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Research dossier · General Reference

Gray Davis

Governor of California from 1999 to 2003

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis Jr. is an American attorney and former politician who served as the 37th governor of California from 1999 until he was recalled and removed from office in 2003. He is the second state governor in U.S. history to have been recalled, after Lynn Frazier of North Dakota.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gray Davis” as governor of California from 1999 to 2003. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1999, 2003—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Gray, Davis and Governor can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as governor of California from 1999 to 2003. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1999 and 2003.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gray Davis”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gray Davis primary sources, Gray Davis archive and Gray research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gray Davis”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gray Davis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.