Price to supporters: Recall campaign trying to ‘nullify our votes, silence our voices’

With two weeks to go before the election, supporters of Pamela Price are campaigning hard to convince voters to allow the progressive Alameda County district attorney to finish her first term. 

They are up against a heavily funded recall effort determined to see that Price’s tenure is as short-lived as that of Chesa Boudin, the progressive San Francisco district attorney who was recalled in 2022 — the year Price was elected. 

More than 60 Price supporters rallied Sunday outside the Alameda County Superior Courthouse, chanting, “We won’t go back.”  

“This is exactly why her office is under attack, just like many other DAs across this country who have the audacity to fiercely buck their system,” said Danielle Motley-Lewis, president of the Oakland chapter of Black Women Organized for Political Action. “They are being targeted because they stand for real change and real justice.”

Price was elected with just over 53% of the vote, running on a platform to reform criminal justice by holding police accountable for misconduct, protecting immigrant communities, and reducing penalties for youth offenders.

She is now facing a recall effort largely funded by two groups, “Save Alameda for Everyone” and “Supporters of Recall Pamela Price,” which raised over $2.6 million from 2022 to mid-October, according to KQED.

Supporters of Recall Pamela Price raised $45,000 from the Police Officer Associations of Alameda, Berkeley, Hayward and Oakland during October, according to data from the California Secretary of State Office.

About $1.6 million of the recall campaign’s total was raised this year alone. While the pro-Price group Protect the Win has raised about $330,000, according to Alameda County campaign finance filings.

“In Alameda County, we are in the midst of a resistance that is more loud than massive, that is billionaire-funded and MAGA-inspired, that gives life to every grievance, that weaponizes people’s grief and pain, that elevates division and hatred and lies, that is trying to nullify our votes and silence our voices,” Price said during the rally. 

“Let us bend the moral arc of this county and this country towards justice, and don’t let nobody turn us around.”

If the recall is successful, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will appoint an interim district attorney to serve for two years, until the next scheduled election in 2026.

Oakland resident Abigail Soleto happened to be walking by the courthouse and stayed to listen because she has seen the impacts of the justice system on people she knows, and she plans to vote against the recall. 

“Some are falsely accused, and everyone gets treated the same, and they’re railroaded right into jail, right into prison,” Soleto said. “And that’s not right, because we as people deserve to have full lives and to be forgiven and move forward.”

SAFE believes Price has been too soft on crime and doesn’t hold those arrested, particularly organized retail theft rings, accountable. 

Brenda Grisham, principal officer of SAFE said Price is “destroying the judicial system.” 

“What she’s doing is not safe for the citizens, is not safe for the victims, and it’s not safe for the criminals either,” she said.

Price said her office has prosecuted crimes at a higher rate than former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley had during her last two years in office before retiring. (O’Malley donated $1,000 to the recall campaign on Oct. 11, according to campaign finance data.) 

According to the 2023 Alameda County District Attorney’s Office annual report, Price took action on 62.9% of the cases referred to her office by law enforcement, which is slightly higher than the 61.6% for O’Malley’s office in 2022 and 60.6% in 2021.

Price’s critics have pointed out the data does not include the outcomes of those cases. 

Price closed the rally by giving “marching orders” to her supporters to knock on doors around the city and convince Oakland residents to vote no on the recall. 

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Mayor Thao rallies against recall, with help from a former Oakland mayor and other supporters