Recall campaigns target Black and progressive officials across U.S.

Mayoral recall campaigns are being threatened in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere as voter dissatisfaction and media criticism mounts. However, for Democratic voters, the “recall movement” appears to be a backdoor attempt by conservatives or “dark money operatives” to circumvent voting rights and part of a campaign to undermine Black and/or progressive political leadership.

A recall election is a process that allows voters to remove an elected official before a regularly scheduled election at the end of one’s term.

This week, Illinois lawmakers Rep. Anthony De Lucca (80th District) and Rep. LaShawn Ford (8th District) introduced House Bill 1084, which would create a process for recalling the mayor of Chicago. The measure would not affect members of the Chicago City Council or the city’s elected treasurer or clerk.

There is no evidence that “dark money” or outside pressure have played a role in the legislators’ current recall efforts. The move is driven solely by his constituents’ decades-long dissatisfaction with Chicago, Ford noted. Both state officials are Democrats. Johnson is considered the leading voice of Chicago’s progressive movement. He is supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and campaigned for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA).

Ford, a champion of rights restoration for formerly incarcerated citizens and a former mayoral candidate, told Crusader, “In 2015, I introduced a bill aimed at establishing a recall mechanism for the mayor of Chicago,” he said. “I believe that this tool is essential for fostering sound public policy and empowering residents to hold their leaders accountable between elections.”

He said, “This has nothing to do with Brandon Johnson specifically. I worked with Gov. (Pat) Quinn on the successful gubernatorial recall legislation in 2010. I began advocating for Chicago mayoral recall after the Laquan McDonald case under (then) Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I have introduced it each year ever since.

In October 2014, McDonald was a 17-year-old teenager shot 16 times by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. The case sparked cries of a “coverup” by the Emanuel and Chicago police brass. The case, which sparked civil unrest for several weeks, was made public after Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle released the teen’s gruesome autopsy report and activists forced the release of police body cam footage.

Rep. Ford also noted there is no taxpayer measure to recall state representatives or senators, partly because those offices have less power than executive-branch positions, and because statewide recalls “would be quite expensive,” the state lawmaker said.

Without a state enforced law, Chicago does not have the ability to remove the mayor from power. Voters must rely on the city’s elected to resign, be convicted of a felony, or to become incapacitated by illness or sudden death if they desire a change before a municipal term expires.

“I have long believed this is a good policy we should pursue, which is why I have consistently introduced legislation in Springfield,” Ford explained. “Implementing a permanent recall procedure would help to encourage better representation and ensure residents can act, if necessary, at any time in the future. This proposal is not directed toward any specific mayor, it’s about empowering voters and creating greater accountability for our leaders.”

 Since William Ogden became the city’s first in 1837, no mayor has been indicted or convicted of a felony while in office. Two mayors, Richard J. Daley and Harold Washington, died while in office. Two recent mayors with extreme power and clear pathways to another term chose not to seek re-election, Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel. The previous city CEO, Lori Lightfoot, served one-term before losing re-election in 2023 in a highly contested primary.

Johnson, a former labor organizer, teacher and county commissioner,  has been under increasing pressure from critics to resign. He is the 57th mayor of the city and the fourth African American to hold the seat. Three of the city’s top news organizations ran editorials suggesting he should resign. Political opponents and disgruntled voters have taken issue with his leadership on the migrant crisis, public schools, public safety, public transit, affordable housing, labor negotiations, the city budget and proposed taxes.

Johnson has also been criticized for administrative snafus including several high-profile personnel turnovers, including the firing of Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, and the termination of his communications director Ronnie Reese, who was accused of unwanted sexual advances, retaliatory and bullying behavior by several female staffers. 

The mayor also drew the ire of some when he backed CTA President Dorval Carter, who retired this week. The transit chief was repeatedly called on to leave his post by members of the City Council, the governor and public transportation advocates who decried service cuts and safety issues.

Voters were also concerned about the abrupt resignation of all seven of the mayor’s first appointed school board in the wake of labor talks. Adding more salt to the perceived wounds, Johnson’s senior advisor Jason Lee, described as a powerful “shadow mayor” by the Sun-Times, is under investigation for allegedly violating the city’s residency rule after he recently voted in Texas, which also required an oath of state residency.

Both Reese and Lee have denied wrongdoing, with the latter remaining on public payroll while being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), per aldermanic request. Johnson’s former comms director was placed on the city’s do-not-hire list and no further legal action was taken after he was terminated.

When asked by the press about his low approval rating, which allegedly hovers at 14 percent, Mayor Johnson told reporters last week that his focus was on bringing change and eradicating the historic practice of systemic racism, bias, and unfair advantages that negatively impact Black and Brown communities.

The mayor’s supporters have taken to social media to decry the local press’ failure to promote his burst of successes, including wage increases for cops, hourly workers, and tipped workers; increased classroom support for teachers; increases in mental health services; actions to reduce homelessness and fund poverty programs; city workforce diversity and his work to eradicate food deserts and hiring bias against ex-offenders. Johnson was also integral to the success of the Democratic National Convention held in the city last August.

Rep. Ford’s renewed recall campaign comes on the heels of a citizen-led effort that started less than a year into Johnson’s term. Dan Boland of Lakeview sought nearly 60,000 petition signatures in his “Recall this Fall” campaign that launched in April 2024. Though his campaign was accused of being racist by some, his drive was supported by African American Trump supporters, many of whom have become vocal fixtures at City Council meetings.

Bolan is not alone in citizen-led advocacy. Across the U.S. there appears to be a growing recall movement by outraged citizenry and conservative voices targeting African American, Democratic and progressive political leadership, mostly concentrated in predominantly Black populated cities.

While Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana, per a White House invitation, two wildfires broke out on the city’s western and eastern borders, sandwiching city residents between dueling, deadly blazes. The expansive fires, which have yet to be contained as of this reporting, have since resulted in the loss of 22 lives, the destruction of nearly 30,000 acres of land, and the gutting of entire luxury and middle-class neighborhoods.

Upon her immediate return to Los Angeles, Bass was attacked for being “absent during a crisis” and “incompetent.” She was also falsely accused of cutting the city’s fire department budget by millions of dollars just before the outbreak, allegedly aided by arsonists. The assertion led many across the country to believe the mayor had cut life-saving measures impacting equipment and firefighting resources. The cry for a recall soon followed. Also subjected to demands for removal is progressive California Governor Gavin Newsome, who first faced such an effort in 2021.

Bass appeared stunned by the attacks and instead focused on the crisis at hand. Later, she refuted the claim that she’d “cut the fire budget by $17 million” as a purposeful and misleading misinformation campaign. In fact, the mayor argued that she had actually increased its budget by 7 percent, that budget cuts were actually contained to specific civilian positions and the reduction of overtime hours.

Both Gov. Newsome and City Comptroller Diana Chang said the information was false, with the latter pointing out public records that showed a 2 percent cut in the fire department funding. “LAFD’s operating budget got reduced by $17.6M—part of that reduction included 61 total positions (civilian) being eliminated,” the city said.

Local California and national media were slow to correct the narrative, which originally came from a social post on Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads app. “This post has no evidence to support the assertion that Bass and the city council cut the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) budget months before the January 2025 wildfires,” Lead Stories, an online digital publication, noted–adding that in the same post the social media user also falsely claimed Bass shifted more than “$138 million to the police department, yet there were fewer police and crime had not decreased.”

This misinformation did not stop Elon Musk from leading the charge on his powerful social media platform, X, from calling her “incompetent,” a smear that was amplified by his millions of followers, including alt-right news outlets, media pundits and anonymous social media trolls.

Bass was sworn into office in December 2023 and is the second African American and first Black woman to hold the city’s top job. With a long list of credentials, including having served in the California General Assembly and the U.S. House of Representatives, she is far from inexperienced or lacking competency or intelligence.

Weeks before the fire crisis, LA Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Brian K Williams came under federal investigation for alleging making a bomb threat against City Hall. He took administrative leave on December 18th. He denies the allegation.

The recall campaign against Bass was launched last week by a group of frustrated residents, big money operatives and activists, according to published reports. The petition, which accuses the Los Angeles mayor of gross mismanagement, has garnered over 100,000 signatures. To initiate a recall, the measure must garner 15 percent of registered voters in the city or approximately 300,000 signatures.

Like similar recalls, the LA campaign is partly fueled by disinformation, misinformation, unflattering media coverage and legitimate voter dissatisfaction on any number of issues. Disinformation smears the line between truth and falsehood and is harder to contain because of how rapidly it spreads.

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In  2010,  then-State representatives Jack Franks (D-63rd) and Daniel Cronin (R-40th) proposed the Illinois Governor Recall Amendment after Pat Quinn became governor following the impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Harvey Grossman, legal director for the state’s  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), spoke against a recall. He said, “While the concept of recall raises no civil liberties concerns, the process proposed in the amendment is contrary to democratic principles and violates the constitution.

“Recall is a political matter,” Grossman said in an ACLU column. “Those who favor recall believe it places deserved power in the hands of voters and eliminates the need to rely on legislators to impeach officials. Objectors, on the other hand, believe *that terms of office are relatively short and that recall elections are unnecessarily expensive.

Addressing recall campaigns in Michigan in 2023, Voters Not Politicians Executive Director Jamie Lyons-Eddy said, “Let’s be clear, these recall efforts against duly elected legislators from both parties are anti-democratic,” she told Raw Story. “…Recalls are an important tool in a democracy, but voters know very well that they are intended for cases of criminal behavior or dereliction of duty, not sour grapes about votes that someone doesn’t like.”

BUT IS THERE A
PATTERN?

This past October, the Crusader published the article “Black Mayors,” which examined the historical patterns and practices of city chief executives and their administrations being targeted for prosecution by the federal government. The story came just after New York Mayor Eric Adams and key staff members were indicted by the feds for corruption. Adams has denied wrongdoing and vowed to run for re-election. He, too, was subject to a possible recall campaign after he refused to resign his post and has continuously asserted his innocence.

Adams became the first sitting mayor of the city to be indicted on federal corruption charges. The city’s second Black mayor, he joined his former chief advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, former school Chancellor David C. Banks, Deputy Mayor Philip Banks, III, senior community affairs liaison Mohamed Bahi, and former Police Commissioner Edward Caban in federal scrutiny.

With the exception of Bahi, who is of Middle Eastern heritage, Adams and the other indicted members of his administration are African American. Incidentally, so is the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams. He stepped down in December.

New York media speculated on whether a “recall campaign “would solve the Adam’s problem.” It should also be noted, Republican leaders in the Big Apple  also floated a recall petition in 2022 to remove Black Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after he stated he would no longer prosecute “low-level offenses.” The NY State Constitution does not provide for recall elections so that is why NY State Assemblyman Rep. Will Barclay filed legislation to “provide remedy.”

“What Bragg and other liberal prosecutors are doing… is an irresponsible substitution of political ideology for sound prosecutorial practices,” Barclay said, claiming New Yorkers are unsafe.

Since the story’s publication another prominent mayor of a predominantly Black city has come under attack. Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, a progressive and former Black nationalist organizer, was indicted on November 6th by a federal grand jury for public corruption, along with the county District Attorney Jody Ownes and Aaron Banks, the head of the Jackson City Council. 

All three men have denied wrongdoing in a bribery sting orchestrated by undercover FBI agents. All are African American.

Mississippi lawmakers began milling the idea of reintroducing a recall bill to give Jackson voters the ability to recall their leaders. The bill had originally been introduced by white lawmaker Rep. Shanda Yates (D-64) in 2023.

Lumumba, seeking a third term, will face off in a primary in April and, if successful, a general election on June 3, 2025. “I’m not guilty, so I will not proceed as a guilty man,” the mayor said of his indictment.

In 2024, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker became the first woman and first Black woman to hold the office in the city’s 341 years history. Though she campaigned as a moderate Democrat–assuring voters,  “I’m not a defund-er. I’m not a left-er. I think a whole lot of it is bull—t…” this hasn’t stopped local media from insinuating she is not being consulted on business decision in her own city and accusing her of aiding gentrification. Even her “no nonsense,” pragmatic approach has drawn additional criticism.

Famed human and civil rights attorney Mary Cox noted that most of the mayors targeted for prosecution first experienced a “propaganda campaign to undermine their base of Black support,” which included sensational headlines, news articles, editorials, commentaries, and uncredited gossip that questioned their leadership, intelligence and competence, along with attacks on their moral character.

The pattern was so pervasive she told the Crusader that she filed a petition before the United Nations Human Rights, and it was accepted. At the time, the government was prosecuting Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry on drug charges during what the press branded as the “trial of the century.” Provided with funding and international resources, Cox launched an investigation into the prosecutions and targeting of Black elected officials and their staff.

“There is a pattern and practice of targeting Black elected officials,” Cox told the Crusader. “It always starts with assaults on their leadership through the white press. They seek to undermine their voting base and public support;  and after a consistent amount of media attacks, (Black politicians or their staff) are subjected to erroneous criminal prosecutions or forced to step down as a result of perceived wrongdoing.

“This has been going on for a long time,” she said, “…and, it has not stopped.”

In todays’ broader context of current political discontent, the Maga insurgence and the subsequent emergence of white male backlash against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, affirmative action, and other anti-bias measures in the public and private sector, some recall campaigns targeting Black and progressive mayors begs to question. Are these efforts reflective of authentic voter dissatisfaction or part of an orchestrated campaign to undermine Black voting rights?

Last November, Oakland voters approved the recall of its progressive mayor, Sheng Thao, by a two-to-one margin, and she was removed from office. After taking office in 2023, Thao, the first Hmong American mayor of a major U.S. city, was slammed by constituents and conservative observers for her handling of public safety and crime. On June 20, 2024, her home was raided by the FBI as part of a political corruption investigation, the details of which remain sealed.

Voters recalled Thao by a margin of 60.6 percent to 30.4 percent, making this the first time in Oakland’s history that a mayor was successfully recalled. Prior to the vote, the Thao administration was repeatedly slammed in newspaper editorials and by social media users as being “incompetent” and “the most embattled mayor in Oakland history.” Her problems began when she fired the city’s most popular Black Police Chief, LeRonne Armstrong, whom the mayor accused of “minimalizing misconduct by officers.”

The campaign was funded by “billionaire dark money,” according to Oaklanders Defending Democracy. The group alleged that if a “network of right-wing donors” succeeded in Oakland, the area could “see three new mayors in the course of a few months, raising questions about local instability.”

In addition to the Thao, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, the first African American to hold the position, was also recalled. She, too, faced criticism for progressive policies some believed to be too lenient on criminals. Her criminal justice reform platform, initially supported by the city’s predominantly Black community, included alternatives to incarceration for low-level offenses, not charging juveniles as adults and rooting out racial and, socioeconomic and gender disparities in the county’s criminal legal system.

In the heart of the Democratic voting base strongly held in Black-led or populated municipalities, recall campaigns and deepening public scrutiny of African American political leadership continue to mount. A recall effort of two Black District of Columbia council members failed this past October.

In 2023, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, the first female and first Black woman mayor of the Louisiana city, successfully defeated a contentious recall campaign. Of the 67,000 signatures on a petition to remove her from power, the state’s governor deemed nearly half as fraudulent. First elected in 2017, she leaves the office in 2026 due to term limits. Voters claimed their mayor had turned NOLA into “the murder capital of the nation.”

Another Louisiana Black mayor, 189 miles from New Orleans, did not fare as well. In April 2024, Elton Mayor Kesia Lemoine was recalled after a citizen claimed there were voting irregularities in her election.

In Dallas, a March 2024 recall effort against Mayor Eric Johnson failed to gather enough signatures. Organized by Davante Peters, the petition was launched after the mayor, who is African American, changed his partisan affiliation from Democrat to Republican and missed too many city council meetings.

In the larger U.S. cities, these ‘spontaneous’ recall movements and removals of progressive prosecutors are garnering national notice. By mid-2023,  four largest U.S. cities–New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston–were simultaneously helmed by African American mayors and protected by progressive county prosecutors.

That historical milestone was short-lived when Houston voters elected State Senator John Whitmire, who is white, over civil rights champion U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died of cancer seven months later. However, voters ousted its Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a conservative Democrat, for progressive Sean Teare, who was backed by the city’s activists in December 2024.

Five days after being sworn into office, Teare came under fire this month following revelations that his law license was suspended for failing to complete the Minimum Continuing Legal Education requirements. The shocking allegation and a possible loss of license would have resulted in the progressive being unable to assume office.

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On January 6 of this year, the DA-elect’s license was restored after the Texas State Bar noted his outstanding fees had been paid and that the attorney had subsequently missed two CLE hours, according to KPRC-TV. However, Teare’s campaign said the incident was an administrative oversight and he had always complied.

It should be noted that the scrutiny of Teare’s license followed Musk’s campaign to target progressive prosecutors through his America PAC, according to several news outlets. The apartheid South African-born billionaire and “world’s richest man” reportedly claimed “progressive district attorneys (which came to power during the Black Lives Matter campaigns) are a problem” and “easy pickings.”

Musk poured $112 million into Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and was named by the president-elect as leading a newly created federal agency to increase “efficiencies.” Democrats have referred to the U.S. immigrant as the “shadow president.” Chief among the businessman’s post-January 20th plans is to remove and/or restrict affirmative action and DEI policies, as well as reduce the federal workforce, 18 percent of which are African American.

In February 2024, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was convicted on one count of making a false mortgage application and two counts of lying under oath. The Black progressive lawmaker was repeatedly lambasted during her term as being “anti-police,” “woke,” and “incompetent.” Elected during the public outcry against the police-involved death of Freddie Gray, she lost a 2022 re-election bid after being indicted by the feds.

In Chicago, twice elected Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx decided not to seek re-election in 2023 and was succeeded this past November by former Judge Eileen Burke, who beat Black progressive Democrat Clayton Harris III by a small margin in the primary and Republican Robert “Bob” Fioretti by wide margins in the general election.

Before Foxx ended her prosecutorial career, she faced repeated negative headlines in the press on her criminal justice reforms and rising crime. In March 2022, a bill was introduced to recall the progressive prosecutor, led by State Rep. Tim Butler of Central Illinois, an elected official who does not vote nor have constituents in Cook County.

Citing the strange case of actor Jussie Smollett, who faked a hate crime in 2019, rising crime and staff turnovers, the Republican lawmaker joined the Village of Orland Park, which approved a “no confidence” resolution against Foxx, calling it a matter of “life or death.” The pattern continued.

San Francisco’s white progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin was accused of being “ineffective,” “the son of Weather Underground terrorists” and “soft-on-crime” throughout his tenure. After he ended cash bail, he was removed from office through a successful recall effort in June 2022. After his ouster, he became the founding executive director of the UC Berkeley Law’s Criminal aw & Justice Center. He was replaced by Afro-Latina prosecutor Brooke Jenkins, who vowed to bring law and order back to the city.

The city’s African American Mayor, London Breed, was defeated this past November and replaced by Democrat Daniel Lurie. Lurie, the former CEO of Tipping Point Community, was heavily supported by Republican donors.

“In all of those cities, those mayors have done some questionable things,” said a former Black Chicago elected official who asked to remain anonymous. “When you look at what (Tiffany) Henyard is being accused of in Dolton—it doesn’t take more than a nudge to have voters calling for removal. (Johnson) has made a lot of mistakes, most of which could have been avoided if he had the right people around him. The migrant crisis didn’t help him any.

“No, I don’t personally support recall legislation,” he continued, “but I understand how that happens. If a mayor, governor, or somebody is charged with a crime, that’s cause for concern. There’s already a process in place called ‘the vote’ and impeachment. In this context, yes, recall legislation can be abused by certain political actors—like anything else–and used to get rid of people just because they decide they did something somebody didn’t like.”

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