Organizers of the campaign to oust Republican Assemblyman Anthony Adams say they expect to have submitted nearly double the number of signatures needed to spark a recall election by today's deadline for circulating petitions.
Adams, who is from Hesperia, is being targeted by the recall proponents for voting in favor of tax increases in the February budget deal. He was one of six Republicans to vote with Democrats on the package.
Recall campaign manager Tim Whitacre told Capitol Alert yesterday that proponents have submitted 57,000 to date and expect to add another 4,000 or so to the list today, meaning only about 60 percent of those would need to be deemed valid voter signatures in order for the campaign to hit the 35,825 mark needed to qualify the recall. He said the campaign has found about 70 percent of signatures to be valid in its own efforts to keep tabs on the count.
Adams renewed a pledge to launch an aggressive fight against the effort if it qualifies, and said he's confident he will have the support of a wide range of coalitions and constituent groups in his district.
"The proponents are extreme activists from outside my district who want to take away my constitutional right to make informed decisions that I think are best for my district and my state and I wont allow these people to rob any elected official of that right," he said. "Everyone's coming out of the woodwork to be supportive because they know it's an abuse of the process and they know it does all of us, the elected representatives and the constituents themselves a disservice."
James Koren at the San Bernardino Sun wrote last week about the field of candidates who are considering a run for the 59th Assembly District seat if the seat is up for grabs in a special election.
Topping the list of candidates planning to run is former state lawmaker Richard Mountjoy. Mountjoy, a Republican, has served in both the Assembly and the Senate -- at one point he was actually elected to both at the same time. Democrats Don Williamson, a former county assessor who lost to Adams in 2008, and retired CalPoly Pomona professor Ralph Shaffer are also weighing a run, Koren reports.
The last successful attempt to replace a sitting assemblymember through a recall ballot was in 1995, when voters in the 67th Assembly District ousted Republican Assemblywoman Doris Allen.
Photo credit: Assemblyman Adams' Assembly Web site.
Torey Van Oot and the Bee Capitol Bureau report on the people and politics of California government. Get 
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