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This article examines how allegations of vice intersected with late 1930s anxieties about communism and sexual deviance to mobilize the first successful recall of a major urban mayor. The article challenges the traditional narratives of the recall and their narrow focus on politicians. Instead, it offers an analysis that dwells on the impact of Los Angeles' wider political culture on the recall election and beyond. Ultimately, it argues that the new cultural system lay the foundation both for massive waves of antihomosexual policing and for the start of a gay political movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]