House Rep. Joe D’Orsie is proposing a constitutional amendment that would allow the state House of Representatives to initiate a recall election for a public official holding county or local office.

Local voters would still have the final vote on the recall even though the process would start in Harrisburg. The legislation hasn’t yet been drafted, but constitutional amendments and recall should be a break glass in case of emergency solution to a problem. In Pennsylvania, constitutional amendments are proposed all the time to solve political problems. We have a feeling recall, if it was ever approved by voters, would similarly become a political solution to political problems.

The most recent situation that prompted D’Orsie’s bill is a Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, a Democrat who voted to count provisional ballots that were missing one of two required voter signatures. She did so after being told by a county attorney that the state Supreme Court had already ruled that such ballots can’t be counted.

“We all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want,” she said. “So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it. There is nothing more important than counting votes.”

Ellis-Marseglia’s case is particularly vexing given that the law was pretty clear. But, the ballots weren’t counted, so her statements amounted to much sound and fury signifying nothing. In fact, her outrageous statements brought enough attention to Bucks County’s vote count that the law had to be followed no matter how much Ellis-Marseglia wanted to disregard it.

We fear political games of tit-for-tat if recall were to be approved by voters. There are no winners when political parties begin playing such games.

The better solution is for voters who found themselves upset by Ellis-Marseglia’s intransigence during Bucks County’s vote count to hold her responsible at the ballot box. The same was true of Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia district attorney who found himself on the receiving end of the House of Representatives’ impeachment vote before an appeals court ruled the House had overstepped its authority. Ultimately, voters hold the power of recall – but use it far too infrequently.