OAKLAND — The recall targeting Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price could be delayed until the November general election, after the county’s Board of Supervisors expressed unease this week with rushing a decision.
To the chagrin of Price’s opponents, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday opted to wait until May 14 to set a recall election date. By doing so, the board gave itself the flexibility to call a special election for sometime between Aug. 10 and Sept. 16, or to push it off until the Nov. 5 general election.
That raises the possibility of a recall question with little — if any — precedent in Alameda County appearing on a ballot packed with everything from a rematch between the nation’s last two presidents, to an untold number of ballot measures, city council races and a once-in-a-generation U.S. Senate contest.
The delay also led to joint frustration by supporters and opponents of the historic recall effort over the county’s handling of sweeping new election reforms that were intended to modernize the county’s recall laws. Price herself complained Tuesday that the county was “cherry-picking” the election laws it wants to follow, while her opponents urged those same county officials to avoid slow-walking the recall process.
Multiple supervisors expressed a desire slow the process, given how rare recalls are in Alameda County and how complicated the process has become with the passage of recall election reforms in March. At least one even appeared to welcome legal action as a means to give county leaders guidance on which election laws they should be using, and when. The board voted unanimously to wait until May 14 to set a date.
“I’d like to take this a step at a time,” Supervisor Lena Tam said.
“I will support this motion in the hopes that litigation is filed so that we could get clearer direction,” said Supervisor Elisa Márquez. “Because we can’t do that ourselves.”
Community members and relatives of crime victims have, for more than a year, railed against Price’s efforts to reimagine the East Bay’s criminal justice system, calling her approach too lenient on crime. Price, however, has fought to undo the nation’s legacy of mass incarceration, which has disproportionately affected Black and brown residents, including in Alameda County.
After the supervisors meeting, Carl Chan, one of the recall’s organizers and an Oakland Chinatown leader, expressed frustration at the board for considering a six-month wait for the recall vote. The group he helped found, Save Alameda For Everyone, submitted more than 123,000 signatures in early March to get the question on a ballot, and had to wait more than a month while the registrar of voters counted each one to ensure they were valid.
In the end, the registrar counted 74,757 valid signatures — ensuring the group would surpass the required threshold by roughly 1,560, after 48,617 signatures were found to be invalid.
“It’s a disappointment they’re afraid to set up a special election as of today,” Chan said.
Price’s campaign attorney also voiced frustration, but more at the statement Marquez made about potential legal action, as well as how the county has handled the switches between old and new recall elections laws.
“They expect Pamela to come up with several hundred thousand dollars for a lawsuit,” the attorney, Jim Sutton said. “So why don’t (the supervisors) file a lawsuit? And why is no one pushing them? Isn’t it the county’s obligation to figure out these legal issues?”
Tim Dupuis, the county’s Registrar of Voters, cited a lengthy list of budgetary and logistical concerns in voicing his preference for delaying the recall question until November. Special elections in Alameda County typically cost $15 million to $20 million, he said. And conducting a special election so close to a general election could force the agency to procure a new set of election equipment, given the challenges of turning around voting machines in the span of just a few months.
“We have resource demands for both elections, which will be stressed,” Dupuis told the board. “It would put at risk our availability of resources and equipment for the consolidated election” in November.
Before Tuesday’s meeting, supporters and opponents of the recall shouted over each other with megaphones outside the County Administration Building in downtown Oakland, amid dueling chants of “Recall Price” and “We love Price.”
“Let’s make some noise for Pamela Price,” one supporter yelled into a microphone, while surrounded by signs declaring “Stop wasting our money!” and “Protect our budget!”
“The citizens have spoken,” yelled Brenda Grisham, a recall organizer. “We want Pamela Price recalled now, sooner than later, for the safety of our citizens, for the safety or our families and for the safety of Alameda County.”
Sutton suggested the supervisors had no legal standing to schedule an election, given concerns about how the recall organizers collected signatures and how the county’s Registrar of Voters counted them.
Just hours before the supervisors’ meeting, Price announced that the California Fair Political Practices Commission opened an investigation into Supporters of Recall Pamela Price, which donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the recall’s organizers. Price’s campaign filed an official complaint in December alleging the group failed to properly disclose its contributors.
The specter of the recall falling to the November ballot came, in part, as a consequence of newly reformed of election laws that Alameda County voters approved only two months ago.
Prior to March 5, recall elections in Alameda County were governed by laws dating to at least the 1920s that mandated swiftly setting election dates. In most cases, the supervisors had to set elections just 35 to 40 days after receiving validated signature petitions calling for a recall.
But that all changed during the March primary election, when county voters approved Measure B and opted to align the county’s recall ordinances with California’s own recently rewritten laws. Those state laws allow counties a few months to conduct such elections.
Importantly, the new laws also seek to limit the likelihood of multi-million dollar special recall elections from bumping up against long-planned general elections. Specifically, the laws open the door for the two to be consolidated, if the recall is called within six months of a general election.
