Recalls easy to threaten but difficult to execute

Elected officials in Spokane have been threatened with recall for everything from approving the West Plains garbage incinerator to making homophobic comments to escaping reporters by jumping out a courthouse window.

But few have been ousted or even faced the voters in a recall vote.

That’s mainly because the recall process has several hurdles that angry citizens must clear to remove someone put in office by voters. State law says elected officials can only be removed for allegations of malfeasance or misfeasance – illegal or improper actions or violations of their oath of office. Since 1984, it also has required such claims to be reviewed by a Superior Court judge.

The judge doesn’t rule on whether the allegations are true, but must determine that if they are true, they would be sufficient to prove malfeasance or misfeasance.

A hearing on the legal sufficiency of the recall petition for Spokane Mayor Jim West is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Spokane County Courthouse in front of Benton County Superior Court Judge Craig Matheson. Local judges said they’ve had so many contacts with West during his days in the Legislature that they should decline the case, and recall petitions are often handled by a visiting judge.

The last Spokane mayor to face a serious recall effort was Vicki McNeill in the late 1980s. McNeill and five of the six council members serving with her faced a threatened ouster after they approved the controversial waste-to-energy trash incinerator. Opponents of the plant spared then-Councilwoman Sheri Barnard, who voted against the incinerator, but filed a petition to recall the rest of the elected city government.

The recall charges revolved around contracts the council approved for the project before the city received a key air-quality permit. Stevens County Superior Court Judge Fred Stewart ruled the incinerator opponents might disagree with the council’s decision, but they didn’t come up with anything that was illegal or improper. “At most, (the charges) express others’ views of political decisions,” Stewart said in April 1989. “Recall elections cannot be based on that alone.”

Like many recall decisions, Stewart’s ruling was appealed to the state Supreme Court, which receives recall cases directly on an expedited schedule. That September, the high court agreed with him.

The recall effort fizzled, but the controversy didn’t die entirely. McNeill didn’t run for re-election. Barnard ran for mayor and beat Councilman Rob Higgins, a supporter of the incinerator and one of the subjects of the recall. Spokane voters passed a charter change tightening the rules for certain bond issues.

Recall threats and failures

A more recent recall effort also failed to make it to the ballot, but helped change local government anyway.

In 1995, Spokane County Coroner Dexter Amend came under fire for remarks he made about gay people, and for revealing information about a young murder victim autopsied by his office. That September, Adams County Superior Court Judge Richard Miller said Amend’s anti-gay comments were protected free speech, and couldn’t be used as a reason for a recall, but revealing confidential information did meet the test.

The state Supreme Court, however, tossed out that allegation, too, noting that Amend had permission from the victim’s father to talk about the autopsy.

Amend served out the remaining three years of his term, but the controversy prompted county voters to get rid of the elected office of coroner in 1996 and replace it with an appointed medical examiner.

The Pend Oreille County prosecutor faced a recall petition in 1988 when a group of taxpayers said they weren’t happy with his job performance. Spokane County Superior Court Judge John Ripple said “dissatisfaction should be exercised at the next election,” and ruled against the recall petition for Tom Metzger.

A Colfax mayor was threatened with recall in 1989 for complaints that she had hired a city fire administrator without the approval of the City Council. But none of the organizers of the petition could show the council hadn’t approved the hiring in an executive session, so Spokane County Superior Court Judge John Schultheis threw out the recall effort against Carol Stueckle.

A recall petition was filed against Sprague Mayor Evalyne Tabor in 1998, over a series of five complaints. But Lincoln County Superior Court Judge Philip Borst said none of them was valid, either because Tabor was acting within her discretion, didn’t appear to be intentionally violating laws or was accused of actions that happened before she was mayor.

“If we had everybody subject to recall that made mistakes, then I don’t think we would have any public officials,” Borst said.

Members of the Medical Lake and West Valley school boards also faced recall petitions in the mid-1980s, for alleged violations of the state Open Public Meetings Act, but the state Supreme Court ruled against both efforts.

Threatening a recall is relatively easy. A Spokane businessman, Frank Hawley, wanted to mount a recall effort against then-County Commissioner Steve Hasson in 1992, after Hasson jumped out of his courthouse office window to avoid a crew of news reporters outside his door.

Hasson had just won his election against Jack Hebner, and said he didn’t want to give interviews at that time. Hawley thought Hasson should apologize to voters; the commissioner refused. No petition was ever filed, and Hasson served the four years of his new term.

Even before the recall statutes were tightened to require a Superior Court review of charges, successful recalls were rare in Spokane. The City Council was threatened with recall in 1963 for widening Wellesley, but nothing was ever filed.

Supporters of a district council system for the city of Spokane threatened to recall in 1971 when the council put the proposal on the ballot rather than approving it themselves. No petition was ever filed.

Recall petitions were circulated in 1974 to remove some City Council members for passing a community development ordinance, but not enough signatures were collected.

A recall effort against a councilman in 1976 for passing anti-pornography laws lasted about a week before organizers gave up.

More challenges ahead

Getting a petition through the courts is not the last hurdle. Organizers must gather signatures from enough registered voters to qualify for the ballot, and then collect more votes than the targeted candidate at the next election.

Shannon Sullivan, who filed the petition against West, and others who want to oust the Spokane mayor would need about 12,600 valid signatures in six months. The clock doesn’t start running, and the signatures can’t be gathered, until all the court actions are complete.

Deputy Prosecutor Rob Binger, who reviewed the petition against West before sending it to the Superior Court, said the recall is a difficult process. “They are fairly rare,” he said. “They are pretty tough to get through.”