Recall election

Although not particularly common, recall elections have occurred at various times and in various voting districts across the United States. A recall election is one in which an elected public official (such as a governor, senator, representative, city council member, or mayor) who is in the midst of a term, faces an insurgent, grassroots-inspired election to oust him or her from office before the term is set to expire or the scheduled date of reelection. As such, a recall election can be viewed as a metaphorical voter-led “uprising” or “rebellion” to abruptly terminate a political figure from public office. Although elected officials who are the targets of a recall election are often removed from office, in some cases the targeted politician managed to survive a recall election and maintain his or her office. In 1903, the city of Los Angeles introduced the recall device as a political procedure; five years later, Michigan and Oregon became the first to adopt recall procedures at the state level. California has witnessed more attempts to initiate recall elections than any other state, with one-hundred and eighty-one attempted recalls (although only eleven of those attempts successfully generated enough signatures to qualify the attempted recall).

Background

Recall elections are controversial, and opinions about recalls are divided among political commentators and pundits. Advocates generally feel that the threat of a potential recall forces elected public officials to be responsive to the concerns and the will of their constituencies or face their wrath in the form of a recall. In this sense, the threat of a recall election provides the electorate with a sense of control over public officials and pressures them to be responsive and competent. On the other hand, critics argue that recalls disrupt the democratic process by diverting elected officials’ attention from governing and the legislative process if an already elected officeholder is forced to campaign for his or her job in the midst of tenure. Critics also contend that recalls render the regular election cycle effectively meaningless if disgruntled voters can organize to remove an unpopular political figure from office before the term is officially set to expire.

The logistics surrounding recall elections are complex and vary from state to state, and not all states permit recall elections. As of 2024, only twenty states allow gubernatorial recalls. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. However, thirty-nine or more states permit recall elections for local jurisdictions (such as a city, township, or other local municipality). In most of those states, no specific causation or transgression on the part of the targeted public officeholder is needed for the electorate to initiate a recall election. However, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington outline specific reasons, such as mental incompetence, criminal conduct, corruption, or dereliction of duty, as the only admissible criteria for initiating a recall election.

Overview

Several high-profile recall elections have taken place across the United States in the early twenty-first century, drawing national and international attention to the power of the recall. Perhaps the best-known of those recall elections occurred in California in October 2003, when voters rejected Democratic governor Gray Davis in favor of prominent actor and Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. The timing of this recall was somewhat surprising, given that Davis (first elected governor in 1998) had won reelection by 5 percentage points just a year earlier. Political experts attribute California voters’ dissatisfaction with Davis in 2003 to a variety of factors, including rising electricity costs throughout the state, steep budget cuts and rising taxes, opposition to Davis’s efforts to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, and widespread perceptions of political corruption in the Davis administration. During the recall election, Californians voted on two separate, yet interrelated issues: whether they wished to recall Davis from office, and whom they wished to vote for as governor (this second issue would have been irrelevant had the majority of the electorate voted against the recall). A majority of Californians, 55.4 percent, voted in favor of the recall, and Schwarzenegger was elected as the state’s new governor with 48.6 percent of the vote. One hundred thirty-five candidates ran for governor in this open-election format, allowing Schwarzenegger to win simply by garnering the most votes of any candidate. Davis’s ouster was the first instance of a governor’s recall since 1921.

Another high-profile gubernatorial recall election took place in Wisconsin in June 2012, when Republican governor Scott Walker (first elected in 2010) faced a challenge from Democratic opponent Tom Barrett. Opposition to Walker stemmed almost entirely from his strong opposition to public sector labor unions, whose collective bargaining rights Walker sought to weaken and restrict. Whereas support for Davis’s recall transcended political partisanship and found support among both Democratic and Republican voters, reaction to the Walker recall was largely sharply divided along partisan ideological lines. Organized labor (long heavily affiliated with the Democratic Party) orchestrated much of the Walker recall drive, although this recall proved unsuccessful; Walker survived the recall election by garnering 53 percent of the vote.

Arizona state senator Russell Pearce, a conservative Republican who also served as the president of the Arizona State Senate, was recalled from office in November 2011 when fellow Republican Jerry Lewis defeated him. Several factors contributed to the recall against Pearce, including his stringent views and explicit rhetoric against illegal immigration—which many within the larger Republican Party establishment found too extreme for the party’s good (Pearce authored Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070, which passed in January 2011). Pearce also came under heavy criticism for accepting about $40,000 in football tickets and other perks in exchange for diverting taxpayer-funded subsidies to the NCAA Fiesta Bowl football game.

In 2023, recall elections hit a historic high, with over one hundred elected individuals being recalled by voters or resigning from office after facing a recall.

Bibliography

Dutton, Sarah, and Jennifer Pinto. “How Scott Walker Won the Wisconsin Recall Election.” CBS News, 14 Dec. 2012, www.cbsnews.com/news/how-scott-walker-won-the-wisconsin-recall-election/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.  

Lawrence, David G. The California Governor Recall Election. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2004.

“Recall of State Officials.” National Conference of State Legislatures, 15 Sept. 2021, www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state-officials. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

Schwarzenegger, Arnold. Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story. New York: Simon, 2012.

Spivak, Josh. “Recall Elections Hit Historic Highs.” Pluribus News, 28 Dec. 2023, pluribusnews.com/news-and-events/recall-elections-hit-historic-highs/. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.   

“States with Gubernatorial Recall Provisions.” Ballotpedia, ballotpedia.org/States‗with‗gubernatorial‗recall‗provisions. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.  

Weiner, Rachel. “Arizona Recall: Why Russell Pearce Lost.” Washington Post, 9 Nov. 2011, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/arizona-recall-why-russell-pearce-lost/2011/11/09/gIQALj6a5M‗blog.html. Accessed 6 Dec. 2024.

Zimmerman, Joseph F. The Recall: Tribunal of the People. 2nd ed. Albany: State U of New York P, 2014.