Jackson County voters could make history later this month with the outcome of a rare Sept. 30 election asking whether to recall County Executive Frank White Jr.
If the recall is successful, it will mark the first time in Jackson County’s history that voters recall a county executive. Even nationally, a recall of this kind is exceedingly rare.
And even as the county gears up for the election, legal challenges loom that may not be resolved until after the votes are counted.
For several years, Jackson County politics have been defined by a noisy conflict between White and a handful of county legislators. Hot-button issues have included the decision to put the stadium sales tax on the ballot, the property assessment process and, more recently, a monthslong budget crisis that nearly brought county spending to a halt.
When voters head to the polls on Sept. 30, only one question will appear on the ballot:
"Shall Frank White, Jr. be recalled from the office of County Executive in Jackson County, Missouri?"
Here’s what you need to know about the recall election.
How to vote in Jackson County's special election
No-excuse absentee voting begins on Sept. 16. You can find locations and hours here for Kansas City and here for other areas of Jackson County.
Polling locations will be open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Sept. 30.
There will be fewer polling places open for the recall election than for a typical election, so make sure to check your polling location at this link if you live in Kansas City or at this link if you live in another part of Jackson County.
All Kansas City voters who live in Jackson County can vote at any polling location within the Kansas City Election Board’s jurisdiction, but Jackson County voters must go to their assigned polling location.
What’s the backstory here?
Frank White Jr. first took office in January 2016 after Mike Sanders, the county executive at the time, resigned. Sanders would later go to prison for conspiring to commit wire fraud.
A county legislator at the time, White was appointed by the Jackson County Legislature and then was formally elected to the position in November 2016. He has since been reelected in 2018 and again in 2022.
There are no limits on the number of years that a county executive can serve in office. A charter amendment went to the ballot in 2018 that would have capped the county executive at two terms, but that ballot question ultimately failed.
This recall was placed on the ballot after a petition received tens of thousands of signatures from county voters.
Property assessments
White caught the ire of property owners in Jackson County after the 2019 property assessment process, which saw massive jumps in property values across the county. Assessment increases were abnormally large because the county had been ordered by the State Tax Commission to bring all 296,000 parcels to market value after having been undervalued for years.
At the time, County Assessor Gail McCann Beatty told KCUR that her department was not properly staffed to handle the influx of more than 21,000 appeals.
When White ran for reelection in 2022, the assessment debacle nearly cost him the primary. His opponent Stacy Lake won 47% of the vote — to White’s 53% — campaigning on what she saw as his failures during the 2019 assessment cycle.
The issues escalated in 2023 when the average property value increased by 30% — meaning that the county was required by law to offer interior inspections to three out of four properties in the county. That’s more than 200,000 properties.
An investigation found that the assessment department did not follow the law during that process.
The county, under White’s leadership, faced lawsuit after lawsuit, ultimately resulting in the State Tax Commission ordering the county to roll back assessments to a 15% increase from 2021 property values.
School districts worried that such an action would force them to refund millions of dollars that they had already spent on teacher salaries and materials for the school year. Several Jackson County school districts told a judge it would be “catastrophic” for their budgets.
A group of five county legislators passed an ordinance to force White to obey the State Tax Commission. But White refused and vetoed it.
After fighting it for weeks, the county eventually agreed to comply with the order.
Stadium sales tax
White also took heat in 2024 when he fought the stadium sales tax measure that would have given the Kansas City Royals, White’s former team, $1.1 billion to help finance a downtown ballpark in the Crossroads neighborhood.
He vetoed an ordinance to place the measure on the ballot, which the legislature overrode to put the question to voters in April.
But Jackson County voters ended up agreeing with White, and the stadium sales tax measure was soundly defeated.
Budget crisis earlier this year
More recently, a conflict between White and the group of five county legislators — the same five who tried to order the county to obey the State Tax Commission’s order — resulted in a budget crisis that lasted for months in 2025.
The county legislature passed a budget hours before the deadline on Dec. 31, 2024, that would have made sweeping changes to, among others, the legal and budget departments.
White vetoed the budget on Jan. 9, and those five legislators couldn’t recruit a sixth vote to override the veto. So four of those legislators sued White, arguing that his veto was illegal.
For months, the legislature was locked in a stalemate. Legislators could not propose a new budget without implicitly acknowledging that White’s veto was proper. They refused to propose a new budget, arguing instead that the county should be using the one that White had, as the legislators believed, improperly vetoed.
As a result, the county was unable to allocate funding for a variety of services for months until the legislators finally passed a new compromise budget on June 9.
What do supporters of the recall say?
Recall supporters like Sean Smith believe that White has failed to resolve the issues with the 2023 property assessment cycle. Smith, a Republican, represents the southeastern portions of the county in the county legislature.
“Instead of giving relief to taxpayers, he’s continued to delay things in the court system,” he said. “In the process, delinquencies on taxes, which eventually can cause people to lose their homes, have gone up by over 300%.”
In addition, Smith expressed frustration that White rarely appears publicly or attends county legislature meetings to talk with legislators.
“He knows where all members of the legislature will be every Monday,” he said. “He could come and talk to us, and he chooses to avoid us … He just seems to feel like he’s above needing to communicate with the community until he’s in trouble, and now he’s trying.”
What do opponents say?
Frank White Jr. told KCUR’s Up to Date that he believes the recall election is, above all else, about his decision not to support the failed stadium sales tax vote.
Many residents who signed the petitions may have done so because they were upset about the property assessment process. But White believes that much of the money and organizing power behind the petitions came from a stadium lobby that wants a new county executive who is more likely to support stadium subsidies.
“My position was that we negotiate an agreement, we negotiate a lease, we get a lease signed, and then we go to the voters with a signed lease,” he told KCUR. “Prior to the (stadium) election, the recall wasn’t going anywhere.”
In a statement to The Beacon, his campaign said that a vote to recall White will clear the path for “sweetheart stadium deals done behind closed doors.”
“The recall effort against County Executive Frank White Jr. is not about leadership — it’s about power,” the campaign’s statement said. “This recall is being driven by the same insiders who want to cut backroom deals and hand out blank checks for billionaire stadium subsidies. Frank White has stood firm against those schemes, demanding transparency and accountability for taxpayers.”
Who would replace White?
If Frank White Jr. is recalled, the county executive position will immediately be considered vacant from the moment that the vote is certified.
The chair of the county legislature, DaRon McGee, would appoint a temporary replacement who can serve for 30 days.
The county legislature would then need to vote to appoint White’s replacement to serve through the remaining 14 months of his term.
A few names have been thrown around as possible replacements, including attorney Phil LeVota and former Jackson County Legislator Dan Tarwater.
LeVota worked for a decade in the Jackson County prosecutor’s office.
Tarwater served on the county legislature for 28 years and unsuccessfully ran for Kansas City Council in 2023. He was defeated in the City Council race, in southwestern Kansas City, by KC Tenants organizer Johnathan Duncan.
A third possibility could be Lake, who unsuccessfully challenged White in the 2022 primary election. She has already declared her candidacy for the 2026 county executive election.
In any case, the Jackson County Charter requires that whoever would replace White must be of the same party — he is a Democrat — and must have lived in the county for at least three years.
“My hope is that it’s someone that’s well qualified in helping troubled organizations right the ship,” Smith said.
Smith said a current county legislator has also expressed interest in being nominated to replace White, but declined to share their name.
That option is more logistically complicated because the current legislature has been defined by a hair-thin margin between two factions.
When White was nominated to replace Sanders in 2016, he abstained from the vote to confirm himself due to the conflict of interest. White was nonetheless confirmed unanimously by an 8-0 vote.
But in this legislature, if one of the legislators from the majority faction were nominated to replace White, the vote could end up gridlocked in a 4-4 tie.
“My personal belief is that it’s exceedingly unlikely that it will be somebody on the legislature for (that) exact reason,” Smith said. “It creates even more likelihood of gridlock when we’re left with eight members of the legislature temporarily.”
What happens if it fails?
If the recall fails, nothing will change.
The next county executive election will be in November 2026, and Frank White Jr. will serve out the rest of his term.
White has said publicly that he will likely retire in 2026 instead of running for reelection in 2026.
How could challenges affect the path forward for the recall?
The recall effort is facing a legal challenge in court.
It’s related to the date of the recall election. A group of citizens asked a judge to force the county to hold the election on Aug. 26 because they said that was in line with the county charter’s requirement that an election be held within 60 days of petition certification.
The Jackson County and Kansas City election boards objected, arguing that Aug. 26 was not an authorized date for an election under state law. They asked for the recall election to be set instead for Nov. 4, when the county would be administrating a regular election.
The judge ruled that an Aug. 26 election would prevent certain absentee and military voters from being able to cast ballots in time and set the recall election for Sept. 30.
The election boards have suggested they intend to appeal that decision, but Smith said that, to his understanding, they will not be able to appeal until after the election occurs. At that point, the purpose of the appeal will not be to reschedule the election but instead to establish legal precedent in the future.
The White campaign also argues that the petition itself could be invalid.
Some of the petition signature gatherers listed home addresses on legal documents that are outside of Missouri. White and his lawyers argue that’s illegal and that people gathering signatures are required by law to reside in Missouri.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
