by Joshua Spivak
A battle over personnel rules may give Morgantown voters a chance to make a quick change in their leadership, as petitions are now out to place a recall election on the ballot against all seven council members. Unlike California, Wisconsin or Michigan, West Virginia is not known as a big recall state. But that doesn’t mean the officials should rest easy. The recall may be a rarely used weapon, but it remains a powerful one once used.
Over the last 12 years, West Virginia does not seem to have had a single recall election get to the ballot. There were attempts in a number of cities, but the only impact from a recall was in 2014, when an indicted mayor of Bridgeport resigned in the face of a petition effort.
It’s not a surprise that the Mountain State is not a big user of recalls. It is not one of the 19 states that allow recalls for state level officials. In fact, the recall law is very limited, as it only allows it in charter cities that have passed specific laws granting the recall power. School board members, a regular target of recalls in other places, are exempt in West Virginia. The result is that there have been only a few attempts.
That itself is not unusual. Despite fervent coverage of recalls of California’s governor and the district attorney and school board members in San Francisco, recalls are actually a fairly uncommon occurrence nationwide. Over the last 12 years of tracking recalls, we only see about 100 or so recalls annually that either get to the ballot or have an official resign in the face of the recall.
Why do we hear of so many recall threats if they rarely get to the ballot? The big reason would be that they work. Over the dozen years, when a recall gets to the ballot, officials have been ousted about 60% of the time. Another 6% resign rather than deal with the recall. Last year was the only year where more officials survived a recall vote than lost one. Comparing it to reelection rates, which probably top 75% to 85% for officials, shows that this is a powerful, if rarely used, tool. If voters are upset and want a change in leadership, the recall is a real weapon.
So is Morgantown now about to be hit with a wave of recall efforts? Probably not. The city’s recall law is actually a bit harder than many other places. Petitioners need the signatures of 20% of qualified voters. In many other places, the requirement is tied to voter turnout in the past election, which is a significant drop-off. In Morgantown, using the turnout standard would drop the amount of signatures needed to less than 300 signatures per candidate. Instead, it is over 3,800.
Other than that, Morgantown’s recall law is not at all unusual. In the town of Keyser, there is a particularly punitive provision that would have required all signers of the petition to reimburse the city for the cost of the recall if it failed. There is no such law in Morgantown, but there are some wrinkles. The election does not have a replacement vote. Instead, the official would face a yes or no vote on whether they stay in office, which means they need to gain 50% in order to survive. If they are removed, the council would select a replacement, though if they can’t agree on one, there would be a special election to fill the slot. This same provision exists in many other jurisdictions around the country.
The challenge for this recall is that the entire seven-member council is targeted. I’m not clear as to what would happen if they were all removed at once. In other places, the governor may select some replacements, who then would together fill out the rest of the council. Regardless, it would be an interesting development.
