The conversation surrounding McKinney’s recall effort has mostly focused on one question:
Can organizers collect enough signatures to force a recall election?
But there is another question that may matter just as much.
What happens if they win?
Because recalling an elected official does not simply erase a name from City Hall and reset the board.
There are rules for what happens next.
And in McKinney, those rules create a potentially unusual situation.
The city has seven members on its governing body: the mayor and six council members.
Four officials are currently being targeted for recall:
Mayor Bill Cox
District 1 Council Member Justin Beller
District 3 Council Member Geré Feltus
At-Large 1 Council Member Ernest Lynch
All four began their current four-year terms following McKinney’s 2025 election cycle. City records confirm Cox and Lynch were installed after the June 2025 runoff, while Beller and Feltus won their races in the May election.
That matters because these aren’t seats approaching the natural end of their terms.
There would still be years left to fill.
And that is where this gets interesting.
First: a petition does not automatically remove anyone
There are several steps between collecting signatures and removing an elected official.
McKinney’s charter says a recall petition must be returned within 30 days and meet the city’s signature requirements. The City Secretary then examines the petition.
If it is sufficient, the City Secretary certifies it to the City Council and notifies the official targeted for recall.
That official then gets five days to resign.
If the official does not resign, the council must order a recall election under state law.
Then the voters decide.
The ballot is remarkably straightforward. For each official, voters are asked essentially:
Should this person be removed from office by recall?
If a majority votes for recall, the official is removed and a vacancy is created.
In plain English:
Signing the petition does not recall anybody.
It can force the question onto a ballot.
The voters still have to remove them.
If Bill Cox is recalled, voters do not simply elect a new mayor
This may be the most surprising provision in McKinney’s charter.
McKinney has a Mayor Pro Tem — a council member selected annually by the council to act as mayor when the mayor is absent or unable to serve.
But the Mayor Pro Tem has another job.
If the mayor’s office actually becomes vacant, the charter says the Mayor Pro Tem becomes mayor for the remainder of the unfinished term.
And the Mayor Pro Tem’s old council seat then becomes vacant.
Right now, McKinney’s Mayor Pro Tem is Rick Franklin, the District 4 council member. The city’s official council page confirms Franklin was elected Mayor Pro Tem by his fellow council members in 2026.
So if Cox’s office became vacant while Franklin is still the sitting Mayor Pro Tem, the charter points to:
Bill Cox removed
↓
Rick Franklin becomes mayor
↓
Franklin’s District 4 seat becomes vacant
That means recalling the mayor could itself create another council vacancy.
There is, however, an important timing complication.
Franklin’s District 4 seat is already scheduled for McKinney’s regular May 1, 2027 election, along with District 2 and At-Large 2.
So who becomes mayor can depend on when a successful recall occurs and who is serving as Mayor Pro Tem when the mayoral vacancy actually exists.
In plain English:
If you vote to recall Bill Cox, you are voting to remove Bill Cox.
You are not necessarily voting for the person who replaces him.
McKinney’s charter already contains a succession mechanism.
And the identity of the person standing next in line can change with timing.
Now consider the other three recalls
Beller, Feltus and Lynch are different.
They are council members rather than the mayor.
And because McKinney council members serve four-year terms, Texas law places an important restriction on what happens to their seats.
The Texas Constitution says that when a municipality uses terms longer than two years, a vacancy generally cannot simply be filled by appointment.
If more than 12 months remain, voters must fill the vacancy through a special election held within 120 days.
McKinney’s own charter reflects that rule.
Because Beller, Feltus and Lynch entered their current terms in 2025, a successful recall during this effort would leave considerably more than twelve months remaining.
So:
Beller recalled → District 1 vacancy → special election
Feltus recalled → District 3 vacancy → special election
Lynch recalled → At-Large 1 vacancy → special election
And here’s an important detail we initially almost missed:
Those special elections do not necessarily have to wait for McKinney’s next normal May election.
Texas election guidance specifically says vacancy elections for cities using three- or four-year terms must occur within 120 days and do not have to be held on a uniform election date.
In plain English:
If those three council members are recalled, City Hall doesn’t get to permanently choose their replacements.
McKinney voters do.
And Texas puts a clock on it.
But what if all four recalls succeed?
This is where the math becomes more interesting than the politics.
McKinney has:
7 total members of City Council
The recall targets:
4 of them
If all four were removed at the same time:
7 − 4 = 3
Three sitting members would remain.
Now read McKinney’s charter.
Section 23 says:
“Quorum will consist of four (4) members of Council.”
That means an ordinary meeting of McKinney City Council requires four members to constitute a quorum.
So the recall effort is targeting more members than would remain necessary to satisfy the city’s ordinary quorum requirement.
In plain English:
McKinney needs four people for an ordinary City Council quorum.
If voters remove four of seven people, only three remain.
Three is not four.
That doesn’t mean the city disappears.
It doesn’t mean police stop working, water stops flowing or everybody at City Hall goes home.
McKinney has a professional city administration, and the charter identifies the City Manager as the city’s chief administrative and executive officer.
But it could create an unusual period in which the city’s elected governing body does not have its normal four-member quorum while vacancies and replacement elections are being resolved.
That is a very different consequence from simply changing four names on a website.
The charter anticipated at least one kind of election deadlock
McKinney’s charter contains another provision worth knowing.
Section 150 addresses what happens if City Council fails or refuses to order an election required under the initiative, referendum and recall chapter after petitioners have satisfied the requirements.
The charter says that, upon proper application, a Collin County district judge can order the election and enforce the charter’s election provisions.
That does not necessarily answer every procedural question that could arise after four simultaneous vacancies. In particular, we should not automatically assume that Section 150 governs every later vacancy-filling election required under state law.
But it tells us something important:
The recall mechanism was written with a backstop.
The elected body cannot necessarily defeat a qualifying recall merely by refusing to schedule the election.
In plain English:
If voters satisfy the charter requirements and council refuses to move a required recall election forward, there is a judicial mechanism to force the process.
And then there is the 2027 election
This makes the timing even more unusual.
McKinney already has a regular municipal election scheduled for May 1, 2027.
Three seats are scheduled to be on that ballot:
District 2
District 4
At-Large 2
Those are precisely the three council positions currently not targeted in the recall effort.
So depending on when a recall election occurs and how the resulting vacancies are resolved, McKinney could move through a period where every position on its seven-member governing body is affected by an election cycle in relatively close succession:
four through recall,
and three through the regularly scheduled 2027 election.
That does not tell us who will control City Hall afterward.
But it does tell us something that is getting lost in the political argument.
A successful four-person recall would not be a small adjustment to McKinney government.
It could produce a broad restructuring of the elected council.
The recall is actually two decisions
Most political campaigns naturally focus on the first decision:
Do you want these officials removed?
But structurally, voters should understand the second decision too:
What happens after they are gone?
Those are not the same question. A voter can strongly support the recall and still want to understand the succession rules, just as a voter can strongly oppose it and still benefit from understanding them. The mechanics don’t belong to either side; they’re simply the rules governing what happens next.
And those rules tell us that a successful recall of all four officials could create:
a mayoral succession
another possible council vacancy created by that succession
three council seats requiring voter-filled special elections
a period with fewer sitting council members than McKinney’s ordinary quorum requirement
and a regular election already approaching for the three seats not currently targeted
That’s considerably more complicated than:
“Recall four people and replace them.”
What we still don’t know
There are several things that should not be presented as settled yet.
The petition deadline is not automatically the recall election date.
McKinney’s charter says that after a sufficient petition is certified and the targeted official declines to resign, council must order the recall election according to state law.
So we should wait for the actual certification and election order before declaring exactly when voters would go to the polls.
We also should not pretend the charter gives an obvious answer to every procedural problem created by several simultaneous vacancies.
What we can establish from the governing documents is the structure.
And the structure is unusual enough on its own.
The question isn’t only whether the recall works.
It’s what “working” actually means.
Four officials are being targeted.
Seven people make up McKinney’s governing body.
Four members make a quorum.
The mayor has a predetermined succession mechanism.
Long-term council vacancies must return to voters.
And another municipal election is already approaching.
So before McKinney decides whether to pull the lever, it is worth understanding what the lever is attached to.
Document note: This analysis is based on McKinney’s city charter, official city election and council records, the Texas Constitution, and Texas Secretary of State election guidance. It describes the governing framework rather than predicting the outcome of the recall or providing legal advice.
Sources / Primary Documents
City of McKinney — 2027 General Election
Confirms the May 1, 2027 election and the District 2, District 4, and At-Large 2 seats scheduled for that cycle.
https://www.mckinneytexas.org/2084/2027-General-Election
City of McKinney — Elections
Official city election hub and current election information.
https://www.mckinneytexas.org/139/Elections
City of McKinney — Current City Council
Official roster for the mayor, council members, districts, and Mayor Pro Tem.
https://www.mckinneytexas.org/1167/Council-Members
City of McKinney — Charter / 2024 Charter Amendments
Official city material containing the charter provisions governing council elections, four-year terms, succession, vacancies, quorum, and recall procedures.
https://www.mckinneytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/34930/2024-08-058-Calling-November-5-2024-Charter-Amend-Election
Texas Constitution — Article XI, Section 11
Governs municipal offices with terms longer than two years, including the requirement that certain vacancies with more than 12 months remaining be filled by special election within 120 days.
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/?artSec=11.11&chapter=CN.11&code=CN&tab=1
Texas Secretary of State — Local Election to Fill a Vacancy
Official guidance on special elections used to fill vacant local offices.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/vacancies-in-a-local-election.shtml
Texas Secretary of State — Laws and Procedures Pertaining to Cities
Official election-law reference covering terms, qualifications, vacancies, special elections, and related municipal election procedures.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/local-laws.shtml
The Alignment Archive
Follow the structure. Keep the receipts.