Now we are beginning to learn who is really behind the Right wing cabal to oust San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin.
The San Francisco Chronicle has taken a look at the most recent campaign finance reports. The findings follow. To ward off this effort the thousands of citizens who spearheaded Chesa’s victory in 2019 need to take to the streets in his behalf, again.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 3.25.2021
A group seeking to oust San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has raised over $75,000 in the initial weeks of its campaign, according to the group’s campaign finance records .
More than 100 donors pitched in to the Committee Supporting the Recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin between Jan. 1 and March 15, with a single tech investor bankrolling nearly one-third of the war chest.
DA Boudin with Mayor London Breed – January 2021
By far the recall campaign’s largest donor in the period captured by the group’s campaign finance records was David Sacks, a partner at Craft Ventures and former PayPal executive who forked over $25,000 of campaign’s total $76,587. Sacks and his wife also donated to the campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In 2015 PayPal agreed to fork over $25 million in damages stemming from shady business practices the company used to a) trick consumers into signing up for services that they didn’t really want and b) net more money in the way of fines and late fees than they were entitled to.
https://bgr.com/2015/05/20/paypal-credit-scam-25-million/
Sacks recently took aim at Boudin on Twitter for declining to enforce the “three strikes” law, a policy that significantly ratchets up prison sentences on a person’s third offense. Critics of the law argued that it was a key driver of mass incarceration and disproportionately punished Black and Brown offenders.
California voters in 2012 rolled back these laws to only include serious or violent felonies, and Boudin’s office severely limits it altogether.
Sacks did not return a request for comment on social media and a number listed for him disconnected when The Chronicle tried calling.
David Sacks – Billionaire and Chesa recall big bucks donor
Richie Greenberg, a former Republican mayoral candidate and spokesman for the committee, said the campaign has raised even more than what’s been officially recorded so far — money that will be disclosed in subsequent finance reports. Greenberg said Thursday he was enthusiastic by the support but not surprised by it.
“We had a couple of large donors, but the majority were $1,000 and below,” he said.
The committee must collect 51,325 signatures — 10% of the city’s registered voters — by Aug. 11 for the campaign to qualify for a special election.
The recall effort comes just over a year after Boudin was sworn in as district attorney, a role he won after vowing to reduce mass incarceration, hold bad cops accountable and fortify the city’s criminal-justice rehabilitation programs. Boudin has emerged as a national figure in a movement to elect progressive prosecutors, with voters increasingly rejecting the tough-on-crime criminal justice system that fed into to overflowing jail and prison populations.
Boudin on Thursday said his recall campaign’s biggest supporters represent a departure from the city’s famously progressive values.
“We are not surprised to see that Richie Greenberg is leading a charge to push back against a San Francisco that serves everyone, not just the few, and that he is bankrolled by a few very wealthy individuals who have long been out of touch with what San Franciscans want and need,” Boudin said.
“They couldn’t win the election so now they are trying to overturn it. We’ll keep doing our work.”
Lee's Perspective 