‘An extreme agenda’: could a recall end far-right control of a California county?

In 2022, 5,000 voters, angry about Covid-era health restrictions, ousted a moderate Republican official in Shasta county, California. The vote helped put the rural region, in the state’s north,on the map for extremist far-right politics.

In the two years since, the ultra-conservative majority that controls the county’s governing board has attempted to upend the voting system and spread conspiracy theories that elections were being rigged. They moved to allow people to carry firearms in public buildings in violation of state law and offered the county’s top job to the leader of a California secessionist group.

Now, residents frustrated by the county’s recent governance hope another recall will force a change.They’re aiming to oust Kevin Crye, a far-right county supervisor who has been in office for just a year.

The election could be a turning point for the county, said Jeff Gorder, a spokesperson for the recall group and retired county public defender.

“We’re seeing an extreme agenda coming here that we don’t think people want,” he said. “The [far-right supervisors] see themselves as having the ability to disregard laws that have been enacted by the state. They’re taking it upon themselves to disregard the normal workings of the rule of law.”

Shasta has long been one of California’s most conservative counties, but it became a hotbed for far-right politics during the pandemic as residents raged at moderate Republicans they felt weren’t doing enough to resist state health rules.

The anger grew into a thriving anti-establishment movement that – with unprecedented outside funding from a Connecticut millionaire and support from local militia – targeted the board of supervisors. In February 2022, voters recalled Leonard Moty, a