Another day, another attack on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
On Thursday, Feb. 27, the California Secretary of State website listed the filing of a new organization entitled the “Recall Mayor Karen Bass Committee.” Many speculated that this was a committee somehow tied to President Donald Trump and DOGE leader Elon Musk, although that connection has not been confirmed.
However, on Monday, March 3, filings with the City of Los Angeles Ethics Committee showed that billionaire and Robert F. Kennedy for President running mate Nicole Shanahan, a San Francisco Bay Area businesswoman formerly married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is one of the major funders of the efforts to recall Mayor Bass.
According to the recall website, other GOP backers involved in the recall campaign include real estate agent Sahil Nandwani and former San Diego Republican Party executive director Gerald Sirotnak.
The efforts to recall the mayor will be a challenge for her opponents. It would take somewhere between 300,000 and 350,000 signatures over the next four months to trigger a recall against her.
But what appears to be a Republican-backed campaign against the mayor fueled by big money donors, the possibility is not impossible, said one high ranking official within the Los Angeles Democratic Party.
The mayor has been under relentless attacks after the Palisades fire broke out on Jan. 7. At the time, the mayor was in Ghana as part of an official delegation for then-President Joe Biden.
The mayor has stated that she was not informed about the severity of the fire weather conditions before leaving the country and cited this as one of many reasons she ultimately decided to fire LAFD Chief Kristen Crowley – a move upheld by the Los Angeles City Council with a vote of 13-2 on Tuesday, March 4.
“It’s nothing more than another extreme right wing political stunt designed to divide Los Angeles when we need to move forward,” said Bass campaign strategist Doug Herman.
“We should not be spending millions of dollars on an unnecessary recall, when that time, money and focus could be better spent on rebuilding.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Shanahan led a Democratic presidential campaign before both suspending the effort and deciding to endorse Donald Trump for President. Shanahan has also remained politically active, vowing to fund primary challengers for any senators opposing Kennedy’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary.
