Ashburn recall attempt faces setback

BARSTOW • An attempt to recall Barstow’s state Senator Roy Ashburn encountered a roadblock when the Secretary of State’s office found the recall proponents had not collected enough valid signatures on a required document.

Bakersfield businessman Michael Moore gathered 51 signatures on a notice of intent to circulate a recall petition, but only 31 turned out to be registered voters in Ashburn’s district, falling nine short of the 40 required in order to go forward with a recall petition.

Moore served the notice of intent on Ashburn Saturday, and the Secretary of State’s office received it Tuesday, according to an e-mail from the secretary’s press office. The office discovered the shortfall in valid signatures Wednesday, after forwarding the list to the Kern County Registrar of Voters for verification.

Moore said the issue resulted from the fact that portions of Bakersfield lie in two different senate districts — the 18th District represented by Ashburn and the 16th District represented by Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter. He attributed the problem to his own inexperience but said he plans to continue collecting signatures and hopes to serve Ashburn with the notice again next week.

“This is not going to stop us,” Moore said. “It’s just a minor setback.”

This time, he said, he will try to collect 39 more signatures on top of the 31 existing valid signatures.

Ashburn, who represents Inyo County and portions of Kern, Tulare and San Bernardino Counties, was one of six Republican legislators who crossed party lines and voted to pass a budget package intended to fix California’s $42 billion shortfall. The package was opposed by the majority of Republicans because it included increased taxes as part of the solution.

The tax vote was cited among the reasons for recall listed in the notice.

Once the notice is filed, Ashburn will have seven days to file an anwer. Within 10 days after that, the recall proponents must submit their proposed recall petition to the secretary’s office. In order to force a recall election, the proponents have 160 days from the time the petition is approved by the secretary’s office to collect at least 43,376 signatures from people eligible to vote in Ashburn’s district.

Other groups have formed and set up Web sites advocating for the recall of several other Republicans who voted for the budget, including Assemblyman Anthony Adams of Hesperia. As of Wednesday, however, the Secretary of State’s office had not received notices of intent to recall any legislators aside from Ashburn.

Staff writer Natasha Lindstrom contributed to this report.

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(760) 256-4123 or asewell@desertdispatch.com