Louisiana Lawmaker wants to lower the threshold needed to trigger a recall election

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After a failed attempt to recall New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a state lawmaker says he’ll attempt to pass legislation to make it easier to recall elected officials. Covington Representative Paul Hollis says it’s too hard to recall an elected official, because it takes 20% of the registered voters in large parishes like Orleans.

“In Louisiana we are almost unique in that we base the 20% on the number of qualified voters and qualified voters that’s a massive number,” said Hollis.

Hollis wants to lower the threshold for the number of signatures needed to force a recall. He says instead of making it based on the number of qualified voters, the number should be based on the number of people who voted in the election of the person now targeted in the recall.

“Base the 20% on those that actually participated in the campaign for that individual who is attempted to be recalled,” said Hollis.

Hollis says if recall organizers are successful in getting signatures from 20% of people who voted in the election, it would still take a majority vote in the recall election to oust a person from public office.

In 2018, Hollis convinced lawmakers to change the recall election rules so that only 20% of the registered voters in a municipality with over 100,000 voters were needed for a recall petition to be successful. It was 33%. Hollis wants to lower the threshold again.

“I want to change that percentage not to be applied to the big number of how many registered qualified voters, I want to make that based on how many people actually voted in that campaign,” said Hollis.

Hollis’ bill will be debated in the legislative session that begins April 10th.

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