(This column originally appeared August 17, 2007 in the Monetery County Herald )

Frustrated with the refusal of all but one Republican senator to support a budget deal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger negotiated with legislative leaders, Democrats are threatening a recall campaign against Sen. Jeff Denham, whose district includes eastern Monterey County.

A recall could help break Sacramento's gridlock by taking the issue directly to voters, but improvements in the recall process itself would make this a better tool to resolve issues like this one.

Senate Republicans are holding up the budget over several grievances, including a disagreement with Attorney General Jerry Brown's actions to require developers to consider the impact of future growth on global warming. The current California law requiring a two-thirds vote to approve a budget gives the Republican minority unique leverage which they are using to try to deny Brown the funds to enforce the California Environmental Quality Act as he sees fit.

While it may be frustrating that an issue as complicated as a $145 billion state budget is being resolved more by politics than by policy, it is entirely appropriate that both Denham and the Democrats would be looking to their political futures as much as to pundits or their personal beliefs on the budget. While ugly at times, elections (including recalls) are ultimately the process by which citizens can retain the final say in matters of great importance, of which the budget is surely one.

The accountability problem may be that Denham is thinking more about his potential future constituents than voters in his current district. Denham has filed papers to run for lieutenant governor in the 2010 election and it is possible that his vote on the budget is guided more by voters in the statewide Republican primary than by the folks in his district.

A recall would let voters sort out the legitimate difference of opinion between legislators. Do voters generally agree with the Republicans that the budget should be cut and that developers need not worry themselves with global warming? Or, are they willing to accept the compromise worked out between Democrats and Schwarzenegger? Just as two employees with different views at a company appeal to their superiors, it is entirely appropriate for politicians to occasionally take their differences to their boss, the voters.

Denham won re-election by a comfortable margin of 58 percent, but his district is composed of 48 percent Democrats and 38 percent Republicans. This is as good a microcosm of the state as California's gerrymandered political districts currently provide. If Denham were to defeat a recall effort, it would tell the state's Democrats that they should give more ground in the budget debate. Should a recall succeed, it would serve notice to the Republicans that they had overplayed their hand.

Unfortunately, the Legislature has failed to fix problems with the recall process itself that surfaced in the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis. To qualify a recall of Denham, it would take signatures from 20 percent of his district's turnout in the 2006 election, or 31,000 valid signatures. These numbers all but require the effort to depend upon signature gatherers who will certainly be paid by donors residing outside of Denham's district. It also means the process will be too slow to resolve the budget deadlock in a timely fashion.

Might it be better to adopt a lower signature threshold but require that the funding come from within the district or place the same limitations on contributions that applied to Denham's last re-election? California law currently treats recalls as ballot questions, which have no limits on contributions, rather than candidate elections, which are regulated. Given the fundraising we saw during the 2003 recall, courts should now be willing to take another look at this question.

If a Denham recall does qualify, voters may then see multiple candidates on the ballot with no primary or runoff process to winnow the field. If three or more viable replacement candidates emerged and split the vote, Denham could be recalled only to be replaced by a Republican even more entrenched on the budget than Denham. To avoid the prospect of any candidate winning by a small plurality, California should change its recall process to adopt Instant Runoff Voting. Used in San Francisco and other localities, IRV allows voters to rank their choices among a larger field of candidates and ensures that the winner receives support from at least 50 percent of the electorate.

Derek Cressman is a fellow at the Poplar Institute in Sacramento and author of "The Recall's Broken Promise — How Big Money Still Runs California Politics ."