Who's Paying for the Campaign to Recall Alameda County DA Pamela Price? These Charts Break It Down

Over the last year and a half, money poured into a series of fundraising committees supporting the effort to recall Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, and it’s still coming in.

That money paid political consultants and signature gatherers, and in the final weeks before the election, is increasingly going towards political advertising. Money impacts how and what people hear about the recall, and it can shape the decisions voters make as they fill out their ballots.

The challenge to Price, which qualified for the ballot in April, marks the second effort in just two years to recall a progressive district attorney in the Bay Area following the 2022 ouster of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin.

If successful, the current recall push would be another blow to criminal justice reform, a platform embraced by both Price and Boudin. A rejection of the effort, however, would be a powerful signal that voters are doubling down on Price’s vision for progressive reform, one that a majority embraced in 2022 when they elected her to serve a 6-year term – becoming Alameda County’s first Black district attorney.

To better understand the money behind the push both for and against the Price recall, we culled campaign finance reports filed with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. Using that data, we dug into where funding is coming from and who the biggest spenders are to create the following charts. These numbers do not include independent expenditures.

Who is the money coming from?

The campaign to recall Price, called Save Alameda for Everyone, or SAFE, filed its official paperwork with the county in July 2023. The campaign is publicly headed by two county residents: Brenda Grisham, a victim advocate and small business owner, and Carl Chan, a realtor and the board chair of Oakland Chinatown’s Asian Health Services. They’ve lately been joined on the campaign trail by SAFE campaign manager Chris Moore, a realtor and former county supervisor candidate.

Behind them, there is a network of campaign consultants and deep-pocketed donors who run a coordinated secondary fundraising committee called Supporters of Recall Pamela Price.

“SAFE works in close collaboration with the Supporters of Recall Pamela Price,” Moore said at a press conference earlier this month. “Typically, the larger check donations go to [Supporters of Recall Pamela Price], and those checks go right into the larger expenditures of the campaign.”

The California Fair Political Practices Commission fined Supporters of Recall Pamela Price $3,700 in August for failing to meet campaign finance filing deadlines, among other violations of state campaign finance rules.

Over the summer, a third fundraising group, Revitalize East Bay Committee, was started by Oakland resident Isaac Abid. Initially, the committee gave exclusively to Supporters of Recall Pamela Price. This month, the committee also donated to efforts supporting Oakland City Council candidates Warren Logan and Leronne Armstrong — the city’s former police chief — and paid for advertisements supporting John Bauters, an Emeryville council member running for a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.

A coalition of organizations called Respect Our Vote, No Recalls formed in August. The coalition includes the Oakland-based Latino Task Force, the Wellstone Democratic Club, Asian Americans for a Progressive Alameda (AAPA) and Bay Area Christian Connection, among other groups that have hosted rallies and handed out posters and yard signs. Coalition organizer Walter Riley, a civil rights attorney, said the group isn’t accepting donations, and the Oakland Rising and AAPA cover its printing costs.

Finally, Fxk Yo Recalls, Oppose the Recalls of Thao and Price, formed earlier this month. So far, the committee hasn’t reported any fundraising. Its principal officers are Jennifer Findlay and Nathan Peterson. Both list Oakland addresses in filings.

Where is the money from?

There are few state or county limits on campaign spending for recall elections, largely because they are considered ballot measures, not candidate races. Unlike most candidate races, money can come from anywhere and in any amount.

Opponents of the recall have claimed supporters are largely “outsiders” trying to overrule the will of local voters. And indeed, the recall effort has generated significant amounts of money from outside the county: Nearly 40% of its funding, or about $963,000, has come from outside of Alameda County.

Interestingly, more than 60% of funding for the campaign against the recall also comes from outside the county. However, with just over $200,000, it is a fraction of the outside funding supporting the recall.

Ann Ravel, a UC Berkeley Law professor and former chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission and the Federal Election Commission, said it’s not uncommon for political candidates and ballot measure committees to receive funding from outside the jurisdiction the election takes place in.

“A candidate may have personal and professional connections out of state,” Ravel said. “Supporters may have businesses locally or family members, even though they live somewhere else.”

“When there’s localities or cities, or in this case counties, that are particularly influential nationwide, it’s not uncommon for outside money to be flowing into those,” said David Shor, money in politics program manager for Common Cause California, an advocacy group pushing for more transparent democracy in the state.

“When money is flooding in from outside the district or outside of localities, oftentimes that ends up leading to those candidates not being accountable to the people who they should be,” Shor added.

Within Alameda County, the bulk of pro-recall donations comes from just a few neighborhoods in the north end of the county — primarily from one ZIP code in Piedmont and two in Oakland, covering the residential neighborhoods in the hills east of Lake Merritt and downtown Oakland. Nearly a million dollars came from the Piedmont ZIP code, while around $200,000 came from the two Oakland ZIP codes, including residential neighborhoods in the hills east of Lake Merritt and Oakland’s downtown.

According to U.S. Census data, wealth is concentrated in the southeastern end of the county, with the exception of Piedmont— which has the highest median household income in the county— and certain ZIP codes in the Oakland and Berkeley hills. Overall, Oakland has the lowest median household income in the county.

Donations opposing the recall are less concentrated. A ZIP code in Pleasanton contributed the most – $11,000. Pleasanton residents have the third-highest household median income in the county, according to census data.