A reader recently called lamenting that civics education is no longer properly taught in schools as it was when she was a student some six decades ago.
In many states, civics as a class was replaced in the 1960s and 1970s with a more nebulous program of “social studies,” which was kind of a catchall for things that didn’t quite fit into history, sciences or the arts, and moved away from recitation of dates and facts to merge more abstract concepts, generalizations and intellectual understandings of history, economics, geography, psychology and civics into a comprehensive study of the world.
While I am not in education, I can say that those of us who attended high school in Arizona had social studies but also took a government class to graduate. We learned the basic functions of the three branches of the U.S. government, what rights and privileges are enumerated in the U.S. Constitution and how certain government activities function, like law enforcement and the judicial system.
We also learned the history of democracy from the ancient Greeks through the Roman Republic, the various quasi-democratic elements of feudalism and the English monarchy to the beginning of the 13 colonies.
My personal favorite experience was learning that the Black Rod of the King famously has the door of the House of Commons slammed in his face annually by members of Parliament to symbolize that the monarch’s representatives cannot set foot in the house without the members’ permission.
This tradition dates back to an attempt by King Charles I to arrest the “Five Members” of Parliament in 1642. Charles later lost his head in 1649, making it clear that the power of the people outranks that of the monarch.
This British rebelliousness was carried by English settlers across the Atlantic to the New World, where it was compounded by similar attitudes among settlers from other parts of the world who were fleeing oppression, peaking in the American Revolution in the 1770s.
When the early United States tossed out the 1777 Articles of Confederation and replaced them with the 1789 Constitution, one of the points of contention was the document’s lack of civic rights that most states in New England and several states in the South had incorporated in their state charters and constitutions. To coax the anti-federalists from Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and South Carolina to approve the Constitution, some 17 amendments were proposed, 10 of which were ratified and are known now as the Bill of Rights.
The third and fourth amendments were consolidated and passed first, granting Americans the right to “… petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
In 19 states, mainly in the West where democracy is more robust than back East, where decades of exploitation by political machines have eroded certain vital checks on power, a recall petition is part of that process.
One local official who was recently curious about recalling another wasn’t entirely clear how the process worked. Since readers are asking, here’s a refresher on how to recall an elected official.
The recall process is laid out in Article 8 of the Arizona Constitution and in Arizona Revised Statute §19-202.01.
Per the Constitution, “every public officer in the state of Arizona, holding an elective office, either by election or appointment, is subject to recall from such office by the qualified electors of the electoral district from which candidates are elected to such office.”
Any resident or group seriously considering recalling an elected council member or mayor must first file a petition with the clerk of the body with which the official serves, e.g., Yavapai County for a supervisor or the town or city clerk for a town or city council member or mayor.
The clerk will make sure that the required statement describing the reason for the recall complies with Arizona Revised Statute §19-203 and is under the 200- word limit.
The clerk can also inform petitioners as to the number of signatures required, which is 25% “of the number of votes cast at the last preceding general election for all of the candidates for the office held by such officer.” That’s easy for most Verde Valley municipalities, but for a recall in Sedona, that number is the combined total from both Yavapai and Coconino counties’ general election ballots.
The petitioners then have 120 days to collect signatures. If a recall is approved, the official has five days to resign or face an election. Candidates will run against the recalled official, so it’s best to have someone in mind before the process begins, which shouldn’t be too hard in our area.
Elected officials have a six-month grace period before a recall can be filed, which will have passed by the time you read this editorial.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
