A campaign to remove Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti from office over his handling of the city’s homelessness crisis has fizzled.

Alexandra Datig, a Republican political commentator who led the drive, announced Thursday that her group didn’t gather the required number of signatures to put the issue before voters.

Datig needed more than 300,000 signatures from registered L.A. voters by end of day Thursday. In a statement, Datig said her group had gathered about 50,000 signatures, including through an online petition — a format that isn’t accepted by the city.

Recall efforts are costly, time-consuming and rarely successful.


Frank Shaw, the only Los Angeles mayor to be recalled, was forced out in 1938. Another mayor, Arthur Harper, resigned from office in 1909 amid a recall effort.

Datig targeted Garcetti over homelessness, saying at a news event last summer that he couldn’t handle the crisis.