Title: A Case for Recall Elections
Original CoS Document (slug): a-case-for-recall-elections
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Created: 2022-12-28 13:00:43
Updated: 2022-12-29 08:44:17
Published: 2022-12-28 01:00:00
Converted: 2025-04-14T21:22:01.974260378
We know that Washington D.C. is filled with career politicians who have corrupted the merits of the Constitution. But what if there was a direct way for us to send them home?
The Ancients
When we look at the unique democratic component of our United States constitutional republic, we turn towards the Greeks of antiquity for guidance. Ancient Athens developed a system of direct democracy that empowered its citizens to participate in creating laws, administering the government of the city and presiding over court cases.
As is typical in democracies (ancient or modern), a single person or faction can quickly usurp political power to institute minority rule/influence over the population. Classical Athenian examples of this were the great populists, Cimon and Pericles. Cimon was a politician who used his great wealth to boost his influence over the citizens of Athens while Pericles used governmental positions to corner power.
Ostra-what?
To serve as a check to this accumulation of influence and power, ancient Athens periodically held a democratic exercise called ostracism. This process could eliminate any particular person from socio-political life in the city-state for a period of 10 years (regardless of guilt or innocence). In more modern terms, it was a general election that would require 6000+ ballots for any recall/expulsion action against a specific person to be taken. Each qualifying citizen would inscribe the person of interest’s name on a terracotta tablet to be counted. In reference to Cimon and Pericles, a general election was held and Cimon garnered the required 6000+ ballots for ostracism while Pericles did not.
Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions
Many municipalities and state governments in the United States have taken this ancient idea of democratic expulsion and transformed it into the idea of recall elections. Concerned citizens can utilize this exercise to send an elected official home who has lost public confidence because of public scandal.
Typically recall elections require a signature petition to be circulated among registered voters of a particular municipality or state for submission to the state Secretary of State for validation. Usually the requirement for submission is 20% of qualified registered voters before the Secretary of State authorizes a recall election to be performed.
Accountability for Congress
The people who serve the longest in Congress (ie Senators and their 6 year terms) stand to be the most immediately affected by recall elections. This doesn’t mean that a recall election couldn’t apply to Congressional Representatives as well. If a recall election provision is coupled with barring from public office for a period of 10 years, a US Representative who is long-served in the House of Representatives could be similarly affected as a US Senator. This coupled provision of barring from public office would in effect send a corrupt politician home permanently.
An Ancient Ideal for the Modern Era
Our Founding Fathers framed our government on the model of the Roman Republic coupled with the Greek model of Democracy. The authors of our Constitution knew that these governmental models were built on accountability to the public. To them it was understood that elected officials were answerable to the citizens of the United States and that they should have a say in the duration of their office.
The Congressional Delegation in Washington D.C. has discarded this notion and has usurped the government for their own personal gain. We can use a Convention of States to place a historical model of recall elections on Congress to help bring accountability back to the forefront of federal public office.