My regular reader (hi Jeff!) may recall that I am not a fan of recall elections. On several occasions I have written about my disdain for that practice. As I said in those earlier columns, I really do think that once a person has been elected to office, he or she should be able to serve out the term to which the voters elected him or her to, absent actual criminal activity that might warrant a recall from office. In one of those earlier columns, I noted that there were efforts to recall our terrific governor about, what, a week or two after he took his oath? I’m exaggerating, of course, but not by that much. Those recalls failed (as most do) but they did take attention away from more important issues.

Frankly, unless an elected official breaks the law or openly supports the Kansas City Chiefs, I can’t think of a good reason to overturn the will of the people who voted the official into office.

Which, of course, brings us to the recent actions of the Alamosa City Council…

As reported in Colorado Politics, a controversial district attorney in the San Luis Valley has drawn the scorn of a number of people who very much disagree with his approach to adjudication. Alonzo Payne took office just last year and still has three years to go on his term of office. But his work as the DA has upset a lot of folks.

Some accuse the DA of “crazy dismissals and plea deals.” And while it is true that most cases in courtrooms across our state and, frankly, our nation, end in plea deals, some of the good people of the Alamosa area feel the DA has been too quickly dismissing charges and agreeing to plea deals that are outrageous.

Now, there are certainly problems with the way our laws are enforced. Mass incarceration has done little to lower overall crime rates, and Payne did run for office on a platform of judicial reform, particularly aimed at the middle class and the poor, and those are laudable efforts.

But some San Luis Valley folks object to Payne’s decisions on particular cases in terms of whom to prosecute and which cases to let go. There do appear to have been some problems in that office, as the State AG’s office has gotten involved in looking into a set of eight complaints that Payne’s office had violated victims’ rights. That investigation is ongoing.

Not surprisingly, there is now an effort to recall Payne from office as he finishes the first 25% of his term. And while I object to that on principle, I am deeply troubled by one particular aspect of the recall, as reported in the CP story.

It seems the Alamosa City Council recently voted to use city tax dollars to help fund the recall effort. In a 4-1 vote, the city leaders decided to kick in $10,000 of taxpayer’s dollars to aid the recall campaign. One member of the Council, Charlie Griego, did vote no, though he supports the recall. He objects, however, to the use of tax dollars to fund that effort.

I agree with Mr. Griego, and his concern is what I find deeply troubling and problematic.

If you read the works of the Founders, and especially Alexander Hamilton, you will find that there was great concern (and, admittedly in some, great support) regarding recall elections. There are many important and powerful arguments regarding such concepts of governance and how to reflect the will of the people without bowing to the whims of the people. Smart people from both sides of the recall question have important and insightful points to make about whether we should have recalls at all and if so, under what circumstances.

Impeachment, which Hamilton wrote extensively about in Federalist Paper No. 65, might be thought of as a kind of “internal governmental recall,” but only under certain circumstances. I think Hamilton would recoil in horror at the notion that citizens would have a method to undo free and fair elections within weeks of the outcome, and I agree with him.

That said, however, recalls are here to stay.

But the actions of the Alamosa City Council plows new and dangerous ground. The use of tax dollars to fund a recall strikes me as a very dangerous precedent. Let us suppose, for the moment, that the DA in question is truly unfit for his office and should be removed by a recall election. Do we really want our elected officials taking sides and – even more dangerously – using our tax dollars to fund that political effort? I suspect most of us would join with Councilman Griego in saying no.

Even if your own partisanship inclines you to support the recall of DA Payne, do you really want tax dollars to aid in that effort? If you agree, I’d gently remind you that politics tends to exist in arcs, and that in coming years, you might find yourself involved in some setting wherein a liberal city council decided to aid in the recall of a strict “law and order” DA who was locking everyone up with no plea deals at all. Would you be equally sanguine with your tax dollars supporting that recall as well?   

I hope that, regardless of your views on whether Payne should be recalled or not, you are at least troubled by the idea that a city would take tax dollars that might otherwise be spent on fixing potholes and such, and instead divert them to a purely political process.

You don’t have to be as anti-recall as I am to agree that the use of tax dollars to undo an election is at the very least troubling, and at worst, dangerous.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.