The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election was a special election permitted under California state law. It resulted in voters replacing incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. The recall effort spanned the latter half of 2003. Seven of the nine previous governors, including Davis, had faced unsuccessful recall attempts.
After several legal and procedural efforts failed to stop it, California's first-ever gubernatorial recall election was held on October 7, and the results were certified on November 14, 2003, making Davis the first governor recalled in the history of California, and just the second in U.S. history (the first was North Dakota's 1921 recall of Lynn Frazier). Imperial, Lake, and San Benito counties all voted for the recall after voting for Davis in 2002.
California is one of 19 states that allow recalls. California held a second recall election in 2021; however, that recall was unsuccessful, failing to oust Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
Background
The California recall process became law in 1911 as the result of Progressive Era reforms that spread across the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The ability to recall elected officials came along with the initiative and referendum processes. The movement in California was spearheaded by Republican Governor Hiram Johnson, a reformist, who called the recall process a "precautionary measure by which a recalcitrant official can be removed". No illegality needs to be committed by politicians for them to be recalled. If an elected official commits a crime while in office, the state legislature can hold impeachment trials. For a recall, only the will of the people is necessary to remove an official. Nineteen U.S. states, along with the District of Columbia, allow the recall of state officials.
Before the successful recall of Gray Davis, no California statewide official had ever been recalled, although there had been 117 previous attempts. Only seven of those even made it onto the ballot, all for state legislators. Every California governor since Goodwin Knight in the 1950s has been subject to a recall effort. Davis was the first governor of California whose opponents gathered the necessary signatures to qualify for a special election. Davis also faced a recall petition in 1999, but that effort failed to gain enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Davis's recall at the time was only the second gubernatorial recall election in U.S. history. The first governor recall occurred in 1921, when North Dakota's Lynn J. Frazier was recalled over a dispute about state-owned industries, and was replaced by Ragnvald A. Nestos. A third gubernatorial recall election occurred in Wisconsin in 2012 which, unlike the previous two, failed.
The 2003 recall was prompted by some actions taken by Davis and his predecessor, Governor Pete Wilson. Many people were upset with the governor's decision to block the enactment of Proposition 187, which had been found unconstitutional by a Federal District Court. Davis, who had opposed the measure, decided not to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively killing the ballot measure. He also signed two new restrictive gun-control laws. Many people were further upset about the California electricity crisis. As Davis's recall transpired before he had served half of his term as governor, he remained eligible to serve another term, should he win a future election for the California governor post.
California law
Under California law, any elected official may be the target of a recall campaign. To trigger a recall election, proponents of the recall must gather a certain number of signatures from registered voters within a certain time period. The number of signatures statewide must equal 12% of the number of votes cast in the previous election for that office. For the 2003 recall election, that meant a minimum of 897,156 signatures, based on the November 2002 statewide elections. As the 2002 California gubernatorial election had the lowest turnout in modern history, the number of signatures required was less than usual.
The effort to recall Gray Davis began with Republicans Ted Costa, Mark Abernathy, and Howard Kaloogian, who filed their petition with the California Secretary of State and started gathering signatures. The effort was not taken seriously until U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, who hoped to run as a replacement candidate for governor, donated $2 million to a new committee, Rescue California, which then led the effort. Eventually, proponents gathered about 1.6 million signatures, of which 1,356,408 were certified as valid.
Under most circumstances in which a recall campaign against a statewide elected official has gathered the required number of signatures, the governor is required to schedule a special election for the recall vote. If the recall campaign qualified less than 180 days prior to the next regularly scheduled election, then the recall becomes part of that regularly scheduled election. In the case of a recall against the governor, the responsibility for scheduling a special election falls on the lieutenant governor, who in 2003 was Cruz Bustamante.
Political climate
The political climate was largely shaped by the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, during which many people experienced a tripling of their energy costs as rolling blackouts occurred throughout the state. The public held Davis partly responsible, although the causes included federal deregulation and California's Electric Utility Industry Restructuring Act, signed into law by Governor Wilson.
Driving the outcome of the recall was the perception that Davis had mismanaged the events leading up to the energy crisis. It was argued that he had not fought vigorously for Californians against the energy fraud, and that he had not pushed for legislative or emergency executive action against the fraudulent companies soon enough. He was said to have signed deals agreeing to pay energy companies fixed yet inflated prices for years to come based on those paid during the crisis. Opponents felt that a corporate-friendly Republican governor could shield California politically from further corporate fraud. Others speculated that the corporations involved sought not only profit but also to act in concert with Republican political allies to cause political damage to the nationally influential Democratic governor. Still others, such as Arianna Huffington, argued that Davis's fundraising and campaign contributions from various companies, including energy companies, rendered him unable to confront his contributors. Davis had accepted $2 million from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, and used his political connections to pass an estimated $5 billion raise for them over the coming years. That led many people throughout California to believe Davis was guilty of corruption, even if he did not meet the standard necessary for prosecution.
Recall election
On February 5, 2003, anti-tax activist Ted Costa announced plans to launch a petition drive to recall Davis. Several committees were formed to collect signatures, but Costa's Davis Recall Committee was the only one authorized by the state to submit signatures. One committee, the "Recall Gray Davis Committee," organized by Republican political consultant Sal Russo and former Republican assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, played a smaller role in drumming up support. Kaloogian served as chairman, and Russo as chief strategist of the committee. After the recall, both Kaloogian and Russo went on to found Move America Forward.
By law, the committee had to collect signatures from registered California voters amounting to 12% of the number of Californians who voted in the previous gubernatorial election (November 2002) for the special recall vote to take place. The organization was given the go-ahead to collect signatures on March 25, 2003. Organizers had 160 days to collect signatures. They had to collect at least 897,158 valid signatures from registered voters by September 2, 2003.
The recall movement began slowly, largely relying on talk radio, a website, cooperative e-mail, word-of-mouth, and grassroots campaigning to drive the signature gathering. Davis derided the effort as "partisan mischief" by "a handful of right-wing politicians" and called the proponents losers; nevertheless, by mid-May, recall proponents said they had gathered 300,000 signatures. They sought to gather the necessary signatures by July to hold the special election in the fall of 2003, rather than in March 2004, during the Democratic presidential primary election, when Democratic Party turnout would presumably be higher. The effort continued to gather signatures, but the recall was far from a sure thing, and the proponents were short on cash to promote their cause.
The movement took off when wealthy U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from San Diego, announced on May 6 that he would use his personal funds to advance the effort. He contributed $1.7 million to finance advertisements and professional signature-gatherers. With the movement accelerating, the recall effort began to make national news and soon seemed almost a sure thing. The only question was whether signatures would be collected quickly enough to force the special election to take place in late 2003 rather than in March 2004.
The Issa recall committee's e-mail stated that California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who belongs to the same party as the Governor, resisted certifying the recall signatures for as long as possible. By mid-May, the recall organization was calling for funds to initiate a lawsuit against Shelley and was publicly considering a separate recall effort against the Secretary of State (also an elected official in California). By July 23, 2003, recall advocates had turned in over 110% of the required signatures, and the Secretary of State announced that the signatures had been certified and that a recall election would take place. Proponents had set a goal of 1.2 million to provide a buffer in case of invalid signatures. In the end, there were 1,363,411 valid signatures out of 1,660,245 collected (897,156 required). On July 24, Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante announced that Davis would face a recall election. This was to be the second gubernatorial recall election in United States history and the first in the history of California. California's Constitution required that a recall election be held within 80 days of the date the recall petition was certified, or within 180 days if a regularly scheduled statewide election came within that time. Had the petition been certified by the September 2 deadline, the election would have been held in March 2004, the next scheduled statewide election. Instead, Bustamante had to select a date. He chose Tuesday, October 7, 2003, which was 76 days after certification.
Arguments about the recall drive
Backers of the recall effort cited Davis's alleged lack of leadership, combined with California's weakened and hurt economy. According to the circulated petition:
[Governor Davis's actions were a] gross mismanagement of California Finances by overspending taxpayers' money, threatening public safety by cutting funds to local governments, failing to account for the exorbitant cost of the energy, and failing, in general, to deal with the state's major problems until they get to the crisis stage.
Opponents of the recall said the situation was more complicated for several reasons. The entire United States and many of its economic trading partners had been in an economic recession. California was hit harder than other states at the end of the speculative bubble known as the "dot-com bubble"—from 1996 to 2000—when Silicon Valley was the center of the internet economy. California state expenditures soared when the government was flush with revenues. Some Californians blamed Davis and the state legislature for continuing to spend heavily while revenues dried up, ultimately leading to record deficits.