Recall elections often do more harm than good

We are hesitant to keep focusing on what’s going on among Hamtramck’s elected officials, but the growing political division has also caught the attention of the public.
People here, it appears, are ticked off with the antics they see at city council meetings.
The number one person who is getting the most attention and criticism is Councilmember Mohamed Hassan.
And now, there appears to be a recall effort growing to toss Hassan out of office.
In our experience, recall elections are messy, and cause only further division in the community. There are no winners in a recall election.
At one time, it was fairly easy to get approval by Wayne County election officials to mount a recall. The law simply required that the recall language was clear.
It was said that you could recall an elected official for shooting President Lincoln, despite that incident happening 150 years ago.
Lansing lawmakers wised up and raised the standards for mounting a recall. There’s a good chance now that any recall proposal gets shot down by election officials.
We understand the frustrations of the public. Councilmember Hassan is indeed disruptive and rude.
But we’ve seen worse antics before that resulted in no blowbacks.
We caution those behind the recall effort to think twice about moving forward. These elections have often had the effect of making things worse, not better.
Posted April 17, 2025