California: What to expect when you're expecting Two Recalls -- Alameda County District Attorney and Oakland Mayor overlapping editions

On Election Day, there will be at least 17 recalls nationwide, but California's East Bay will be the scene of two standout recall elections with a number of features and facts that are potentially historic in the long annals of recalls: Alameda District Attorney Pamela Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.

2nd largest local US recall by population ever?:

With over 1.6 million people in Alameda, the District Attorney recall is the single largest (non-Gubernatorial/LG) recall election since the Miami-Dade County Mayor in 2011 and may be the second largest in US history (from what I see Los Angeles had about 1.5M in 1938, when Mayor Frank Shaw was kicked out). The Oakland Mayoral recall is the largest mayoral recall by population in the country since 2011 (both Miami-Dade/Omaha -- while I've been following recalls since the 1990s, I started the blog in 2011, which is why I keep citing that year). 

Additionally, Alameda County has not been an active user of recalls. The only two that went to a vote since 2011 were the Sunol Glen School Board recalls this July (plus there was a resignation in Newark in 2014)

Overlapping Jurisdiction Recalls:

This is the first recall that I can find since at least 2011 that involves overlapping jurisdictions, which I discuss in this Governing Magazine article. One factor to note is that Price appears on Page 3 of the ballot and Thao is much further down (page 8 or so). Very interested in how this will play out -- I'll point to the Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon recall/reelection for why that may matter.

There is significant overlap in the issues (specifically how to deal with crime and criminal justice matters) and funders for the two recalls, though each has its own unique subjects, including a still not-fully-explained FBI investigation that led to a raid on Thao's house and complaints about leadership for Price (this editorial in the East Bay Times goes into depth on that). Some of Price/Thao's supporters apparently feel the best approach is a joint one, as there are anti-recall signs that actually just say "No on Recalls" without naming which ones. There are numerous prominent officials backing one recall but silent on the other (Representative Eric Swalwell against Price;  former Oakland Mayor Libby Scharf against Thao). I haven't seen anyone yet who is pro one recall, but against the other. There are a number of officials who oppose both recalls, including Representative Barbara Lee, who claim to be against recalls in general. 

Strange Pathways:

While these two recalls may be similar, the pathways to the ballot and the results of what happens if the recalls succeed are quite different. Each has run into distinct problems that were caused by two separate bodies. 

What is also clear is that voters are not aware of many of these facts, which has led to some believing that the recalls use the same replacement provisions. For example, I've heard from Alameda voters who are worried about the cost of the replacement vote, which only exists for the Oakland recall. So let's look into what happened:

Alameda County: Anything's legal as long as you don't get caught (or sued):

Historically, District Attorneys have not faced many recall attempts (partly because there are so many fewer DAs than other officials), but that has changed in recent years. I discuss the rise of and backlash against the Progressive Prosecutor movement here (SF's Chesa Boudin recall, and attempts against LA's George Gascon and Contra Costa's Diana Becton).

The Price recall has been a much longer affair than the Thao one, involving more than double the needed signatures, and in this case the combination of an old law and the actions of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors has thrown up challenging roadblocks to the use of the recall. We discuss this at length (and here and here as well).

California law allows charter counties and cities to have their own recall law, and Alameda had exactly that. However, it was passed in 1926, resulting in some particular difficult provisions (such as 10 days to count the signatures). The recall law also had likely unconstitutional provisions that caused trouble in counting the signatures. But changing the law mid-stream would radically increase the number of signatures needed and could greatly delay the recall. 

The Alameda Supervisors pushed forward regardless and promoted Measure B (which passed overwhelmingly and is discussed below in the Oakland section). The arguments they used for why the law needed to be changed were incredibly disingenuous, but, well, what can you do.

In order to avoid the new law, petitioners handed in signatures before the vote on Measure B, but (despite the law), it took much longer to verify the signatures. They appeared to combine both laws in how they approached the signatures, using the new law to decide how much time they had and the old laws to toss out an inordinate number of signatures and use a statistical sampling method (the old charter required signers to state their occupation and each signature to be counted). The result was a bit of chaos and some behavior that could easily have led to lawsuits. It is still not clear based on what rules they operated and how they decided to count the signatures. Perhaps it's not a surprise that they still have not shared the information, nor the details of the signature rejections despite a Public Records Request.

One major result was that the Supervisors were able to delay the recall (lots of issues here) -- something that California, unlike other places, had previously prevented others from doing -- and led it to being held in November rather than much earlier (such as June). 

There is also a significant issue with the replacement race. As mentioned in greater detail below, Alameda County's replacement model is not the one-day/two-step process that voters are used to. Instead, the temporary replacement will be chosen by the County Supervisors and voters will choose a permanent replacement at the next election. Here is where the delay really matters -- if the election was held in the 35-40 days under the old law, the replacement race would have been held on Election Day. Instead, the replacement will not be chosen by the voters until the next general election (probably in 2026).

Oakland Mayor's Recall Carousel: 

The Oakland recall ran into trouble from other sources -- the state legislature. Oakland (like many places in the state) simply uses the local recall provisions in the state law (which Measure B ends up accomplishing for Alameda County). Previously, this was an excellent law. However, in 2022, the state legislature decided to radically change this law. For Oakland, the biggest problem is that it moved the replacement race law from one that specifies a one-day, two-step process to instead using the "by law" or "automatic replacement" model. This was a surprise to most (see Shasta). For Oakland, the existing replacement law (which seems to be focused on death or resignation) involves a temporary replacement and an election three months later. For the Thao recall, there is a particular issue -- the temporary replacement, Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, is running for Alameda County Supervisor, which could lead to four mayors in three months. The result is confusion on how the previously straightforward recall operated and complaints about a more expensive process -- which has bleed into the Alameda DA race as well.

The usual anti-recall arguments: Man, he's opposed to fair play, he wants it all and he wants it his way:

The election has seen complaints that this is a misuse of the recall, which is based on the (incorrect) belief that California adopted the recall solely to be used against corruption. There is also a focus on the odd claim that the recall is anti-democratic. This type of campaign has not worked well, as I would suspect, voters see the recall more as raw democracy.

So what will happen? How the hell would I know, but here's some cool facts!

As a general rule, recalls are incredibly successful -- 61.4% resulting in removal since 2011 and another 6% resignation. Recalls are even more successful in California -- 103 of the 130 recalls in that time saw an ouster (79%), plus 21 resignations. The fact that it is on Election Day may have a significant impact, something that Price's team appears to be banking on, as they worked to delay the recall so that it would be scheduled for that day. However, the results show that officials are more likely to survive a standalone special election recall (57%) than a general election one (67%). I suspect ballot placement may be the reason. We'll see if that track record keeps up.

There is a poll from the Chamber of Commerce saying the recalls are leading, though I haven't seen any details, so make of that what you will. The different elections for the two candidates may matter. Price won a top two election, where she received 43% in the first round. This was much better than her across-the-bay peer Chesa Boudin (who got 35% in the first round). Might this be a hopeful sign for her?

Thao ran in a ranked choice system and came in second with 31.8% of the vote in the first round, which actually took 9 rounds. Once thought is that the original vote matters quite a bit. While a large number of recalls are blow-outs either way, we have seen with the four gubernatorial recalls that the results tracked with the original election. Could that happen here?

Well, one way or another, we'll see (not) soon enough if those facts matter.