NEW ORLEANS — Legal roadblocks will likely doom an effort launched this week to recall U.S. Rep. Ahn “Joseph” Cao, the Vietnamese Republican who scored a surprise December victory in a predominantly black, mostly Democratic New Orleans congressional district.
Still, the petition drive, started by two black ministers only weeks after Cao took office, demonstrates the challenges he’ll face if he seeks a second term in 2010.
“At this point it’s going to be more symbolic than substantive,” pollster and political consultant Silas Lee said Friday of the recall effort, ostensibly launched to protest Cao’s vote against the federal stimulus package. “But symbolism carries a powerful message.”
Legal experts say a sitting congressman cannot be removed by voters before his term ends. A report last year by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said it can’t be done and Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne asked Friday for an opinion from the state attorney general.
Cao’s December election was a stunner. It dislodged 18-year incumbent William Jefferson, a Democrat who was the state’s first African-American congressman since Reconstruction.
Jefferson was weakened by a federal indictment accusing him of taking bribes. And because Louisiana’s election cycle was delayed by two hurricanes, the general election was held Dec. 6, when there was no Barack Obama at the top of the ballot to help generate black voter enthusiasm. In a low-turnout election, Cao won with just under 50 percent over Jefferson, who had 47 percent, and two minor party candidates.
