The filing of recall petitions has been getting a lot of attention in recent weeks following the furor over the state legislature voting itself a raise that more than doubles its members’ pay.

WWL-TV

Governor Bobby Jindal

Friday, Governor Bobby Jindal had a recall petition filed against him by Ryan Founier of Metairie.

“You talk to 80 percent of the citizens out there and they’d love to have the veto power to veto that bill (legislative pay raise),” he said by phone. “But individuals don’t have that right and we put someone in office to have that right, that power and we want him to use it and he refuses to.”

But filing a petition for recall is far easier than actually succeeding in getting a recall election. In fact, a recall election has never been called against a statewide or multi-parish official in Louisiana.

In order to successfully have an election called, a petition has to be filed and the group then has 180 days to collect signatures from one-third of the registered voters in the area the politician represents.

After that, there would be a 15-day period to verify every signature before an election would be called and a date set.

In Jindal’s case, they would need more than 933,000 signatures.

For state representatives, the requirements are much lower, and according to political analyst Silas Lee, much more within reach.

“It depends on the level of intensity and frustration with voters,” he said.

“The difficulty in collecting one-third is that most people have no idea what district they’re in,” said Dennis DiMarco, Jefferson Parish’s Registrar of Voters. “If you ask people to sign a petition to recall someone, they’ll swear it’s their representative or senator and when we get the petition, we find out it’s not.”

Founier said he knows the odds of getting a recall election called against Jindal are long.

“Take it one step at a time and if it’s a snowball effect and gathers momentum, you never know what can happen. But it’s gotta start with one person, so why not me?”