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History of recall gives fuel to both sides But the rare times it has succeeded, it has often been a vehicle for political payback. ``The recall is really a nuclear weapon in the political arsenal,'' said Stanford University history Professor David Kennedy. In the words of the chief proponent of its creation in 1911, then-Gov. Hiram Johnson, the recall was a ``precautionary measure by which a recalcitrant official can be removed.'' Now, nearly a century later, some Republicans in California are trying to gather enough signatures to force a recall vote against Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, as he struggles to deal with the state's $38 billion budget deficit. Recall advocates charge that Davis misled voters about the severity of the state's financial troubles during his re-election campaign last fall. No California statewide official has ever been recalled, and only seven of 117 previous recall efforts even made it on to the ballot -- all for state legislators. The first uses of the recall indicate how it might have initially been intended, ``for things ethically shady or in some way politically extraordinary,'' said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. Four recalled State Sen. Edwin Grant, a Democrat who represented what was then San Francisco's red-light district, was recalled in 1913 for opposing prostitution, said Cain. State Sen. Marshall Black, a Democrat representing Santa Clara County, was recalled the same year for his involvement in a banking scandal, although it had nothing to do with his political duties. There wasn't another successful recall in California until 1995, when two Southern California Republican members of the state Assembly were voted out of office for cutting deals with Democrats in a battle over party control of the Assembly. They are the only four elected state government officials to be recalled, with three other officials surviving recall elections, according to the California Secretary of State's Office. Although 18 states permit the recall of state officials, only one U.S. governor apparently has ever been thrown out of office because of it, North Dakota's Lynn J. Frazier in 1917. Frazier was recalled over a political dispute about state-owned industries. Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham faced a recall in 1988 on charges that he obstructed justice and misused state money, but was impeached before the election. Rare mechanism Opponents of the drive to recall Davis say its supporters are misusing what was intended to be a rarely exercised mechanism to remove officials for corruption or serious malfeasance. Supporters, like Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who is bankrolling the collection of recall signatures, say it's a proper attempt to allow voters to pick a more competent governor. Actually, both sides might be right. It seems clear that Johnson and his fellow reformers, known as Progressives, saw a recall as something to be used rarely when they pushed it into law in 1911, making California the second state after Oregon to have such a provision. The number of signatures required -- 12 percent of the number of votes cast in the most recent statewide election -- was viewed as a high hurdle in the early 20th century, a time with no mass media or paid signature gatherers and when voter turnout was much higher. Lowest threshold
But California has the lowest standard for the percentage of voters who must sign petitions to put a recall on the ballot among the 18 states that allow recalls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Six states have specific grounds for recall, such as corruption or violation of an oath
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