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Changes to California law aimed at limiting the use of recall elections as a political weapon has opened the door for recalled officials such as San Benito County Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez to run again to finish their term in office.
That’s according to an election law attorney who told BenitoLink that state law now allows what some might consider a counterintuitive practice.
Velazquez is running in the Nov. 3 general election against two other candidates, business owner and San Benito County Board of Education trustee Rodney Bianchi and Hazel Hawkins Hospital Auxiliary President John Williams, to complete the current District 5 term in office which expires in 2028.
Velazquez was successfully, albeit narrowly, recalled from is District 5 seat in June.
Confusion over whether state election law prohibited Velazquez from running to replace himself on the Board of Supervisors even flummoxed the San Benito County Elections Office, which ended up reversing itself on the matter.
County Clerk, Recorder, and Registrar of Voters Francisco Diaz initially cited state law to explain why his office rejected Velazquez’s petition to file his candidacy on July 21. Diaz pointed to Election Code 11381(b) as the grounds for rejecting Velazquez’s request to file candidacy papers.
The election code Diaz cited states, “No person whose recall is being sought may be a candidate to succeed himself or herself at a recall election.”
But Diaz said he later found that the recalled supervisor was “allowed” to run again, after consulting with the County Counsel Gregory Priamos’ office and registrars of voters from other counties. Diaz cited the case of a Riverside County school board trustee who successfully ran in 2024 for the remainder of his term in office after he was recalled.
“As colleagues in counties like Riverside agree, current law doesn’t bar a recalled official from running,” Diaz said. “While common sense might suggest otherwise, updated analysis clarifies this is a vacancy election rather than a succession election, making the candidate legally eligible.”
Velazquez is believed to be the second elected official in the state to seek the seat he was recalled from.
Election law attorney Stephen Kaufman with the Kaufman Legal Group based in Los Angeles and Sacramento said rules for local recalls changed in 2022 when state legislators passed Assembly Bill 2582, titled “Recall elections: local offices.”
Kaufman said the bill changed the recall rules by separating the recall question from the replacement one. Before the change, voters were asked whether they wanted to recall a public official and also to choose a replacement on the same ballot. Now, he said voters are only asked to decide on the recall question, leaving the replacement process for later.
“Essentially the reasoning was that it eliminates political gamesmanship by people who are unhappy with election results,” he said.
Kaufman said another rationale stated by legislators who supported AB 2582 was that candidates who sought to replace a recalled official had a lower vote threshold to win the office.
Assemblymember Steve Bennett, who authored the bill, said the change allows recall efforts to focus on the merits of recalling an official.
“This would allow voters to truly evaluate the cause for the recall, without being distracted by partisan politics, or focusing on potential replacement candidates,” Bennett wrote in AB 2582’s analysis.
Bennett also authored AB 94 in 2025, which prohibits a recalled official from being appointed to the same seat.
Bennett did not respond to BenitoLink’s request to comment on the two bills.
Kaufman said he believes these changes to the law were a response to what some people may call an abuse of the recall process, instead of waiting to oust an incumbent at the end of their term if they seek to be reelected.
He said voters may still believe that officials would be ineligible to run for the same seat from which they were recalled.
“It’s a circumstance that people are just getting used to because it is a fairly new area of the law,” he said.
That was apparently the case with Stacie McGrady, who was part of the group that spearheaded Velazquez’s recall. She said the proponents did not know he would be able to run again “right away.”
“I think we are as surprised as everyone else because clearly it seems illogical that an incumbent who has been recalled by a vote of the people would be eligible to participate in the next election for the same position,” McGrady said.
McGrady is also part of a committee that is attempting to recall Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki.
She said allowing public officials to run to finish their term even if they are recalled “adds another level of frustration” to the recall process because it takes time, energy and money.
Asked if it’s still worth pursuing the recall knowing Kosmicki could run again if the committee is successful, McGrady said she “never gives up.”
Kaufman said recalls have been increasingly used as a “political weapon” over the years, referencing the failed 2021 special election to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In San Benito County, there have been five attempted recalls initiated in the last five years. Only the Velazquez recall made it to the ballot.
Velazquez was also a target of a recall as Hollister mayor in 2021 but proponents scrapped the effort before making it to the signature gathering phase.
Kosmicki has been the target of two recall attempts. The most recent one is in the signature-gathering phase. Proponents of the first effort said they stopped collecting signatures in order to focus on recalling Velazquez.
San Benito Health Care District Director Josie Sanchez was also the target of a recall bid, but it did not move forward, according to the county Elections Office website.
Velazquez’s recall shares similarities with the successful recall of Temecula Valley Unified School District Trustee Joseph Komrosky in 2024 in that both were ousted by a narrow margin. The Komrosky recall won with 50.64% of the vote; the Velazquez recall won with 51.09%.
Komrosky regained his seat with 50.7% of the vote in a race against one other candidate.
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