Wednesday, April 10, 2024

History of the Recall Election -- Did San Diego have the law before Los Angeles?

I'm not sure why this didn't get posted three years ago, but better late than never.

As we've discussed before, it is believed that the recall returned to America's political stage in 1903, when Los Angeles adopted the law for their charter (the vote was actually on December 1, 1902, but the State legislature ratified it on January 22, 1903). However, there has been reports that other jurisdictions' had the law before. Thomas Cronin mentions that some other localities in California had it before (hat tip to this article from Rod Farmer), though he did not remember what they were. But none of the contemporary writers seemed to mention them. 

In this article about recalls in Raleigh, North Carolina, Gerry Cohen discovers that San Diego had it in their 1889 charter. Note that Bird & Ryan mention that San Diego adopted the law in 1905, so I cannot explain this discrepancy. It's another one of those mysteries surrounding the recall

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