California Recall Election
In 1908 the people of the states of Michigan and Oregon added a new initiative to the ballot. This initiative, if passed, would allow the people of these states to recall certain elected officials if the people believed that the deeds of the office holder warranted such action. The initiatives passed. Today, eighteen states allow for the recall of some or all of their elected officials. The process of recall varies from state to state with seven of the states requiring specific grounds for the action. However, in the majority of the states all that is required is a petition, signed by the voting populace. While this may sound like a simple task, it is not. Due to the massive population growth in our nation, rules that require anywhere from 12 to 25% of voters, either total or those cast in the previous election, typically equals hundreds of thousands of signatures. Because of this, very few recall efforts have ever made it to the ballot and even fewer of these have ever passed. In fact, the only governor to have ever been successfully recalled is Lynn J. Frasier of North Dakota, who was recalled in 1921. That is until the California Recall Election.On October 8, 2003, the people of California, in a landslide decision,
Over the next seven weeks, public opinion polls clearly showed the continued dissatisfaction of the California people with incumbent, Gray Davis. Although the margin seemed to narrow closer to the election, the polls still showed that the majority of Californian’s wanted Gray Davis out of office. Approximately one week before the election the Gallup Organization reported, “The recall is favored by 55% of all registered voters in California, but by 63% of those deemed by Gallup to be most likely to vote. “ Most of the other polls seemed to find the same results and on October 8th their forecasting proved to be true. When all the votes had been counted, Californians voted to recall Governor Gray Davis by a margin of 55.4% to 44.6%. Opinion polls in regards to the front runner to replace Governor Davis were not nearly as consistent. The Los Angeles Times frequently showed Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante as the favorite with earlier polls reporting a 30% to 25% margin over Arnold, whereas polls taken by other organizations showed just the opposite. However, one week before the election most public opinion polls, including the Los Angeles Times showed Arnold Schwarzenegger the clear winner of the race. Even a last ditch attempt by the L.A. Times to implicate Schwarzenegger in a sexual harassment scandal did not have a much of an adverse affect on the moderate republican’s popularity. Polls taken after the printing of the story, approximately one week before the election, showed Arnold’s approval rating at around 60%. These polls proved true when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger beat the Lt. Governor by a resounding 48.7% to 31.6%. Even more shocking, and possibly alarming to democrats, was the fact that the combined vote for the republican candidates was an unbelievable 62%. voted to recall Governor Gray Davis. Gray Davis was elected governor of Californ
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Approximate Word count = 1271
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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