Bye Mitt? Utah Legislature Prepares Senator Recall Process
Richard Moorhead
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As Mitt Romney grandstands in the U.S Senate’s doomed Trump impeachment trial in an effort to demonstrate his own moral superiority, the Utah legislature is mulling a measure that would allow the state’s citizens to recall their senators.
The measure could hypothetically be used to recall Romney from office. Such a possibility is an acute irony, considering Romney appears to be the only Republican senator enthusiastic about impeaching President Donald Trump.
Rep. Tim Quinn of Heber City introduced the bill in the state house. Utah doesn’t currently have a process to recall sitting U.S Senators, a problem his legislation would solve.
He says the bill isn’t designed with any specific Senator in mind, but it’s hard not to imagine the measure being used to impeach Romney, considering the Never Trump senator’s extreme unpopularity in his own state.
HB217 would create a system in which Utah voters could set up a recall election to remove senators. 25% of active voters in the state would have to sign a petition requesting a recall vote, which would take place during the next scheduled election. Senators are immune from the prospect of a recall election within a year of their initial term.
Considering that almost half of Utah Republicans don’t approve of Romney’s representation in the Senate, it’s more than reasonable to imagine a quarter of the state’s population voting to remove the failed presidential candidate, whose connection to Utah has always been dubious.
The notion of recalling a federal legislator is a constitutionally vague concept. Some states have processes in place that allow members of congress to be recalled by voters, but a senator has never been actually recalled and the Supreme Court has never ruled if such a process to remove sitting members of congress would be legal.
However, facing a recall process would be an acute embarrassment for Senator Romney, who seems to have fully devoted his senatorial duties to focusing on impeachment and faux moral outrage to other purported Trump “scandals.”
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