6 Month Old Organization Spends $1/4 Million for Thao Recall Signatures from Firm with Complicated Past
Oaklanders United to Recall Sheng Thao [OUTRST] turned in financial 460 disclosures on Tuesday reporting on the funding for the group’s attempted recall of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao. The reporting covers the period from January 1 to March 30th, and most of the reported contributions were received beginning in late February. The disclosure reveals that though the Thao recall effort has few donors, it benefitted in March from a large in-kind cash buy from Foundational Oakland United [FOU] for signature gathering.
Foundational Oakland United, a 6 month old Company with Deep Pockets
FOU was incorporated in December, 2023 as a mutual benefit corporation. According to state documents, Len Raphael, a local Oakland accountant and Tanya Boyce, an employee at the City of Fort Worth, Texas are the main principals in FOU. Boyce also initiated a general purpose fundraising committee under the same name in February, but has not reported any large contributions, donations nor the expenditure for OUTRST. Former Oakland Police Commissioner and Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte is the lead proponent of the recall and is the principal officer of OUTRST.
On the Ground, a New Petition Signature Gathering Company with a Lengthy Past
FOU paid $212.5K to On the Ground Inc [OTG], a petition signature gathering, canvassing and opposition research firm, on behalf of the Thao recall proponents for signature gathering, according to the disclosure. The Secretary of State online filing site lists OTG as “Franchise Tax Board Suspended”. An FTB suspended corporation has usually failed to report income and/or pay taxes and fees and may not be allowed to do business in the state of California. The publication date for the amended standing is April 2, 2024, a month and a half after the reported payments to the company by FOU were made. This publication could find no record in the State of California’s campaign finance database for any payments to OTG by a state campaign finance committee under the category “petition circulating” since its inception in 2019.
OTG’s principals Tyler Endsley and Lawrence Ciaffone have apparently run petition signature gathering companies under different corporate names in various states for over a decade before incorporating OTG. The pair ran another signature and political consulting firm that gathered petition signatures in California called Direct Democracy Unlimited [DDU], according to state documents from Arizona, Missouri and fictitious business announcements from Los Angeles area print media. DDU appears to have never been incorporated in California.
DDU had its share of legal issues. A court-approved settlement in 2014 ordered DDU to stop collecting signatures at Ralph’s supermarkets throughout California after Ralph’s alleged in a suit that DDU’s signature gatherers harassed both employees and customers. The settlement followed a temporary court-ordered injunction against DDU signature gatherers to stay away from the stores.
DDU was also sued by a former local recall campaign client in 2018. The organization alleged DDU had taken a $5K deposit to collect signatures but failed to collect them and then refused to return the deposit.
DDU apparently ceased operations in California at some point after 2016, and the principals incorporated OTG in California in 2019. DDU’s last record of payment for petition circulating in the State of California’s campaign finance database was in 2016 for $100K from the California Association of Realtors PAC. Endsley and Ciaffone also run at least one other company, which was incorporated in Florida in 2021, Upcard, LLC. Upcard is certified as a petition signature collection entity in Colorado.
Harbin-Forte’s recall campaign owes $25K to OTG in addition to the payment from Foundational Oaklanders, according to the report.
Thao Recall Attracts Several High Level Donors, but Few Others in First Two Months of Fundraising
In the two months since the campaign committee was founded, the organization has tapped several outsized donations—the Conway family, for example, as well as the Foundational Oaklanders donation that purchased signature gathering from OTG. But only a total of about 45 donors are listed in the report. Removing the high donations from the Conways and the unknown funding source from FOU, the organization has raised $31K—$5K of which came from the recall’s principal proponent, Harbin-Forte. Two long-standing directors of East Bay Rental Housing Association, Luke Blacklidge and Wayne Rowland are both listed as $1K donors but do not identify themselves as principals in the political landlord advocacy organization.
ALCO BOS’ Moves Uncertainly Towards Scheduling a Recall Election
In a much anticipated move Tuesday, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted to accept the validation of sufficiency of signatures for a recall of DA Price. The BOS also scheduled a meeting to potentially decide the date of a special election on May 14.
Three Hours of Public Comment, but Decision Never in Doubt
The BOS meeting was one of the first well attended meetings in the highly-publicized saga of the ALCO DA Recall. Supporters of the recall have previously brought no more than a dozen attendees at a time, and opponents have largely stayed away while the outcome of signature gathering loomed. Close to 100 speakers expressed their views at the meeting during a comment period that lasted nearly three hours, divided between supporters of the recall and opponents, and between those who want a recall vote to occur during the general election in November and those hoping for a summer special recall election in the summer. The isolated public comment period can be viewed in this video.
Despite the focus and demands for an immediate scheduling of the recall election on one hand, and the demands to stay the certification of signatures pending legal analysis of the process, the ALCO BOS decision was never much in doubt. The demands from the Recall group were impossible to fulfill—no item scheduling an election was agendized for the meeting, and any such ad hoc vote put on the floor would have invalidated an election so scheduled. On the other side, the BOS currently has no legal direction to question the outcome of the signature gathering, which has been certified by the Registrar of Voters. The BOS role in certifying the signatures is ministerial, not discretionary, as pointed out by Alameda County Counsel Donna Ziegler. In the absence of litigation, the BOS have received no court rulings on the legality of their recall processes.
Questions Remain About How and When to Schedule a Recall Election
The only issue currently at stake absent legal action is under what rubric the BOS will schedule the election when they convene to do so at the 5/14 meeting. Two options remain possible under state recall laws, which the BOS are treating as the new charter language on County Recalls after the passage of Measure B*:
1) the BOS could schedule a special recall election in a window 88 to 125 days from their decision, which would put the election in the summer months.
2) state election law also allows the election to be scheduled within 180 days if that additional timeframe would allow the recall to be consolidated into a general election ballot. That 180 window would be active beginning May 9, according to ALCO’s Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis’ statements at the meeting.
During the meeting, Dupuis argued for consolidation into the November General Election, noting that a special election would cost up to $20 MM, compared to about $4 MM if consolidated into the general election. Dupuis also noted that a special election could put a strain on personnel and equipment that could jeopardize a November election.
“[a recall] will compete for resources for our November election, if it's called as a special election. We will have human resources demands which will be stressed. Equipment is going to have to be commissioned for both of the elections and we have only equipment for one county wide election. We'll have challenges in getting vote centers for in-person voting because, again, of the competing resources between the special and the consolidated. And I do want to make the board aware that there have been times when we've had elections that get litigated, that judges have told us that we have to hold on to the equipment and not decommission it,” Dupuis warned.
"Dysfunctional" DA Administrations Could be ALCO's Future
Supervisors issued several eyebrow-raising statements that reflected a concern with the potential chaos portended by the historic recall. Supervisor Keith Carson sought answers from Ziegler to questions of the process to replace Price should she be recalled. Carson received applause from Price supporters when he noted the instability that could be inserted into the DA’s office.
“There's going to have to be a whole transformation within the District Attorney's Office, I'm trying to find out how much disruption is being caused during the interim period of trying to seek a person other than the current district attorney…so basically in my head that says that the office is dysfunctional for another period of time,” Carson said.
In response to Carson’s queries, Ziegler described a potential situation where there would be up to 4 additional DA administrations by the time Price’s original six year term ends in January of 2029.
“If the result of [a recall election] is that the DA is recalled, your board would have the right to make an appointment, and the person appointed would serve until the next general election, which is in 2026. Whoever is the successful candidate, in that election in 2026, will then take office at that time and serve for the rest of the term, which ends January of 2029.”
Should the recall succeed, according to Ziegler’s comments, there would be:
1) an interim administration led by an immediate subordinate of Price which could last weeks to months while the BOS chooses an appointed successor;
2) an appointed administration led by the BOS-chosen DA successor that would last until the general election of 2026
3) a new administration to finish Price's original term would be led by the winner of the 2026 election in January 2027.
4) But the administration begun in 2027 would only endure until there is a new election at the end of Price’s original term, in November 2028.
Between 2023 and 2029, if Price is recalled, ALCO will have had 4 District Attorney administrations including Price, although most of the latter administrations might be filled by one DA, if, for example, the BOS-appointed DA chooses to run and wins both subsequent elections in 2026 and 2028**.
Legal Challenges and Judicial Review Loom
Later in the meeting, as Supervisor Lena Tam made the motion to set the election scheduling meeting for May 14, Tam also wondered aloud if the County would be able to secure a judicial review of the 10 day window required, and missed, by Dupuis to count signatures. Supervisor Elisa Marquez said she supported the motion to set the date for May 14 “in the hopes that litigation is filed” in the meantime.
Both Tam and Marquez appeared to be responding to comments made by Attorney Jim Sutton***, who has represented the Price campaign in statements to the BOS throughout their deliberations on the recall process and the creation of Measure B. Sutton spoke at the meeting to reiterate the concerns he’s raised in previous communiques with the Board since last year—that the ROV improperly instructed signature gatherers to ignore the charter rules requiring local residence for gatherers and that the ROV violated the charter when he failed to produce a validation of the signatures in the charter’s 10 day timeframe. Sutton added a critique that the County should have provided Dupuis with the resources to accomplish the count.
“The charter acknowledged, yeah, it's going to be hard to do in 10 days, but we want the county to spend the money to comply with this time period…because [Dupuis] did not comply with that clear provision of the charter, you cannot move forward with a schedule in the election,” Sutton told the Supervisors.
“The charter says only county residents can gather signatures on these petitions. Now we appreciate a Supreme Court decision kind of raises questions about that provision. But there's a provision in the California Constitution also as clear as clear can be that says counties and cities cannot ignore their laws, unless a court tells them the law is not as unenforceable. And, of course, the court has not done this,” Sutton added.
The May 14 decision was scheduled by BOS as a Special Meeting at 3pm at the request of Supervisor Marquez, who would not be able to attend an earlier meeting. The agenda isn't available as of this writing.
*while the BOS is apparently treating Measure B as the charter directed process for recalls, it’s not clear whether the charter has been officially amended at the state level. The County’s online documents on recalls remain the same in Section 62. Attempts to confirm with the state have gone unanswered by press time.
**Price’s term is for six years, not four, due to changes in election rules at state level aligning county elected roles with the presidential term general election. In 2029, the terms will revert again to 4 years.
***In April, Sutton’s firm merged with Rutan and Tucker, LLP
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