| Elections in California |
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Proposition 8 of 1911 (or Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 23) was an amendment of the Constitution of California that introduced, for the first time, the recall of public officials. This allows the governor, state senators and assemblymen, and other elected officials to be removed from office early by a public vote. It was approved by voters in a referendum held as part of a special election on 10 October. On the same day voters approved two other major political reforms, Proposition 4, which granted women the vote, and Proposition 7, which introduced the initiative and the optional referendum.
Proposition 8 added Article 23 of the Constitution of California. This began: "Every elective public officer of the State of California may be removed from office at any time by the electors entitled to vote for a successor of such incumbent".[1] Article 23 has since been repealed, but today a modified version of the recall procedure is contained in Article 2.
This measure was used to successfully recall Governor Gray Davis in 2003 and unsuccessfully used in an attempt to recall Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021.
- ^ Charles A. Beard and Birl E. Shultz (eds.), Documents on the State-wide Initiative, Referendum & Recall, 264 (includes full text of Proposition 8)