PROP. 187 WATCH : Forgetful Recall

The effort to force a recall election against Los Angeles school board President Mark Slavkin has ended exactly as it should have: in failure.

The so-called Voice of Citizens Together, a Sherman Oaks-based group, fell a whopping 20,000 signatures short of its goal (52,965). It raised only about $7,000 to finance the attempt, and literally found itself blaming the rain. Well, if the signature-gatherers were so easily dampened, it says volumes about their resolve.

We suggest that the result had less to do with weather than the fact that this was yet another single-issue recall campaign that sought to abuse the electoral process.

The campaign was touched off mainly by the decision of Slavkin and the school board to join a lawsuit challenging the voter-approved Proposition 187. That awful measure was designed to bar many services to illegal immigrants, and Slavkin and his colleagues took the one step available to them. It would have made little sense to have not sought immediate clarification on whether parts of 187 violate federal law; implementation might well have jeopardized $628 million in annual federal funding for city schools.

Moreover, the fact that most of Proposition 187’s goals would be fought out in the courts was not only predictable but intentional. Some 187 supporters are seeking nothing less than reversals of the U.S. Supreme Court and California Supreme Court decisions guaranteeing a fundamental right to a public education.

The recall effort against Slavkin was a bad idea, and hypocritical as well.