Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is currently the political head of the second largest city in the U.S. (there are currently at least 48 elected African Americans in charge of U.S. cities above 50,000 in population), is in mildly turbulent waters nowadays. However, she’s doing alright.
Black mayors of other large cities include, for example, Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard, Mt. Vernon, N.Y.; Mayor Van Johnson, Savannah, Ga.; Mayor Vi Lyles , Charlotte, N.C.; Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta, Ga.; Mayor Victoria Woodards ,Tacoma, Wash.; and Mayor Bruce Harrell, Seattle, Wash.
To begin with, there is an on-going attempt to recall the popular Mayor Bass, but it is not going well so far, and the prospects for that attempt doing better, are not a good bet currently. In the heat of the explosion of bad press after one of Southern California’s worst fire disasters in history, trying to find someone to blame was neither unusual nor unexpected. But the blame game, so far, is not working well against Mayor Bass. Nor should it.
There have been no proven bad decisions by the mayor that helped cause or to make worse the horrendous fires in the Palisades, Pasadena or Altadena areas. Facts are often besides the point in political battles, but that’s not been the case here.
Mayor Bass’ popularity has neither weaned nor weakened in Los Angeles, and reports of the recall effort so far make it clear that it will most likely fail even if it actually gets to the ballot—which is highly unlikely. Besides such a recall election being exceedingly expensive when there are many other important issues to pay for, Mayor Bass will face a re-election campaign in 2026 as part of regular protocol, so a likely unsuccessful recall effort now just does not seem worth it. Even former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, who spent an enormous sum of money running against her (estimated at over 100 million dollars), has publicly come out in opposition to any current recall effort against Mayor Bass.
In order to force a recall election against Mayor Bass, the architects of such an effort would have to fund and man an extraordinary strategy to gather the signatures of no less than 15 percent of the registered voters in Los Angeles, or approximately 328,526 signatures. But remembering rather recent fevered efforts to gather signatures to recall former L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascón and former City Councilmember Mike Bonin which ultimately failed, proponents had to collect far more than the 15 percent requirement in order to guarantee that they had enough of a buffer after the inevitable invalid signatures were disqualified.
That means any attempt at forcing a recall election against Mayor Bass would have to collect between 400,000 to 550,000 signatures at a minimum to even come close to being sufficient for the job, and that is simply not in the cards, according to most experts in that field. The signatures would also have to be in and verified by August, 2025.
None of the experts in the field think that can or will happen. If there is any kind of anti-Bass vote, it will have to come out in the 2026 regular election. By then, it is expected that any of the fire-driven anger still lingering will be buried by the public’s increasing enthusiasm for the coming 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl, and 2028 Summer Olympics and other popular attractions held in Los Angeles. There will be no recall election for Mayor Bass.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.