California's recall system is really bad

Gavin Newsom won, but the state constitution urgently needs reform

(Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Gavin Newsom beat back the California recall effort by a healthy margin, despite (or perhaps because of) all the fuss about the race.

Had I been in California, I would’ve voted no, and as a non-Californian, I am glad that Newsom won. That said, one upside of Newsom losing is that it almost certainly would have prompted a serious effort to fix the state’s incredibly ill-considered recall system. With Newsom victorious and Democrats becoming perhaps excessively confident in their own tactical choices, I’m a bit worried that momentum for reform might evaporate.

This is unfortunate because the current system is so bad that almost any kind of change would be better.

California has traditionally been a national leader in constitutional innovation (such as it exists) in American state governments, but they’ve landed on a bunch of innovations that are worse than the American baseline. It would be kind of cool if, instead, they took some le…