MISSION, Kan. (AP) – Hospitals in Missouri were inundated with COVID-19 patients last summer when a group opposed to a mask mandate that had already expired gathered enough signatures to trigger a recall vote against the mayor who enacted it.
Now the question about Mayor Brian Steele is on the ballot Tuesday in the small city of Nixa. Meanwhile in Kansas, voters will decide whether to recall a school board member who backed a mask mandate. And in Anchorage, Alaska, a member of the city’s governing body has been targeted for removal because, according to critics, she was the 15th person at a public meeting where 14 was the limit under COVID-19 protocols.
Across the country, dozens of recall campaigns are underway, many led by people who oppose any COVID-19-related rules. The recalls illustrate the contentiousness that has upended usually sleepy school board and city council meetings. The tension is almost sure to last into 2022, when more recall efforts are expected in the spring.
Nationally, more than 500 attempts to recall elected officials have happened this year, up from about 400 in a typical year, said Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute at Wagner College. He said most of the increase stems from a spike in school board recalls, with about 200 this year, up from 70 in a normal year.
In some cases, multiple members of the same board have been targeted, often over mask requirements or school closures.