Proposed legislation by Covington Republican Representative Paul Hollis looks to lower the signature threshold to 20 percent of voters in the last election versus 20 percent of the entire voter roll.
Political Scientist Ed Chervenak says even if it were fast tracked through the legislature and signed by the governor it's still a tough sell:
“Usually the laws don’t take effect until January and so we would be bumping up against the end of her tenure and I think it would be difficult to find someone who would want to finance something like this and mobilize grass roots activists.”
Chervenak feels the proposed changes may not make it out of the house, as legislators may not feel the need to liberalize recall rules.
“It’s hard to see that someone would try this again, given the difficulty involved and there’s no real guarantee that this piece of legislation will pass. Legislators may be satisfied with the way things are right now and say there’s no need to change it.”
Chervenak thinks the rule changes will have an uphill fight when the legislature resumes next month.
“You don’t want to make it too easy to recall officials, just for any kind of slight. But you don’t want to make it impossible, either and so what we’re finding is that it’s difficult to find that balance.”
He also says the actions of Mayor Cantrell will play a role in whether there is support for another recall so close to the end of her term.
“And a lot of it will depend basically how the Mayor responds to this last potential recall and what her stance is. If she continues kind of the enlightened arrogant attitude or does she reset her mayoralty and get down to work and to deal with the quality of life issues that people are concerned about.”