The legislature recently adopted Assembly Bill 2582. If the governor signs it, this law will remove the replacement election for many local recall elections—the city would replace the recalled official with the “automatic replacement” or “replaced by law” model. This is an obvious political ploy: Unable to coalesce around statewide recall reforms, the legislature has given itself an excuse to claim that it did something on recall reform.

But the legislature’s face-saving gambit is not an empty gesture. Instead, it will weaken the direct democracy powers currently held by California cities by removing the local electorate’s ability to choose their own officials. And because voters are unlikely to approve of a change that strips them of the power to select their own leaders, AB 2582 avoids the risk of asking the statewide electorate’s approval by targeting only local elections. Fortunately, the voters affected by this law can reverse this decision with a countermove: by adopting a charter and reinstalling the replacement election.

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