Bill comes amid focus on Sen. Mitt Romney and impeachment, but lawmaker says it isn’t to target him.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah lawmaker has filed a bill to allow Utahns to recall an elected United States senator.
The lawmaker, Rep. Tim Quinn, R-Heber City, told the Deseret News in an interview Wednesday shortly after the bill was made public that it’s not meant to target any specific sitting Utah senator — but it comes amid heightened national attention on Sen. Mitt Romney, who has been among the few Republican senators publicly critical of President Donald Trump.
Romney in recent days has ignited simmering controversy over whether to bring additional witnesses and documents into the impeachment trial against Trump. Yet Quinn said his bill isn’t aimed at Romney or any specific senator — though he acknowledged his bill comes at a time that people will likely construe it that way.
“I know that’s what’s going to be the narrative,” Quinn said. “If it were, then it might make sense to have a sunset on it. That would not be the case.”
Police Department Uses AI to Write Reports, Only to Have it Claim One of the Officers Was Turned Into a Frog
Blackstone Stock Nosedives After Trump Announces Plan to Ban Major Investors from Buying Up Single-Family Homes
Trump responds to post suggesting Rubio as president of Cuba: ‘Sounds good to me’
Somali Maine city councilor resigns days after taking office after felony charge, residency questions
Ex-con charged in Christmas Day CVS robbery that left clerk fatally stabbed
Rob Schneider Goes Off on Minneapolis Mayor for Fanning Flames After ICE Shooting
NASA makes ‘unprecedented’ call to bring astronauts home after illness, expert says: ‘Evacuated from orbit’
How One Trump Admin Arrest May Soon Refill the Strategic Oil Reserves Biden Drained
Left-wing group backs tens of thousands of anti-ICE demonstrations nationwide
Lib Reporter Faces Subpoena After Doxxing Delta Force Commander Over Maduro Capture
Charlie’s Legacy: Ex-Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy Has ‘Surrendered’ to Jesus, Says Kirk’s Death Immediately Drove Her to Start Studying the Bible
DC pipe bomb suspect pleads not guilty to planting devices at DNC and RNC headquarters
Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’
Trump Launches Plan to Protect Americans from Getting ‘Ripped Off’ By Credit Card Companies
MTG May Have Leaked Trump’s Location to Unhinged Activists: White House
Rather, Quinn said he started drafting the bill “weeks and weeks ago” after some constituents came to him raising ideas of how Utah could return to a “pre-17th Amendment” time, or when U.S. senators were appointed rather than elected.
To Quinn, a six-year term for a senator is a lengthy term, and his bill would be a “good mechanism in place to make any senator, current or future, a little more accountable to those who elected him or her.”
“Six years is a long time,” he said.
Pressed on the timing of the bill coinciding with heightened attention on Romney, Quinn said he started drafting the bill long ago, and it just happened to be ready Wednesday.
“Obviously I didn’t open this bill file after he made some of that news with impeachment, it would have never been drafted this quickly,” Quinn said. “So I can understand why people might think that, but if they understood the legislative process, this was well before that.”
The bill, HB217, would establish a process for legal voters to petition through signature gathering to place a question on the ballot to recall a U.S. senator.
It would require signatures equal to 25% of the number of active voters in the state on Jan. 1 immediately following the last regular general election. If that threshold is met, the lieutenant governor would place the recall question on the ballot of the next election that occurs at least 90 days after the question is certified.
Police Department Uses AI to Write Reports, Only to Have it Claim One of the Officers Was Turned Into a Frog
Blackstone Stock Nosedives After Trump Announces Plan to Ban Major Investors from Buying Up Single-Family Homes
Trump responds to post suggesting Rubio as president of Cuba: ‘Sounds good to me’
Somali Maine city councilor resigns days after taking office after felony charge, residency questions
Ex-con charged in Christmas Day CVS robbery that left clerk fatally stabbed
Rob Schneider Goes Off on Minneapolis Mayor for Fanning Flames After ICE Shooting
NASA makes ‘unprecedented’ call to bring astronauts home after illness, expert says: ‘Evacuated from orbit’
How One Trump Admin Arrest May Soon Refill the Strategic Oil Reserves Biden Drained
Left-wing group backs tens of thousands of anti-ICE demonstrations nationwide
Lib Reporter Faces Subpoena After Doxxing Delta Force Commander Over Maduro Capture
Charlie’s Legacy: Ex-Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy Has ‘Surrendered’ to Jesus, Says Kirk’s Death Immediately Drove Her to Start Studying the Bible
DC pipe bomb suspect pleads not guilty to planting devices at DNC and RNC headquarters
Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’
Trump Launches Plan to Protect Americans from Getting ‘Ripped Off’ By Credit Card Companies
MTG May Have Leaked Trump’s Location to Unhinged Activists: White House
Under the bill, an incumbent senator would not be subject to recall if the senator has not been in office for at least one year of his or her current term.
Quinn said he sees the bill as a “good compromise between pre- and post-17th Amendment” that contains a fitting standards to meet for a recall.
“I think it’s a fairly large hurdle,” Quinn said. “That’s a lot of signature gathering. So it’s not something that people would take lightly if someone ever did want to recall a sitting senator.”
However, it’s unclear whether Quinn’s bill is even constitutional.
The U.S. Constitution does not provide for recall of any federally elected officials. While some states have statutes to allow voters to recall members of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether that’s constitutionally legal at the federal level.
However, a close legal precedent may be a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that decided states did not have the right to impose new term limits on federal officials, noted Adam Brown, a BYU political science professor.
Police Department Uses AI to Write Reports, Only to Have it Claim One of the Officers Was Turned Into a Frog
Blackstone Stock Nosedives After Trump Announces Plan to Ban Major Investors from Buying Up Single-Family Homes
Trump responds to post suggesting Rubio as president of Cuba: ‘Sounds good to me’
Somali Maine city councilor resigns days after taking office after felony charge, residency questions
Ex-con charged in Christmas Day CVS robbery that left clerk fatally stabbed
Rob Schneider Goes Off on Minneapolis Mayor for Fanning Flames After ICE Shooting
NASA makes ‘unprecedented’ call to bring astronauts home after illness, expert says: ‘Evacuated from orbit’
How One Trump Admin Arrest May Soon Refill the Strategic Oil Reserves Biden Drained
Left-wing group backs tens of thousands of anti-ICE demonstrations nationwide
Lib Reporter Faces Subpoena After Doxxing Delta Force Commander Over Maduro Capture
Charlie’s Legacy: Ex-Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy Has ‘Surrendered’ to Jesus, Says Kirk’s Death Immediately Drove Her to Start Studying the Bible
DC pipe bomb suspect pleads not guilty to planting devices at DNC and RNC headquarters
Trump says Venezuela has begun releasing political prisoners ‘in a BIG WAY’
Trump Launches Plan to Protect Americans from Getting ‘Ripped Off’ By Credit Card Companies
MTG May Have Leaked Trump’s Location to Unhinged Activists: White House
“Applying that logic, it’s questionable whether a state law could allow early removal of a federal official,” Brown said. “If states can’t apply term limits to federal officials, it would be a stretch to think they could end a federal official’s service early.”
Neither Romney nor Sen. Mike Lee — both sitting in on impeachment proceedings — were available for comment Wednesday, according to their staff.
Story cited here.
