California: Petitioners hand in signatures against Oakland Mayor

Petitioners have handed in over 40,000 signatures in the recall of Oakland Mayor Sheng Tao, which was partly to match the amount of votes she received in the first round of her election. They need 24,638. 

The big issue has been crime. Tao has fired the Oakland Police Chief and rejected three possible replacements proposed by a committee. One of the leaders of the recall effort is Alameda County Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte, who served on the Police Commission and was removed by Tao.

Oakland uses state law for the recall, which kicks the replacement decision back to the city -- and we have an interesting wrinkle in the replacement provision (Section 303), which works like this:

If the mayor is removed, the President of the Council fills the position. If it is over a year (as it is here), there is a special election within 120 days, with a potential extension of 90 days to tie it into a regularly scheduled election. They will use ranked choice. 

The wrinkle is that City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas is running for Alameda County Supervisor and she came in first in the top two race. If Fortunato Bas wins that race on November 5 (which would be the same day as the recall) and the recall succeeds, she presumably would serve as Mayor until January, when she would be replaced by... another council member? So, we may be looking at four mayors in a short time frame.