2003 California recall

The 2003 California recall was a special election permitted under California law. It resulted in voters replacing sitting Democratic Governor Gray Davis with Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. The recall effort spanned the summer and fall of 2003.

Background

The recall began with the efforts of Republican Darrell Issa, who gathered a petition in excess of the required hundreds of thousands of signatures required to invoke a recall. The political climate was largely shaped by the then-recent and costly California electricity crisis of the late 1990s, in which many saw their monthly energy bills triple in cost. It would be later revealed that the energy costs were artificially and fraudulently inflated by energy companies like Enron, who had gouged Californians for roughly $9 billion USD. The energy fraud was the dominant aspect of the wider Corporate accounting scandals which became known in 2001.

Related Topics:
Darrell Issa - California electricity crisis - Enron - USD - Corporate accounting scandal

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The public, confused by the complex and legalistic nature of the energy fraud, held Davis to some degree of fault. General speculation regarding the factors influencing the recall's outcome continues to center on the idea that Californians simply voted for a "change" —either because Davis had not fought more vigourously for Californians against the energy fraud, or because the fraudulent corporations had prevailed, and a corporate-friendly Republican governor could politically shield California from further corporate fraud. Others speculated that the corporations involved sought not only profit, but were acting in concert with Republican political allies to cause political damage the nationally influential Democrat governor.

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