Gray Davis recall, Governor of California (2003)
| California Governor recall |
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| Officeholders |
| Recall status |
| Recall election date |
| October 7, 2003 |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2003 Recalls in California California recall laws State executive recalls Recall reports |
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| Historical recalls | |
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| Recall news | |
| Recall laws | |
| Recall Portal | |
The Gray Davis recall was a successful effort in 2003 to recall Gray Davis, a Democrat, from his position as Governor of California. The outcome of the recall election held on October 7, 2003, was that Davis was recalled and Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was elected as Davis' replacement. The option to recall Davis received 55% of the vote. The recall effort was the first successful recall of a California governor and only the second recall of a state governor in American history.
Davis was recalled 11 months after he was elected in November 2002 to a second four-year term as California's governor. A total of 9.4 million voters cast a ballot on the recall question. This was an increase of 11 percent compared to vote totals for the state's 2002 gubernatorial election.
The recall, which had its origins in how Davis handled a situation in the state's electricity industry, was described in December 2009 as the "one event [that] shaped California politics more than any other in the decade.[1]
Election results
A total of 135 candidates were on the October 2003 ballot as potential replacement candidates. Besides Schwarzenegger, other noteworthy candidates included Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (D), state Sen. Tom McClintock (R), Arianna Huffington, former child actor Gary Coleman, and pornographer Larry Flynt.[1]
The result of the vote to recall Davis was:
| Should Gray Davis be recalled? | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
 Yes | 4,976,274 | 55.4% | ||
| No | 4,007,783 | 44.6% | ||
The top three vote-getters in the election were:
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | Republican | 4,206,284 | 48.58% |
| Cruz Bustamante | Democratic | 2,724,874 | 31.47 |
| Tom McClintock | Republican | 1,161,287 | 13.41 |
Path to the ballot
The signature-gathering drive to qualify the Davis recall petition was conducted by Bader & Associates, Inc., a petition management company owned by Tom Bader and Joy Bader. Ted Costa of People's Advocate asked the Baders to take on the Davis Recall signature-gathering effort when other petition management companies in California refused to work on the petition drive. Congressman Darrell Issa (R) eventually provided most of the funding for the Davis recall petition through a committee that paid Bader & Associates to conduct the signature-gathering drive.[2]
According to laws governing recall in California, recall supporters were required to collect a number of signatures from registered California voters equaling 12 percent of the number of ballots cast in the November 2002 California gubernatorial election. Recall supporters were told on March 25, 2003, that the recall petition form they had submitted to election officials was acceptable, and that they had 160 days -- until September 2, 2003 -- to collect 897,158 valid signatures.
Recall proponents gathered about 1.6 million signatures, of which 1,356,408 were certified as valid.[1]
Issa's financial support for a signature-gathering campaign to collect the necessary signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot was widely credited as the reason that recall supporters were able to collect the necessary amount of signatures to put the Davis recall on the ballot.[1]
See also
- California 2003 ballot propositions
- 2003 ballot measures
- List of California ballot measures
- History of Initiative & Referendum in California
External links
Footnotes
