OAKLAND, Calif.—A network of dark money is conspiring to unseat Mayor Sheng Thao, the first Hmong American mayor of a major city in the United States, according to the group Oaklanders Defending Democracy (ODD).
ODD and other organizations working together to defend the mayor from a recall effort that’s being funded by massive amounts of money from big business interests – cash that ODD says is “enabled by Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that dismantled key campaign finance laws.”
As voters head to the polls to decide Thao’s fate on Nov. 5, huge unanswered questions remain about why the FBI raided Thao’s home in June and took out several boxes. The agency has never accused Thao of any wrongdoing, nor has it answered questions about what even prompted the raid. But Thao says the FBI has told her attorney that is not the target of the bureau’s investigation.
Questions about that raid aside, ODD believes the real reason big money is trying to hound Thao out of office is because she’s pursued a consistently pro-worker agenda while in office. The FBI story is simply providing a distraction from those motivations.
“The recall effort against Mayor Sheng Thao,” ODD said, “not only threatens Oakland’s progress but risks plunging the city into political chaos at a critical time.”
Amelia Finney of KQED, the local NPR station, said “A successful recall could set off what two UC Berkeley recall law professors call an ‘avoidable carousel of mayors.’” The fear is that if this network of right-wing donors succeeds in Oakland, according to the experts, the area “could see three new mayors in the course of a few months,” raising the question of the impact that level of instability would have on the city.
Should the recall be successful, the City Council president would temporarily step in as mayor. The current council president, Nikki Fortunato Bas, is running for Alameda County Board of Supervisors. If she wins that seat, another councilor, likely less experienced, would then end up being elevated to the mayor’s seat temporarily. A special election would then follow within 120 days to elect a new mayor to complete Thao’s unfinished term. That person could serve only until the 2026 elections.
The attack on Thao and the city’s administrative and political stability is being paid for primarily by people who do not live in Oakland. One Piedmont hedge fund manager, Phil Dreyfus, has donated 80% of the money spent on the recall. Dreyfuss also gave Foundational Oakland Unites $124,500 to support an initiative to eliminate ranked-choice voting in Oakland elections.
Thao, who has raised little money in the effort to prevent the recall, points out that Dreyfuss represents both real estate and coal interests. The proposed shipment of coal in open rail cars from mines in Utah to a new export terminal in the port of Oakland sparked confrontations in the City Council and the courts more than ten years ago. The issue remains unresolved.
San Francisco tech billionaire Ron Conway and his sons, Chris and Ronny, are also significant financial supporters of the anti-democratic recall.
The whole effort amounts to an attack by capitalist right-wing forces on a democratically-elected mayor who has committed to record investments in affordable housing, street repair, and bike and pedestrian safety projects. She has balanced Oakland’s budget without layoffs or major cuts to public safety and has helped reduce the crime that rose during the pandemic.
There is a similar recall campaign against Pamela Price, Alameda County District Attorney. Price, elected in 2022 as the first African American woman D.A. in the county, ran on a platform that included not trying children as adults and other criminal justice reforms. Her opponents, claiming she, like Thao, is soft on crime, had the petitions ready to collect voter signatures before she was even sworn into office.
That effort, using paid signature gatherers who knew nothing about what they were urging people to sign, is part of a national attack on progressive prosecutors that has included the successful recall of San Francisco D.A. Chesa Boudin, and attacks on D.A.s Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and George Gascon in Los Angeles. Price’s campaign against the recall is called “Protect the Win.”
Oaklanders Defending Democracy, nurses, and first responders have joined with the Alameda Democratic Party and others in rejecting this right-wing attack on the Oakland people’s will as reflected in democratic elections, an attack by privileged rich people who behave as if their agenda overrules the democratic will of the people.
Longtime Oakland political activist Sharon Rose told People’s World: “I ask my neighbors in Oakland and in Alameda County to not give in to fear and lies and to oppose both racist and anti-democratic recall efforts against Mayor Sheng Thao and D.A. Pamela Price.
“Vote NO on both recalls, and let’s keep moving forward to build an Oakland and Alameda County that work for the majority of the residents, and that respect democracy. Let’s work to make Oakland a place where people, planet, and peace come before profits.”
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