‘Recall Diane Douglas’ Facebook page gets thousands of likes

PHOENIX — Less than three days after Republican Diane Douglas was declared the winner over Democrat David Garcia in the race for Arizona superintendent of public instruction, her opponents are already trying to get her out of office.

They’ve created a “Recall Diane Douglas” Facebook page, which already had nearly 5,000 likes as of Tuesday evening.

“Once we received notice of how many people in the community were unhappy with this and how many people were ready to act and rally around this effort, we decided that we needed to take this more seriously and start talking to people,” said Max Goshert, a spokesman for the group behind the effort.

Goshert said supporters of the recall, many of whom are Democrats, believe Douglas isn’t qualified to do the job. They’re upset because she only campaigned on one issue, which is her opposition to Arizona’s Common Core education standards. They note she avoided every debate but one against Garcia.

Douglas was required to take part in the Clean Elections debate in order to receive Clean Election campaign funds.

Goshert wants Arizonans to ask themselves a question about Douglas.

“Think about the decision that you just made. Is this really what you want to have for the next four and possibly eight years, or should we act together as a community to try and make some change?” he said.

Goshert said many people are telling the group to give Douglas a chance.

“You can’t recall anybody until after they’ve been in office for six months, so she’s going to get that chance,” Goshert said. “But we believe that we’re not going to see anything that’s going to make us happy.”

Douglas was unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, Arizona Education Association President Andrew Morrill said any talk of a recall is silly.

“She hasn’t even served in office yet, so I don’t even understand what the basis of a recall would be,” he said.

Morrill said beginning a recall campaign before Douglas even takes office is a waste of time and effort.

“I don’t think it’s worth very much,” he said. “Frankly, I think it’s a distraction that we just don’t need right now.

“We just had an election. Regardless of what people expected to have happen, the voters spoke, and I just don’t think (the recall campaign is) a healthy enterprise.”

Morrill said he’s heard very little about Douglas’ plans except for her opposition to Common Core. He wants to meet with her to learn how she plans to address several issues.

“How are we going to address a crushing shortage in this state of people willing to teach?” he said. “I say it that way because we don’t actually have a shortage of teachers in this state; we have a shortage of people who are willing to go to work in our classrooms because of the conditions we’ve created.”

Morrill wants to hear what Douglas considers “good teaching” to be and how she plans to handle charter schools. He said Douglas needs to present a clear vision of where she wants Arizona’s education system to go.