New initiative from conservative activists in Florida: Recall Rubio

Just show me where to sign, pal.

No, no, I’m kidding. This is the “Sharknado” of anti-Rubio protests: Silly, yet irresistible.

KrisAnne Hall, a radio host who teaches seminars on the Constitution, tells National Review Online that she and a number of other Florida-based conservative activists hope to recall Senator Marco Rubio. But there’s one catch: You can’t recall U.S. senators in Florida. But that isn’t stopping them. Hall says she and others are working to draft state legislation that would allow for senators to face recall votes. She says that once they put the legislation together, they plan to muster support from grassroots activists, get the Florida state legislature to pass the bill, and then recall the senator, who next faces reelection in 2016.

Hall tells me that the tea-party voters who put Rubio in office are frustrated with his career thus far, especially his support for the Gang of Eight’s immigration legislation.

“They’re done with him,” she says of Florida’s tea-party activists. “They’re not voting for him and they’re angry. They’re angry because they feel they’ve been deceived.”

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That’s from Betsy Woodruff, who notes that there’s already a “recall Rubio” petition floating around that was, apparently, put together by the, er, DCCC. Am I misjudging when I say that the balance of conservative opinion on recalls of federal officeholders is that they’re unconstitutional? Pretty straightforward: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years…” Rubio’s in year three. Even if there’s a wrinkle somewhere in Article I that would theoretically permit this, I can’t believe anyone wants a system where Senate/House recall elections in various states are happening every few weeks yearlong. What am I missing here?

Beyond that, more philosophically, what’s the argument for recalling him or anyone else instead of voting him out when his term is up? True, he lied shamefully about his position on immigration to get elected, but he’s not the first pol to have run as something he’s not. Obama ran as an opponent of gay marriage in 2008 and was obviously, transparently, and brazenly lying about it even then. Where’s his recall? Where was the recall for Arlen Specter when he switched parties, a far more comprehensive rejection of the voter base that elected him than what Rubio’s guilty of? It’s hard for me to imagine any scenario in which a pol is doing a terrible enough job that he shouldn’t be allowed to finish his term but not so terrible that he shouldn’t be impeached or expelled from the legislature. Which makes me think I’m missing the point here and that the goal isn’t really to recall Rubio at all. It’s simply to extend a middle finger in a showy way to emphasize just how much the base hates his betrayal on amnesty. Like I say: Where do I sign?

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