Two California voters, Rex Julian Beaber and A.W. Clark, filed a lawsuit Saturday in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), asking that it be changed or invalidated.
Politico reported that one of the voters in question would not tell an interviewer whether he is a Democrat or not.
The lawsuit was anticipated by an argument from two liberal scholars at the University of California Berkeley. As Breitbart News noted last week: University of California Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Prof. Aaron S. Edlin claim … that the Sep. 14 recall, which some polls now suggest Newsom could lose, violates the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ because it is possible for Newsom to receive more votes than any other candidate and still lose.”
Newsom will be recalled if he falls short of a majority on the first ballot question; his replacement must just achieve a plurality.
Accordingly, the lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, asks the court to consider two options: “(1) enjoining the Sept. 14, 2021 recall election entirely; and, (2) enjoining that election insofar as it implements § 15(c), so that were it to be held it would need to include Governor Newsom’s name as a potential candidate for Governor, were question 1 to receive a majority of votes and pass.”
The plaintiffs make the novel argument that those who vote to retain Newsom effectively have only one vote, while those voting against him effectively have two votes, violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Polls show Newsom in danger of being recalled, with conservative talk radio host Larry Elder leading potential replacements.
The case is Beaber and Clark v. Weber, No. 2:21-cv-06558-MWF-KS in the Central District of California.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.