What is it?

This is a City Charter amendment that dramatically shortens the period of time when an elected politician may be recalled by the voters, and makes it illegal for an appointed successor to run for re-election.

Currently, voters may recall an elected official in the middle 75% of their term. Under this proposed law, it would be illegal to recall a politician for most of their term, leaving just 37.5% of the term when a recall is legal.

Legislative digest (PDF)
Full legal text (PDF)

Why is this on the ballot?

This is a City Charter amendment. All charter amendments must be approved by a 50% + 1 majority.

Sponsor: Supervisor Aaron Peskin
Co-sponsors: Supervisors Shamann Walton, Hillary Ronen, and Dean Preston
Placed on the ballot by: Aaron Peskin, Shamann Walton, Hillary Ronen, Dean Preston, Connie Chan, Gordon Mar, and Matt Haney
View vote details on legistar

Why vote no?

There are two great reasons to oppose this charter amendment:

1. If the law had been in place, the Board of Education recall would have been illegal. The Board of Education recall won with nearly 80% of the vote, so if you voted Yes then Aaron Peskin must think you're a criminal.
2. It bans the replacement from running for election. This is anti-democratic and likely unconstitutional, and disproportionately hurts women and minorities.

If you just voted Yes on the Board of Education recall (see our endorsement), then you should vote No on Prop C. This ballot prop would have made it illegal for you to vote for recall, and would have banned the three new Board of Education members from running for reelection.

Banning the appointed replacements from running for reelection for their own seats would not just disincentivize qualified people from accepting the caretaker appointment, but it would also disproportionately hurt women and people of color because they are more likely to be appointed to open seats. This isn't just an attack on democracy, it's an attack on equitable representation itself.

Timelines for recalls

To give you a good sense on the impact of Prop C, GrowSF made this spreadsheet, which compares the current law to Prop C. You'll see that it dramatically shortens the time when voters can exercise their right to recall bad elected officials.