I Should Have Recalled Myself!

The Speech and Strategy That Gov. Gavin Newsom Didn’t Know He Needed

This is the speech Gov. Gavin Newsom should have given during the recall campaign, but didn’t.

I know a lot of you think this recall is pretty strange. But you don’t have to go far to find a recall that’s even stranger.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has spent the past couple years demanding a recall election. What makes his demand strange, and potentially historic, is the identity of the politician he wants to ask voters to remove: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

When I first heard about López Obrador’s self-recall, …

Your Recall Confusion Is Part of a Much Bigger Problem | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Your Recall Confusion Is Part of a Much Bigger Problem

California’s Elections ‘Don’t Match How Human Beings Think, Choose, and Vote’

It’s not just our recall elections that are broken in California. It’s all our elections that are broken.

Even before the voting started, Democrats and California elites were crying foul. And …

Sack Octavius and Newsom! The Recall Is as Old as the Roman Republic | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Sack Octavius and Newsom! The Recall Is as Old as the Roman Republic

The Tool for Removing Elected Officials Has Had Centuries of Champions—from the Levellers to Lenin

The recall—the tool being used in an attempt to remove Gavin Newsom as California’s governor before his term is over—might seem strange or novel. It’s neither. The recall is nearly …

California graves

Does the Recall Matter if Republicans Already Run California?

Whatever Happens in September Won’t Change the Fact That the State Is Ruled by GOP Members From Beyond the Grave

The big narratives around the recall campaign are wrong—because the things we, Californians, think we know about California governance are wrong.

The Republicans who want to remove Gavin Newsom from office …

California’s Recall Is Riding a Global Wave | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

California’s Recall Is Riding a Global Wave

From Nigeria to Brazil, Democracies Are Experimenting With New Ways for People to Hold Their Elected Officials Accountable

The recall attempt against Gov. Gavin Newsom is being widely—and wrongly—dismissed as a peculiar and illegitimate consequence of California’s strange direct democracy.

The truth is that the recall is very much …

Why Does San Diego Love Recalling Governors?  | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why Does San Diego Love Recalling Governors? 

Ambitions and Frustrations Churn in the ‘Most Unabashedly American of California Cities’

Why are you so desperate to seize the governorship, San Diego?

The attempted recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom has many geographic roots. Its original proponent was a sheriff’s deputy from …