SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – A Marin County-based political action committee is responsible for nearly two-thirds of all donations to groups seeking to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and 45% of all monetary contributions in the race, according to city ethics commission data.
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Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy, a political action committee that lists its address in San Rafael and the same phone number as a Northern California lobbying firm with an office in the North Bay city, contributed $4.7 million to three of the four groups seeking to oust the progressive prosecutor in Tuesday's election.
Those donations alone accounted for about 66% of all pro-recall spending as of the June 1 filing date, and the committee outspent all four anti-recall committees by nearly $1.5 million. In all, groups have spent about $10.5 million on the race.
Excluding monetary contributions from other committees, anti-recall committees raised nearly $2.6 million. Pro-recall committees, meanwhile, raised almost $1.7 million.
California state law doesn't limit contributions to committees supporting or opposing local ballot measures. Overall spending on the recall election has doubled that of the $5.2 million spent on the mayoral special election in 2018. In races for elective office, contributions are limited to $500 to a candidate, but there are no limits on contributions to non-candidate committees.
Recall proponents have touted citywide concerns about crime as a reason to oust Boudin, who was elected district attorney in 2019 and previously faced a recall that failed to reach the ballot last year.
San Franciscans for Public Safety Supporting the Recall of Chesa Boudin, which has raised more money than any other group seeking to remove Boudin, highlighted last month that it had more than 1,000 donors, 80% of whom contributed fewer than $250. But that belies how much the anti-Boudin groups relied upon spending from outside committees with deep-pocketed donors like Neighbors for a Better San Francisco.
That committee, whose filings list the same address as the political lobbying firm Nielsen Merksamer, received donations averaging $80,000 from just shy of 100 groups and individuals, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis published on Monday. Republican billionaire William Obendorf contributed more than $600,000 to Neighbors for a Better San Francisco over the last two years, or more than 10% of the nearly $5.9 million the group raised during that time.
In all, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco – which also successfully sought to recall three San Francisco school board members after spending more in the race than any other group – and other political action committees spent nearly $5.5 million.
Among those groups were three committees representing the California Association of Realtors ($458,000), one representing the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce ($90,000) and another representing the Hotel Council of San Francisco.
Political action committees opposing the recall, meanwhile, spent $680,400. The largest group and individual contributions against the recall came from the ACLU of Northern California ($350,000), Service Employees International Union Local 1021 ($115,000), and tech executives Chris Larsen ($100,000) and Jessica McKellar ($100,000).
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