Is it possible to recall a congressman

One of the closest noted legal precedent is U. Term Limits, Inc. Thornton , in which the Supreme Court decided that states did not have the right to impose new terms, qualifications, or conditions of service on federal officials.

Some states have released opinions and rulings on recall of members of the U. Attorneys general in Arkansas , Louisiana , Kansas , Nevada , and Oregon all issued opinions against the recall of federal officials. Conversely, the Attorney General of Wisconsin in give an opinion that state administration could not reject a petition for recall of a member of the U. In , the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled against federal recall and the Supreme Court of North Dakota also upheld an opinion by the state's attorney general against federal recall.

Michigan courts stopped a recall petition against a member of Congress in A federal court in dismissed a case from Idaho where petitioners hoped to require the state to accept petitions seeking recall of a U. In some states that allow recall, a recall can only occur under certain circumstances. An example of this is Georgia , where an elected official may only be recalled under the circumstances of "an act of malfeasance or misconduct while in office, violation of the oath of office, failure to perform duties prescribed by law, or willfully misusing, converting, or misappropriating, without authority, public property or public funds entrusted to or associated with the elective office to which the official has been elected or appointed.

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Georgia Illinois Kansas depending on office and when vacancy occurs Louisiana all state offices except governor and lieutenant governor Minnesota state legislature Montana depending on office and when vacancy occurs New Jersey state legislature Rhode Island state legislature.

Alaska state legislature Idaho all offices except governor and lieutenant governor Kansas depending on office and when vacancy occurs Louisiana lieutenant governor only Montana depending on office and when vacancy occurs Oregon all offices except governor Rhode Island secretary of state, attorney general, and treasurer Virginia Washington all offices except governor and lieutenant governor. Alaska governor [9] Idaho governor and lieutenant governor [10] Kansas governor [11] Louisiana governor [12] Minnesota governor and lieutenant governor [13] New Jersey governor and lieutenant governor [14] Oregon governor [15] Rhode Island governor and lieutenant governor [16] Washington governor and lieutenant governor [17].

However, a second statute does not include recall in its list of allowable citizen powers. As a result, according to an email dated January 3, , from David Scanlan, the Deputy New Hampshire Secretary of State to Leslie Graves , Ballotpedia's editor, "The courts in New Hampshire have not supported recall provisions in municipal charters because they are not granted that authority in state statute.

Categories : Recall Laws governing the recall of politicians. Voter information What's on my ballot? If this principle is to be a precedent, then the People can employ that same principle, the right of a relatively small minority of the electorate to force a recall election of an official acting in bad faith.

The system of campaign finance combined with professional lobbying has so corrupted the process of legislating that the majority of Americans feel disenfranchised and politically alienated from their government. It is the only way to create a counter-balance to all the special interests and single-issue groups who now dominate the time and attention of the Legislature.

Further, these political pressures have made it impossible for our Representatives to consider anything other than their own short-term interests and political advantages, thereby ignoring what is in the long-term best interests of the American People. At a minimum, it is the hope that such a recall provision will effectively stymie an official intent on pursuing such a conflict of interest between themselves and their electorate, constantly occupying them, instead, with the threat of needing to campaign in perpetual recall elections.

It has long been the right, in many State Courts, to file what is known as a "Writ of Mandamus" against any public official who is acting in an arbitrary or capricious manner, usually without reference to the facts or the rule of law. However, no such right exists at the Federal level.

Given our current history, the wisdom of such a Constitutional Amendment is clear. Current events are now witness to the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, announcing in public that he will not call for hearings, under any circumstances, to confirm a Constitutionally mandated Presidential nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States. There is no legal precedent, and no precedent of Congress for this action. It is clearly an arbitrary and capricious act designed to bring about a political result.

This is in contravention to the clear original intent of the US Constitution and the current Will of the People. There is no way to recall a member of Congress before their term ends, nor has there ever been. Americans are unable to remove an elected member of the House or Senate from office because there is no recall mechanism set forth in the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution actually debated whether to include a recall provision but decided against it as a result of the arguments of some state legislators during the ratification process.

A Congressional Research Service report cited Luther Martin of Maryland who, while speaking to the state Legislature, lamented the fact that members of Congress "are to pay themselves, out of the treasury of the United States; and are not liable to be recalled during the period for which they are chosen. Voters in Arkansas amended their state constitution in with the belief that the 10th Amendment left the door open for states to limit lawmakers' length of service.

The 10th Amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In other words, the Arkansas argument went, because the Constitution didn't provide for a recall mechanism the state could. Arkansas's constitutional amendment banned House members who had already served three terms or senators who had served two terms from appearing on the ballot.

The amendment was an attempt to remove elected officials through the use of term limits. The Supreme Court held, in U. Term Limits, Inc. Thornton, that the state's amendments were unconstitutional. The court essentially supported the notion that the right to choose representatives belongs not to the states but to its citizens. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote:.

Even though citizens cannot recall a member of Congress, the individual chambers can remove members of the House of Representatives or Senate by way of expulsion. A full citation list of these laws is below. Currently, only these 19 states allow recall elections of statewide elected officials, but other states have recently considered establishing recall procedures. Between and , legislatures in several states considered bills that would allow for recall elections of state and local officials.

For example, in and , recall election legislation failed to pass the New York and West Virginia legislatures, and legislation that would have allowed recall of state legislators failed to pass the Illinois General Assembly. In , legislation that would have provided for recall of any elected official in Connecticut failed to pass the General Assembly.

Also in , the Oklahoma House of Representatives introduced a bill that would allow citizens to petition for the recall of any elected official in the state.

Virginia has a process that is similar to recall, but it is not listed here as a recall state because its process, while requiring citizen petitions, calls for a recall trial rather than an election. In Virginia, after a petition containing the required number of signatures is verified, a circuit court decides whether a Virginia official will be removed from office.

In the recall states, the voters decide in an election. In at least 30 states some sources place this number at 38 , recall elections may be held in local jurisdictions. The recall device began in the United States in a municipality—Los Angeles—in Michigan and Oregon, in , were the first states to adopt recall procedures for state officials.

Minnesota and New Jersey were the most recent. Historically, recall attempts at the state level have been largely unsuccessful. The recall is used much more often, and with more success, at the local level. There have been many attempts to recall governors throughout U. In , California Governor Gavin Newsom survived a recall election.

In , Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker survived a recall election. Frazier, but also the attorney general and the commissioner of agriculture. In , Arizona voters submitted enough signatures to trigger a recall election for Governor Evan Mecham, but he was impeached by the state's House of Representatives before the scheduled recall election.

Recall efforts against state legislators are more common, but still unusual. Recall attempts against legislators have gathered enough signatures to trigger an election just 39 times.

Eleven of those occurred in a single year, Forty-five percent of all legislative recall elections that have ever occurred were held between and However, only eight of those 17 elections succeeded in unseating a legislator. Additionally, two legislators resigned after petitions with sufficient signatures to force recall elections against them were submitted.

Many more recall efforts are started and never make it to the election stage; either they are abandoned by their sponsors, or they fail to gather enough valid petition signatures to trigger an election. For example, in in Colorado, a petition to recall Representative Rochelle Galindo was approved for circulation, but Galindo resigned from office before the petitions were turned in. The following is a list of every recall election of a state legislator throughout U.

The fact that these elections occurred means that, in each of the following cases, enough signatures were gathered on petitions to trigger a recall election. Officials on this list who "survived recall election" are people who were not voted out of office in the subsequent recall election.