Expendable_Red_Shirt t1_jbbccfi wrote
I’m not even sure what their motive is here. Even in a recall Baltimore is like 90% Democratic. Their candidates wouldn’t have a chance.
Isn’t Baltimore more valuable as something they can point to and criticize?
roccoccoSafredi t1_jbbdm7k wrote
They just want to cause chaos.
z3mcs t1_jbbstct wrote
Exactly. This is what I came to believe as well. Checking back and seeing your comment - yep - they want chaos. Problems. Gotta keep up that narrative.
YoYoMoMa t1_jbecoo9 wrote
Recalls are often WAY too easy to get and then distract the elected official for an entire year while they raise money and campaign. It cuts their power and leads to a ton of infighting.
It is not like we have insane terms or anything. Even when Baltimore had lame duck mayors I didn't think things would be better if we were going through a recall.
Cryptizard t1_jbegz7p wrote
How do we counter the constant stream of corrupt politicians we somehow end up with then? I was excited about Brandon Scott but now he is directly going against the voters and the city council to sell our conduits to BGE and we have no recourse. If we had the possibility to recall him I bet he would not be so brazenly corrupt.
YoYoMoMa t1_jbehi2j wrote
Recalling a politician every time they do something you do not approve of is exactly the issue. Tons of people think the action he is taking with BGE is good, and many do not. We elect people to make these tough choices, and we live with the consequences of our collective votes. Cutting every politicians knees off at every turn will make it so no politician ever makes an unpopular or difficult decision. No one will ever sacrifice short term for long term. And special interests (like Sinclair) will have a TON more power, since they have the money to organize a recall; a threat they can constantly dangle.
It is not like we elect people for life or anything. If you don't like Scott, you will have the chance to replace him soon. It is not like recalls are swift. They simply gum up the works.
And the answer to corruption is within the justice system, not by blowing up the elections system.
Cryptizard t1_jbehya0 wrote
I have never seen a single person that wasn’t on his payroll say the move is good. He didn’t even try to justify to us why it would be good, he just forced it through over the objections of the comptroller and the city council. It seems like an obviously corrupt action that we are going to be reading about in two years when it comes out that BGE bought him a vacation house or something.
You make a very good point about short term vs long term goals, but what do we do then? How do we get politicians to actually do what they promise? How do we stop them from being so nakedly corrupt? It’s so frustrating.
YoYoMoMa t1_jbeigx8 wrote
Politicians are generally driven by the same thing as all of us: they want to keep their job. So elections are still the way to hold people accountable for their promises.
Corruption is a justice system issue. Blowing up the election system will not fix it. I think it will make it way worse because every mayor will know they are going to get kicked out of office in a year or two, or at the minimum have to raise money for constant elections (so we simply get more politicians in corps hands).
gothaggis t1_jbfhwlb wrote
you should probably do more research about the BGE thing. It's basically either have BGE take care of maintenance on them, or hire contractors that usually do a subpar job (at least, from what I understand)
Cryptizard t1_jbfmezx wrote
If that’s true when why didn’t Brandon Scott come out and explain that to everyone? The only reason he would push it through over the complaint of literally everyone, without a statement, is because it must be some degree of shady.
MontisQ t1_jbkor2w wrote
>he is directly going against the voters and the city council to sell our conduits to BGE and we have no recourse.
Wait, do I not understand the conduit deal? My understanding is that it wasn't a sale, just a change in who provides maintenance, which is currently leased out to a different company.
DisgruntledHeron t1_jbbrb59 wrote
Destabilize Baltimore and weaken any future statewide candidates
sobchaksecurity0 t1_jbbrwoi wrote
Because discourse sells ads, gets eyeballs on your content and contributes to America’s sickening relationship with click-based media. In the end, Sinclair’s motives are clear: create division, cover it, sit back and profit.
TheCaptainDamnIt t1_jbeg7b9 wrote
I don't have time today to go back and pull it all up but if I'm remembering correctly the exact wording of how the recall elections should happen would allow a very dedicated minority of voters to recall the majority winner of an election. So even if the mayor was popular, as long as you had a really strongly motivated opposition party, even if that party was much smaller, it would basically have a veto over the majority of voters. That's what they are going for with it.
Cryptizard t1_jbeh37w wrote
That is not true. A minority can call the election (because you can’t be expected to get hundreds of thousands of signatures) but it still takes a majority vote to actually recall.
TheCaptainDamnIt t1_jbeiioy wrote
Yes that's why I said "really strongly motivated opposition", since once the minority gets the recall as long as they show up in strong numbers they have a better chance of 'winning' the recall then they did in the original election.
Let's say you have a minority party who's candidate get 30% of the vote and they lose to the 70% majority. That 30% will be able to force a recall election almost immediately, then the 70% that just voted originally for the winner will have to turn out again in almost the same numbers as for the first election to win (which they almost certainly won't).
They way it's setup basically allows the minority to force new elections until they get a low enough overall voter turnout to win. Like I said this allows for a dedicated minority to basically harass the rest of the electorate into perpetual campaigns and voting just to let the majority winner serve out the original terms even if they have majority support.
Cryptizard t1_jbej9oh wrote
Does this happen in the 19 states that already have recall elections?
TheCaptainDamnIt t1_jbemnic wrote
Not really, but the push for recalls like this is a relatively new tactic for the right-wing, so I'd guess we'll find out over time if it's as exploitable in other states as they push there.
One thing that did stand out to me was since this proposal is built off of language that's in Baltimores original charter it left a lot more room for exploitation from the minority party than if you'd build a recall system from the ground up (with the goal of being fair in the first place). But I think that's the point though.
And hey, sorry but I gotta drop out and get off reddit for the day. I do sometimes have a job...ha
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