid such election expenses, all expenses of the preceding election.

There was a failed recall petition drive, and because it failed, there was never a recall election. There are no election expenses to be paid into the treasury, and there is nothing to preclude a second attempt to recall the Governor.

So the correct answer is "yes," the Governor can be recalled.

If there is going to be a serious attempt this time to recall the Governor, I would suggest the following. First, the effort needs to be run by skilled and experienced managers. Are Randy Parraz and Citizens for a Better Arizona available?

Second, it takes lots of money to raise the funds necessary to pay for paid petition circulators to collect the number of signatures necessary, plus a comfortable cushion. The effort needs to bring on board professional fund raisers.

Third, the timing is extremely important. Any recall effort should be timed in such a way that submission of the recall petitions would trigger a recall election at the general election in November 2012, when voter turnout will be at its highest during a presidential election year. You will need to do the math counting backwards from that election date to calculate when you should file to take out the recall petitions. And don't forget to calculate in the time it takes for election officials to verify signatures, as occurred in the Pearce recall election.

Finally, if you are successful in triggering a recall election, you should have a candidate with a campaign structure already in place and ready to go to collect enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot, and who has the name ID and capacity to raise huge amounts of campaign funds quickly, because this is going to be a hugely expensive recall campaign. All of those Citizens United groups, including the Governor's JAN PAC, will be dumping millions of dollars into this recall campaign.