By William H. Benson
The Parallel Lives
Of The NOBLE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS THINKERS AND BELIEVERS:
Roger Williams VS. Cotton Mathers
NEW ARTICLES
Governors Recalled
Four times have governors of the fifty states suffered the indignity of a recall election.
On October 28, 1921, the governor of North Dakota, Lynn Frazier, lost the recall election to Ragnvald Nestos: 111,434 for Nestos vs. 107,332 for Frazier. This was a first in U.S. history.
What had Frazier done so bad to suffer a recall and be driven from office? It was due to poor economic conditions among the state’s farmers, scant crops, a drought, plus a budget crisis.
A second occurred on October 7, 2003, when Gray Davis, governor of California, lost the recall election to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Two questions appeared on that recall ballot. The first: Shall Gray Davis be recalled from the office of Governor? The results were 4,976,274 “Yes” votes vs. 4,007,783 “No” votes.
The second question asked voters to vote for either Schwarzenegger, Cruz Bustamente, or Tom McClintock. Schwarzenegger gathered 4,206,284, 48.58% of the total, enough to win.
What had Gray Davis done so bad? There was an electricity crisis causing blackouts and excessive electric bills, a massive budget deficit, and a vehicle license fee hike. Voters were not pleased. Davis admitted at that time that “he had lost touch with the voters.”
A third time occurred on June 5, 2012, when governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, won the recall election, 1,335,585 votes to Tom Barrett’s 1,164,480 votes. Walker retained his office.
What had Walker done so bad? He had signed Assembly Bill 11, the “Budget Repair Bill” in February 2011, which drove public sector employee unions out of collective bargaining, in order to work toward a more balanced state budget.
A fourth time occurred on September 14, 2021, when voters answered the first question: Shall Gavin Newsom be recalled from the office of Governor? The “Yes” votes tallied 4,894,474, but the “No” votes tallied 7,944,092, or 61.88%, enough for Newsom to retain his office as governor.
What had Newsom done? In part it was due to mandatory restrictions that Newsom imposed during the Covid pandemic, such as closing the schools. Newsom remains governor of the state.
Four governors. Two were driven out of their office: Lynn Frazier in 1921, and Gray Davis in 2003. Two retained their office: Scott Walker and Gavin Newsom.
Of the fifty states, California has the odd distinction for the most recall attempts for their governors, a total of 55, even though only two went to election, and only one succeeded.
Even the more popular governors of the state of California knew about the circulation of recall petitions, even though almost all the attempts failed to get onto a ballot.
Two times for Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. Three times for Ronald Reagan. Five times for Jerry Brown. Eleven times for George Deukmejian, a record number. Five times for Pete Wilson.
Three times for Gray Davis, and one succeeded. Seven times for Arnold Schwartzenegger. Five times for Jerry Brown, his second term as governor, and seven times for Gavin Newsom.
Why so many in California? The threshold in the state is for only 12% of the last election’s voters for the office to sign the petition, and that signers must originate from five counties. Many states have a threshold of at least 25%.
Of the seventeen states west of the Mississippi River, seven do not have any governor recall provisions: Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Certain voters in Colorado launched a petition to recall Jared Polis on February 24, 2022. Officials told the petitioners they had sixty days, until April 25, 2022, to gather and submit 631,266 signatures, near the state’s 25% threshold. The signatures collected were not submitted.
The lesson here is that it is most difficult to remove a governor once voters place him or her into that office.
Learning Methods
May is for graduations, for ceremonies and parties. Some high school graduates will give up on further formal education and instead will enter straight into the work force. Others will pursue a challenging course of study at a university: mathematics, science,...
Five Useful Books
Take a break from the present, and consider the better books from the past. Of all the books published since the days of the ancients, I consider five most useful: Fibonacci’s “Liber Abaci,” Isaac Newton’s “Principia Mathematica,” Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of...
Dilemma
Jeffrey W. Kitchen has taught an intense course on screenwriting to a series of small groups of just six people over the past 35 years. In recent weeks, I came across Kitchen on YouTube, and I was impressed by his skill, that of a classical dramatist. Kitchen says,...
Words: “What’s in a Name?”
In Shakespeare’s play, “Romeo and Juliet,” Juliet stands upon her balcony, and complains that Romeo has the wrong last name. Her family, the Capulet’s, and Romeo’s family, the Montague’s, were bitter enemies, locked in a bloody feud. She says, “’Tis but thy name that...
two peace marches
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, some 600 nonviolent, civil rights activists, mostly black, gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, intending to march to Montgomery, Alabama, the state capital, a distance of 54 miles, to demand their constitutional right to...
The American Revolution, Small Pox, and Black Soldiers
George Washington was from Virginia, born February 22, 1732, noted last Sunday. Only once during Washington’s life, did he leave the North American continent, and that was in 1751, when he was 19, when he sailed to Barbados, an island in the south Caribbean Sea,...
Older Posts
Three Events on February 11, 1861
Black History Month began Sunday, February 1, and will end Sunday, March 1. At least three events occurred on February 11, 1861, that deserve our attention during Black History Month. On that day, the U.S. House of Representatives received a formal written...
thoughts on William Franklin
William Franklin was born in Philadelphia in 1730. His father was Benjamin Franklin. His mother was unknown. Ben brought William, his illegitimate son, into his home, that same year. Ben and his common-law wife, Deborah Reed, agreed to raise William together. ...
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts, 320 years ago. In recent days, I discovered Ken Burns’s two episodes on Benjamin Franklin that aired in April 2022 on PBS. The second part is more interesting, his efforts during the...
Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42, in his Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. His heart gave out after years of obesity and prescription drugs. His long-time talent agent and promoter, cigar-chomping Colonel Tom Parker, lived for...
“Frankenstein” and “Hamnet”
Two movies were released this past November, “Frankenstein” on the 7th, and “Hamnet” on the 26th. Both were based, in part, on well-known fictional works from previous centuries, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus,” and William Shakespeare’s...
Mexico’s Revolution, Part 2
Last time, I discussed the first phase of Mexico’s Revolution, when Francisco Madero challenged the three decades-long dictator, Porfirio Díaz, in the 1910 election. Díaz won the election, but Madero called for a revolt against Díaz on November 20, 1910....
One of University of Northern Colorado’s 2020 Honored Alumni
William H. Benson
Local has provided scholarships for history students for 15 years
A Sterling resident is among five alumni selected to be recognized this year by the University of Northern Colorado. Bill Benson is one of college’s 2020 Honored Alumni.
Each year UNC honors alumni in recognition for their outstanding contributions to the college, their profession and their community. This year’s honorees were to be recognized at an awards ceremony on March 27, but due to the COVID-19 outbreak that event has been cancelled. Instead UNC will recognize the honorees in the fall during homecoming Oct. 10 and 11……
Newspaper Columns
The Duodecimal System
For centuries, the ancient Romans calculated sums with their clunky numerals: I, V, X, L, C, D, and M; or one, five, ten, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000. They knew nothing better.
The Thirteenth Amendment
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and by it, he declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are and henceforward shall be free.” Lincoln’s Proclamation freed some 3.1 million slaves within the Confederacy.
The Fourteenth Amendment
After Congress and enough states ratified the thirteenth amendment that terminated slavery, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law declared that “all people born in the United States are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.” The Act equated birth to citizenship.
The New-York Packet and the Constitution
Jill Lepore, the Harvard historian, published her newest book a month ago, These Truths: A History of the United States. In a short introduction, she describes in detail the Oct. 30, 1787 edition of a semi-weekly newspaper, The New-York Packet.
Mr. Benson’s writings on the U.S. Constitution are a great addition to the South Platte Sentinel. Its inspiring to see the history of the highest laws of this country passed on to others.
– Richard Hogan
Mr. Benson, I cannot thank you enough for this scholarship. As a first-generation college student, the prospect of finding a way to afford college is a very daunting one. Thanks to your generous donation, my dream of attending UNC and continuing my success here is far more achievable
– Cedric Sage Nixon
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– Extra Times
FUTURE BOOKS
- Thomas Paine vs. George Whitefield
- Ralph Waldo Emerson vs. Joseph Smith
- William James vs. Mary Baker Eddy
- Mark Twain vs. Billy Graham
- Henry Louis Mencken vs. Jim Bakker
