Alameda County's Board of Supervisors Races, an Expensive State Senate Election, and Possible Changes to Recall Rules

Episode Transcript

This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.

Alan Montecillo: Hi, I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. And welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. Alameda County is one of the most populated and most progressive counties in California, and as results continue to come in. There isn’t one clean story you could tell about the entire region.

Annelise Finney: You know, I think this shift that we’re seeing in San Francisco towards more moderate measures that are being passed, we’re not really seeing that in Alameda County quite yet.

Alan Montecillo: But there’s still a lot to talk about, including the county Board of Supervisors, an expensive state Senate race, and some potential changes to recall election rules. Today, we’re going to round up some of Alameda County’s local results from the March primary.

Annelise Finney: So traditionally, Alameda County has been pretty slow among Bay area counties to churn out election results.

Alan Montecillo: Annelise Finney is a reporter for KQED.

Annelise Finney: There’s a few things that contribute to that, but one is that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters has two jobs. He actually runs the IT department for the county and the elections, which is a lot of work. Back in 2022, there was a pretty big snafu where there was a miscount of votes in an Oakland city election, and that led voters and Alameda County to have some more skepticism of the registrar.

Annelise Finney: Since then, the county created an elections commission to try and have more public oversight of the office, to fix some of the things that might be contributing to the slowness. But that Elections Commission has had a lot of trouble getting off the ground. So there’s a lot still to be fixed with that.

Annelise Finney: The races I was watching this year were two open seats on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, a state Senate seat representing district seven. So that covers parts of the East Bay. And then finally, I was watching a measure in Alameda County called measure B, which has to do with how the county runs recalls.

Alan Montecillo: All right. So let’s go through them. Let’s start with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. There were two competitive races in districts four and five. Let’s start with district four. First. Can you just tell me a little bit about it, where it is and what it’s like politically?

Annelise Finney: Sure. So district four in the Alameda County Board of Supervisors is a district that stretches from sort of deep East Oakland into the southeast portion of the county that goes all the way to Pleasanton. It also includes a lot of unincorporated areas like Mount Eden and Castro Valley. And in those areas, there’s no city government, so they depend on the county for infrastructure and law enforcement. Alameda County is a very progressive place, but this area tends to swing a little bit more suburban and in that way also a little bit more conservative.

Alan Montecillo: Tell me a bit about that race, who ran and what were some of the big issues.

Annelise Finney: That race had a long time incumbent. So an interesting thing to know about the Alameda County Board of Supervisors is that there’s no term limits. I think that’s part of the reason why people often don’t really know who’s on the board of supervisors is because we don’t have races that are open races that frequently, and when it’s not an open race, an incumbent usually has a pretty big advantage.

Annelise Finney: So in this race, there was an incumbent, Nate Miley. He’s the president of the Board of Supervisors, and he’s been on the board for about 20 years. Before that, he served on the Oakland City Council. So he’s an old hat and local politics in the East Bay. And he’s known as like a little bit more of a moderate. He does a lot of focus on providing care to seniors in the community. Traditionally been a little bit more pro landlord in debates around housing. And he was challenged in this race by a woman named Jennifer Stein. Jennifer Stein was a sort of political newcomer.

Annelise Finney: She helps oversee the county’s mental health work. She herself is a psych nurse, so she provides mental health care to people who are in need. And she ran on a platform, essentially arguing that it’s time for change in the county, that we need term limits, we need new, fresh people and new, fresh ideas. She ran more progressive and she really pushed him on things like tenant protection, sheriff oversight and mental health care, which was really what she was drawing on from her own background.

Alan Montecillo: So a political newcomer up against a long time established public official, what can we say about the results right now?

Annelise Finney: So in this district for race, because there’s only two candidates, whoever wins here wins the race and Miley has a pretty handy lead. It’s safe to say that he’s going to return to his district four seat on the day after the election. I spoke with Nate Miley on the phone.

Nate Miley: Well, I always worry. I always, you know, I never take an opponent for granted. You know, you take your opponent for granted and you can get beat.

Annelise Finney: He said that previously he had been planning to retire, and part of the reason he decided to run again was because he was worried about longevity on the board and the sort of institutional knowledge that somebody who’s been there as long as he has has about how to run a county administration.

Nate Miley: Board of supervisors is pretty much going to be a new Board of supervisors. So I just felt obligated that I can’t leave the board now. I can’t know leave the county government now. I can’t leave my constituents in the public without, the level of knowledge and expertise that I bring to the table.

Annelise Finney: Two members of the board passed away. Before that, another person had been elected. So other than Millie, nobody on the board has more than four years of experience. So Miley was kind of the keeper of institutional knowledge, and if he wasn’t there, he was worried that the board would be less effective.

Alan Montecillo: All right, so district four, a more moderate district, at least compared to the rest of the county. What about district five.

Annelise Finney: And district five? And Alameda County is what you might consider the sort of progressive heart of the East Bay. The district stretches from Alameda down south to Oakland, so it includes Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont, as well as Oakland and Albany. This race was an open field, so Keith Carson, who previously had held this seat for around three decades, had decided to retire sort of close to the deadline that candidates had to enter into this race.

Annelise Finney: When he said he was going to retire, there was this flurry of action, and a lot of East Bay officials suddenly threw their names in the ring. And there were a lot of people in this race who are elected officials in other parts of the county. Now, as we look at these early results, two of them have risen to the top. One in first place currently is Nikki Fortunato Bass.

Annelise Finney: She is the president of Oakland City Council, and behind her in second place is John Bowers. He is a councilman on Emeryville City Council. Close behind Bowers is Ben Bartlett. He’s a Berkeley city councilman. That race could still move around a little bit. Some of those margins are pretty close, but the top two there will go to a runoff in November.

Alan Montecillo: Nikki Fortunato Bas currently in first. I think she’s pretty well known to anyone who’s active in Oakland City politics, but what issues that she talk about on the campaign.

Annelise Finney: So I visited with Nikki Fortunato Bas at her election watch party on election night.

Nikki Fortunato Bas: I feel terrific.

Annelise Finney: Bas was saying that she made this decision quite quickly, but for her, it also felt like a clear one that she, as a city councilman, has seen the ways that county partnership with cities can really make a difference in what cities are able to offer to their communities.

Nikki Fortunato Bas: So I ultimately decided to run because I want Oakland in each of our cities and unincorporated areas to feel like they have that partner, to really work on those tough issues and deliver those coordinated services.

Alan Montecillo: So all this said, analyze what could the make up of the Board of Supervisors be if Nate Miley appears to be reelected, when do we have Nikki Fortunato Bas running in first?

Annelise Finney: You know, one big difference this will make is that for the first time, there will be a majority of women of color on the Board of Supervisors. And when I talk to Fortunato Bas about this, she said that for her, that means that the board will center care and its work.

Nikki Fortunato Bas: It’s about housing, people providing health care, really helping those who are the most vulnerable because that helps to lift up conditions for everyone.

Annelise Finney: So I’ve heard from some other political pundits who watch the East Bay seen that, you know, this doesn’t actually shake up the sort of pro landlord majority that exists on the Board of Supervisors, but it certainly does give that majority a run for its money. I mean, Fortunato Bas is known as a progressive. She centers tenants rights in her work. She centers police oversight. So these are things that are going to have a strong advocate. If Fortunato Bas ultimately a sense to that seat.

Alan Montecillo: Coming up, we’ll talk about a competitive and expensive state Senate race. Stay with us.

Alan Montecillo: All right. So let’s move on to talk about a state Senate race, district seven. Also a competitive, crowded race to replace termed out Democrat Nancy Skinner. Before we get to the candidates, though, tell me a little bit about district seven.

Annelise Finney: Yeah. So district seven stretches from southern Contra Costa County, so from Hercules all the way south to Oakland. The district is one of the most progressive in California. Nancy Skinner really made a name for herself championing the environment and police reform, and she was well-loved because of that. So I think a lot of people in this district will expect something similar from whoever fills her seat.

Annelise Finney: One aspect of a race becoming more competitive is that often races like that draw a lot of money, and this race had more outside spending than any other in the state, which sort of goes to show that even people with a lot of money who maybe don’t live in the area, see this seat and this race as a really important one.

Alan Montecillo: Yeah. Well, let’s talk about the candidates, who is sort of ascending to the top right now as votes continue to get counted.

Annelise Finney: The people in the top four right now include Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, former Richmond city councilwoman and now member of the AC Transit board of directors Giovanna Beckles. Dan Kalb, who is an environmentalist turned Oakland city councilman. Also Katherine Lee Barker. So Lee Barker of those three is a pretty new name in this scene. She’s the president of the California Labor Federation. And prior to this election, I don’t think a lot of people knew who she was.

Annelise Finney: So she had an uphill battle here, getting voters familiar with her name and the things that she represents. Oregon has a pretty handy lead. He has about 30% of the vote. And behind him in second place right now is Jovana Beckles, but she’s only ahead of Dan Kalb in third place by about 200 votes. So that could change a fair amount. And then labor also isn’t that far behind Beckles and Kalb.

Alan Montecillo: These top four you mentioned are also all Democrats. What differences can we tease out between the four of them?

Annelise Finney: These politicians all have pretty similar policy positions, and they differ in rather subtle ways. One thing you can look at to kind of differentiate between them is housing, and the way they view how the state should respond to the housing crisis. Jesse Aragon, as mayor of Berkeley, has overseen the city’s largest housing boom in decades. He supports building housing for people at all income levels, and his campaign was very supported by people who work in the housing industries.

Annelise Finney: Dan Kalb has also been pro housing, but he also strongly stands for tenant rights. He helped oversee Oakland’s eviction moratorium during the pandemic, which was one of the strongest in the Bay area. And Oakland has struggled a little bit more with building housing. When you compare it to a place like Berkeley. Beckles, on the other hand, and Lybarger, they really want to see construction of affordable housing over market rate housing.

Annelise Finney: And all four said they support government development of public housing. So government owned housing that they rent out at affordable rates. But for Beckles and Lybarger, that was really the centerpiece of their housing proposals.

Alan Montecillo: Let’s talk about the money, because that is a huge part of this race. What did that look like in this state Senate election?

Annelise Finney: This race saw about $6 million of outside spending, and it mostly focused on two candidates. Jesse Aragon was the beneficiary of a lot of that money. He got about $1.4 million and Lee burger got about 2.6 million. The majority of the money that was spent in support of Katherine Lee Berger came from the UC Berkeley cooks, custodians and nursing assistants for Katherine Committee.

Annelise Finney: So that’s a committee of people who are part of a union that represents UC Berkeley employees. But she also had a lot of funding against her, which is knowing that Aragon wasn’t up against. She had about $1.8 million being spent in attack ads and mailers that were describing her as an anti housing extremist, which obviously was a term that she disputed. The money that was spent on behalf of Arreguin came mostly from builders, as I mentioned before, from pro housing groups and then also a lot of it from Uber.

Annelise Finney: Uber spent a bunch of money against Lyberger. So a big portion of that 1.8 against her came from them. And I think one way you can sort of analyze this is to say that, you know, we know Uber from its past political spending really doesn’t want people in office who are going to push against its business model. So somebody like Katherine Lee Berger, who is widely supported by unions, I think you can assume that Uber would see a candidate like that as a potential threat to its business model.

Jesse Arreguin: It’s kind of surprising, given that I wrote that the tax in Berkeley to tax Uber and Lyft.

Annelise Finney: I talked to Jesse out again about this spending by Uber on his behalf, and he sort of disavowed it.

Jesse Arreguin: I did condemn those attack ads and some of his indepen expenditures. I think we should run on our on our record and our message and our vision for for the state.

Annelise Finney: You know, we don’t exactly know what happened behind the scenes here, but. One can surmise that perhaps Uber saw Aragon as the best competitor and the most likely to win against Libre. So it’s not necessarily that they endorse him, but just that they don’t endorse her.

Alan Montecillo: You mentioned earlier $6 million in total for a state Senate race. I mean, that’s just a lot of money for anybody. I suspect it’s a lot of money for a state Senate seat. Does it look like the November runoff will be Jesse ad again versus somebody?

Annelise Finney: That is kind of where we are at. Me and our colleague here at KQED, Dan Brekke, you were doing some calculating based on the Secretary of State’s vote count so far. And our guess was that there are about 70,000 votes left to count. So that margin between Jovana Beckles and Dan Kalb of about 200 votes, that could easily change as the vote count continues.

Annelise Finney: But if there is a runoff in November between Beckles and Jesse yet again, it would be an interesting one. I mean, Beckles is slightly to the left of Oregon. She would probably go after some of this money and corporate spending that we’ve just been talking about, and it would make for very likely a pretty lively November runoff.

Alan Montecillo: And now, Annelise we come to measure B.

Annelise Finney: My favorite topic.

Alan Montecillo: Which is about recall election rules. So what is it? And do you know if it passed.

Annelise Finney: So measure B is looking like it will pass. It has about 60% of the vote so far. And what measure B will do is get rid of the counties recall rules and replace them with the state’s recall rules. And practically what that means is it would raise the number of signatures required to put a recall on the ballot. It would also extend some timelines about when the registrar can schedule recall elections if they qualify for a ballot.

Alan Montecillo: So why did this change to recall rules get put on the ballot this past election?

Annelise Finney: There are a number of different recall efforts underway in the county. The registrar saw this coming, as did lawyers who advised the county, and they decided to take a look at the recall rules the county has on the books. Alameda County has never had a recall election. There have been a few attempts, but nothing that actually made it to the ballot. So these rules that the county had on the books had basically never been tested, and they were written in the 1920s.

Annelise Finney: So when the lawyers take a look at these rules, what they found is that a lot of them are infeasible. They were designed for a county that was about a quarter of the size it is today. That’s kind of why it has these tight timelines that require the registrar to tabulate votes in a pretty quick amount of time. It also has some provisions that have been found illegal in other counties. So if the county tried to impose them, they could be sued by people who point out that these rules have been found illegal.

Alan Montecillo: Well, and it seems like this inevitably is caught up in the politics of current recall campaigns. Right. There’s the campaign against District Attorney Pamela Price. There’s one against Oakland Mayor Shang Tao. How did that play a role in measure B?

Annelise Finney: You know, there was a lot of debate on the Board of Supervisors about whether or not to put this measure on the ballot right now, and that’s because of the ongoing recalls. A lot of members on the Board of Supervisors felt having people vote on this now might kind of come off as election interference, because it’s not exactly clear how a rule change will affect these ongoing recalls. That’s something that the Board of Supervisors is going to have to figure out if measure B passes.

Alan Montecillo: So yes or no. Does measure B passing mean that the rules for the upcoming recall campaigns? Are the rules for those recalls going to change?

Annelise Finney: You know, I really wish I could give you a yes or no. I think everybody wants there to be a yes or no for this. But the county has not been clear about that. The county has said that, you know, this rule change would not affect the count of signatures that have already been submitted to the registrar by the effort to recall D.A. Pamela Price.

Annelise Finney: But depending on when measure B is certified and when a recall election might be certified, the county may decide to use state rules when they schedule the recall election. They may not. It’s still something the county is deciding, but it’s certainly caused a lot of confusion in both campaigns and the campaign for the recall and against it. Both campaigns have also said that they’re willing to sue if the rules change.

Alan Montecillo: Oh, what a mess. All right, wrapping up here. And so we’ve talked about elections in three different three different areas. Is there a through line here? It feels like to me at least that these results there isn’t maybe a clean, tidy narrative to pull out of this.

Annelise Finney: Yeah. You know, I’ve been talking to my colleagues who’ve been covering elections in other parts of the Bay area. And and one thing that seems sort of interesting about Alameda County is Alameda County is proving to be pretty consistent. The areas that are traditionally more conservative voted in the more moderate incumbent.

Annelise Finney: The areas that are more progressive are leaning towards more progressive candidates like Nikki Fortunato Bas or even Jesse out again, who, you know, in that race perhaps might appear more moderate, but really in and of himself is a very progressive candidate. So, you know, I think this shift that we’re seeing in San Francisco towards more moderate measures that are being passed, we’re not really seeing that in Alameda County quite yet.

Alan Montecillo: So do you have any, you know, takeaways from the results we’ve talked about here, especially going into November?

Annelise Finney: You know, I think as I look at this election, one thing that I’m seeing that’s really standing out to me is the low voter turnout. That is a problem. I think the county wants residents to participate in the election process. And if that’s not happening, to some extent, that’s a failure of the county to make this accessible, to make sure people know that this is happening and to make sure voters feel educated about the issues on the ballot, so that when they go into the ballot box, they feel empowered and not confused.

Annelise Finney: So I think that there’s space for growth here in Alameda County has been inching towards that with this election commission. But I think a major takeaway is that there’s a lot to be done in Alameda County to ensure voters come out, and also to ensure that the votes are turned out quickly. For a lot of voters, it’s very confusing when we have, you know, initial results that are reported out the night or the day after. And then sometimes those changed dramatically because the vote count can take so long. And Alameda County.

Alan Montecillo: Well. Annelise. Thank you.

Annelise Finney: Thanks, Alan.

Alan Montecillo: That was KQED reporter Annelise Finney. There are, of course, so many other election results that we haven’t had time to get to. Everything from Lateefah Simon finishing first in the race for Barbara Lee’s old House seat to a sales tax in Sonoma County to fund fire protection. If you want to keep checking out those results, visit kqed.org/election.

Alan Montecillo: This conversation was cut down and edited by our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored it and added the tape. Music courtesy of Audio Network. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Alan Montecillo in for Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.