Ballotpedia's 2017 Recall Analysis

2018 Mid-Year Recall Report →

← 2017 Mid-Year Recall Report

Recall elections in 2017: Year-end report
Statistics
347 targeted officials 227 separate recall efforts
Notable recalls
Flint, Michigan Charlottesville, Virginia Georgia California Nevada

December 15, 2017 (updated September 17, 2024)
By Ballotpedia staff
Ballotpedia's coverage of 2017 recall efforts throughout the United States found a downturn in total efforts and recalls reaching the ballot compared to 2016.

• The 227 efforts against 347 elected officials in 2017 were lower than the 244 efforts against 374 officials in 2016, though an increase over the 172 efforts against 294 officials in 2015.
• This year's recall efforts saw 20.46% of officials included in recall efforts face recall elections, which was lower than the 28.61% of officials who faced recall elections in 2016.
• A consistent theme in the past three years of recall coverage is the states with the most recall efforts each year. California's recall efforts against 71 officials in 2017 kept the state in the top spot after having the most in 2016 (75 officials) and 2015 (72 officials). Michigan and Colorado were second and third in 2017, ensuring that the top three remained the same from 2016.

Notable recalls in Flint, Michigan, and Charlottesville, Virginia, focused on resident dissatisfaction with decisions made about waste management and public monuments.

• In Flint, Mayor Karen Weaver survived a recall election against 17 other candidates in November 2017 after a year-long effort to get the recall on the ballot. Weaver was targeted over her support for a waste management contract opposed by city council members with a years-long concern over water contamination in the background.
• In Charlottesville, a local group initiated an ongoing recall effort against all five members of the city council over the council's decision to remove Confederate monuments. The group argued that the council's decision encouraged violent protests over the monuments in August 2017.

At the state level, ongoing recalls in Georgia, California, and Nevada focus on policy issues such as voting integrity, taxes, and sanctuary jurisdictions:

• Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) was targeted for recall over allegations that he mishandled his duties as the state's head election official during the June 2017 special election in the 6th Congressional District. The recall focused on the state's contract with Kennesaw State University to host election servers.
• California State Sen. Josh Newman (D) faced a recall effort over his support for a proposed constitutional amendment that would apply vehicle taxes to transportation projects. Recall organizer Carl DeMaio focused on Newman because his narrow victory in 2016 showed vulnerability in his legislative district.
• Nevada State Sen. Joyce Woodhouse (D) was one of three state senators to face recall in 2017. Her recall focused on support for legislation allowing jurisdictions to declare sanctuary status, which Woodhouse argued was a pretense for political opponents to remove her after her 471-vote victory in 2016.

What exactly happens in a recall election? Staff Writer Elisabeth Moore gives a 2-minute overview, including what it means and which officials can be recalled View other episodes here.

Statistics

In 2017, Ballotpedia covered a total of 227 recall efforts against 347 officials. Efforts against 96 of those officials remained ongoing at the end of the year. Recall attempts against 151 officials did not make it to the ballot and are marked as "Unsuccessful" on the chart below.

Recall efforts against 71 officials appeared on the ballot in 2017, of which 39 were approved by voters while 32 were defeated, meaning that the official remained in office. Another 26 officials resigned before their recalls could go to a vote, and three officials had their recall efforts decided by court order. Below is a full breakdown of the results of recall efforts in 2017:

City council officials were the group targeted by the most recall petitions in 2017, with a total of 155 city council members facing recall campaigns over the course of the year. They were followed by mayors, 63 of whom faced recall efforts in 2017. In addition, 45 school board members faced recalls in 2017. In state government, a total of seven legislators and three executives faced recall efforts in 2017. A full breakdown of recall efforts by type of official follows in the chart below:

Targets by state

The state with the most officials targeted for recall in 2017 was California, with a total of 71 officials facing recall this year. Three other states saw more than 20 officials targeted by recall attempts this year: Michigan (49), Colorado (29), and Oregon (23). A full map of recall attempts by state follows. To view the number of officials included in recall efforts in a particular state, hover your mouse cursor over that state. Ballotpedia did not cover any recall efforts in states appearing in gray.

When these figures are adjusted to account for a state's population using the U.S. Census Bureau's July 2016 population estimates, Alaska emerges as the recall leader with 1.62 officials included in recalls per 100,000 residents. It is followed by North Dakota (1.33 per 100,000 residents) and Oregon (0.56 per 100,000 residents).

Notable recalls

Karen Weaver recall, Mayor of Flint, Michigan

See also: Karen Weaver recall, Flint, Michigan (2017)

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver survived a recall vote on November 7, 2017, after a year-long recall effort over the city's approval of a waste collection contract with Rizzo Environmental Services. This followed the city's extension of a contract with Republic Waste Services. Recall organizer and mayoral candidate Arthur Woodson initiated the recall effort in January 2017 after two failed efforts by Alex Harris in 2016 to remove Weaver over alleged wastes of public funds. Woodson's first petition was rejected by county officials before his second petition was approved for circulation on March 8, 2017. Weaver unsuccessfully sought to overturn the county's decision to approve the recall language and the county's August 2017 certification of signatures triggering an election. Eighteen candidates appeared on the ballot, including Weaver, who received 56 percent of the vote in the election.

Weaver previously faced scrutiny over the city's handling of lead contamination in 2015 and 2016, though this did not appear on any of the recall petitions. She was first elected to a four-year term as mayor in 2015, unseating incumbent Dayne Walling to become the city's first female mayor.

Mayor and city council recall, Charlottesville, Virginia

See also: Mayor and city council recall, Charlottesville, Virginia (2017)

Charlottesville City Council, November 2017
from left: Wes Bellamy, Kristin Szakos, Mike Signer, Kathy Galvin, and Bob Fenwick

A group called RISE Charlottesville initiated a recall effort against the five-member city council, including Mayor Mike Signer, in October 2017. The group announced that the council needed to be recalled because their support for removing Confederate monuments led to violence at protests in August 2017. Following the election of President Donald Trump, Signer told media that Charlottesville would act as the capital of the resistance against the president. None of the targeted officials provided a response to the recall effort at the time of its announcement.

When the recall effort started, the council included Wes Bellamy, Kristin Szakos, Kathy Galvin, and Bob Fenwick. Szakos and Fenwick were no longer members of the council after November 2017 because Szakos did not seek re-election and Fenwick lost a primary. Bellamy was targeted for recall in February 2017 over allegations of racially insensitive posts on Facebook by a different organizer, who did not gather enough signatures to trigger a hearing. Recall supporters need to gather approximately 1,000 valid signatures per official to advance the recall effort to a hearing before a circuit court judge.

Brian Kemp recall, Georgia Secretary of State

See also: Brian Kemp recall, Georgia Secretary of State (2017)

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R)

An effort to recall Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) was underway at the time of publication. The recall effort was initiated in October 2017 by a group known as A Voice for All Georgia and cited grievances regarding Kemp's handling of his duties as the state's chief elections officer. The group asserts that Kemp mishandled the state's voter rolls and did not do enough to make sure the state's elections infrastructure was secure. The recall campaign has referred to an ongoing lawsuit challenging the integrity of the state's electronic voting system. Plaintiffs in the suit allege that election servers hosted at Kennesaw State University contained information that could constitute evidence of Russian interference in the 2017 congressional special election between Jon Ossoff (D) and Karen Handel (R). Those servers were wiped on July 7, 2017, three days after the suit was filed.

Kemp announced on July 14 that the secretary of state's office would no longer contract election-related work out to Kennesaw State. In an October 31 press conference following the initial reports that the servers had been wiped in July, Kemp stated that the university had acted without his oversight or permission and asserted that the wipe of information was in keeping with standard information technology procedures. Supporters of the recall have until December 15, 2017, to turn in the required 778,677 signatures in order to move the recall forward. Kemp was first elected as secretary of state in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014.

Josh Newman recall, California State Senate

See also: Josh Newman recall, California State Senate (2017)

California State Senator Josh Newman (D)

An effort to recall Josh Newman (D) from his position representing District 29 in the California State Senate was underway at the time of publication. The recall was launched on April 19, 2017, by talk radio host, former Republican San Diego city councilman, and Reform California Chairman Carl DeMaio in response to Newman's support for Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. SB 1 provided for an increase in California's excise and sales taxes on fuel and for new user fees for vehicles. According to DeMaio's website, he targeted Newman instead of other Democratic legislators because he felt Newman's narrow margin of victory in 2016 (he won a traditionally Republican seat by less than 2,500 votes) would make him more vulnerable and allow Republicans to break Democrats' two-thirds supermajority in the California State Legislature. Two-thirds is the margin needed to increase taxes and put constitutional amendments on the ballot.

The Newman recall has been at the center of legislative and legal controversy. After the recall effort began, Democratic legislators passed two bills that opponents said would delay the timeline for a recall election. According to opponents, a delayed recall timeline would push the recall election until the statewide primary on June 5, 2018, where higher turnout may help Newman. Democrats first inserted these provisions in the 2018 fiscal year budget. Recall proponents, including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, filed a lawsuit that ended in a judge blocking the changes from going into place. On August 18, county officials confirmed that recall proponents had collected enough signatures to trigger a recall election, giving Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D) 10 days to certify the results. On August 24, Democrats passed a bill (SB 117) containing similar provisions providing for a delay in the recall timeline. Recall proponents filed another lawsuit later that day challenging the provisions. Citing the new changes, Padilla declined to certify the results and established a timeline for the recall that could put the election on June 5, 2018. The legal challenge to SB 117 is still pending.

Nevada State Senate recalls

See also: Nevada State Senate recalls, 2017

Sen. Joyce Woodhouse (D-5)

An effort to recall two sitting Nevada state senators—Sen. Joyce Woodhouse (D) and Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro (D)—was underway at the time of publication. A recall campaign against Sen. Patricia Farley (nonpartisan) failed to make the ballot in November 2017. The recall petitions for Cannizzaro and Woodhouse did not give an official reason for either recall. The Cannizzaro recall seeks to replace her with Republican April Becker. Woodhouse was targeted for recall over her support of sanctuary city legislation, according to the Nevada Independent. The recall organizers seek to replace Woodhouse with Carrie Buck (R).

In response to the recall effort, Woodhouse said, “This politically motivated recall effort has been an affront to voters and a blatant abuse of the process by individuals who are unfortunately still bitter about the results of the last election." Nevada Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson (R), a supporter of all three recalls, described the recall efforts as “democracy in action.” As of December 2017, Senate Democrats held a 10-9 majority in the state Senate with one nonpartisan member—Farley—caucusing with Democrats and one vacant seat that was previously held by a Democrat. Democrats won control of both the Nevada State Senate and the Nevada State Assembly in the 2016 general election. This broke the Republican trifecta previously held in the state.

On November 13, 2017, Democrats filed a lawsuit in Clark County District Court claiming that more than 5,500 signatures submitted in the recall against Sen. Woodhouse (D) were invalid. The office of the Nevada Secretary of State found that 15,444 of the 17,502 signatures submitted were valid. This exceeded the 14,412 signatures needed to trigger a recall election. Democrats said that more than 2,000 petition signers filed to have their names removed from the Woodhouse recall. The petitioners claimed that they were misled by canvassers. The lawsuit also claims that more than 3,000 signatures submitted in the recall came from people who either are not registered to vote in District 5, did not vote in 2016, or are not registered to vote in Nevada. That case is scheduled to be heard on December 19.

Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro (D-6)

The recall against Sen. Cannizzaro (D) remains in limbo after the Nevada Secretary of State’s office announced that more work is needed to determine if the Cannizzaro recall will make the ballot. On November 14, recall supporters submitted 16,910 signatures. This exceeds the 14,975 signatures needed to trigger a recall election. The state's office said that a sample size of 5 percent of the signatures determined that 15,471 signatures were valid. The recall petition fell below the signature threshold after 1,273 petition removal forms were submitted. The Clark County registrar’s office must first verify that the signatures on the 1,273 petition removal forms appeared on the submitted recall petition before the office can determine if the recall will make the ballot.

See also

• Recall overview
• Political recall efforts
• Political recall efforts, 2017
• Laws governing recall
• Ballotpedia's Mid-Year Recall Report (2017)