The effort to recall 22nd Ward Alderman Jeffrey Boyd has become the recall effort from hell for the organizers, 22nd Ward Democratic Committee persons Jay Ozier and Fay Davis and former 22nd Ward Alderman Kenneth Jones. The events reported January 9 in the Post-Dispatch paint a sorry picture of political keystone cops that will hopefully put an end to this recall mania, which has besieged the city of St. Louis.
It also looks like the voters of the 22nd Ward have become the victims of serial forgery. It would be easy to blame Linda Rogers, the person identified in the Post story as collecting the largest number of signatures and whose petitions contained the largest number of fraudulent signatures. But the real culprits are the politicians in the 22nd Ward who through desperation tried to use the recall process to settle a political score.
Recall provisions were included in the city charter as a last-ditch effort to remove an elected official who had committed serious and egregious acts of political misconduct, not for losers of elections to abuse by trying to speed up the reelection process. Rogers and others involved in the fraudulent collection of names on the recall petitions are just following the lead of the organizers, who were trying to use the recall option to pull a fast one on voters in the ward.
Rogers’ history of involvement and association with the Operation Big Vote scandal should make anyone else who is thinking of organizing a recall effort think twice. If the Post report is accurate, an unfortunate outcome of this effort could be the filing of criminal charges.