Bakersfield Senator Roy Ashburn is facing a recall by some right-wing anti-tax zealots after voting for the budget deal last month.  The funny part of the whole situation is that if the proponents of the recall do end up gathering enough signatures, it probably won’t actually reach the ballot until his term is almost over. Given that he’s termed out in 2010, it seems kind of pointless.

But having a point isn’t necessarily a big deal for the right-wingers, and so on they trudge.  By law, the politician who is the subject of a recall petition getting 40 valid signatures responds.  Here is (a portion of) Ashburn’s response:

Without that budget, California would have faced a financial disaster with thousands of workers suddenly unemployed. Construction of roads and highways would have stopped, and lost funds for hospitals and medicine would have crippled local governments.

An eminently reasonable response, all things considered.  At any rate, the recall effort doesn’t seem to have any experienced political types behind it, as the petitioners gathered 20 signatures from outside of the district when they initially turned in their notice of intent last week. Unless somebody with money hops into the effort, it seems unlikely they will gather the necessary 42,376 valid signatures necessary to recall Ashburn.