Threads connecting Sheriff Ahern, Shawn Kumagai, and Lily Mei emerge: IEs backed by real estate interests, new car dealers, and anti-labor IE reveal connections

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ELECTION 2022

You sit and wonder just who's gonna stop the rain
Who'll ease the sadness? Who's gonna quiet your pain?
It's a long dark highway and a thin white line
Connecting, baby, your heart to mine
We're running now, but, darling, we will stand in time
To face the ties that bind - Bruce Springsteen

—THE TIES THAT BIND—The romantic idea of government truly serving the people still exists at the local level. Scoff, if you may, but even in Oakland. The same sentiment is not always the case when it comes to state legislative races, where the better way to discern what candidates believe is to track the groups that back their campaigns with big money and figure out what they stand for. It’s not a cynical take, but how the game is played. Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen a confluence of the same donors from real estate and business interests giving to the same East Bay candidates, and possibly one power merchant acting as puppet master for all the connections.

—GOLDEN BOY—Keep California Golden is the newest Independent Expenditure Committee to join the two open state legislative races in the East Bay. The IE supports Shawn Kumagai’s bid for the open 20th Assembly District seat in and around Hayward and Dublin. Keep California Golden is backed by real estate interests, Philip Morris USA, and Anheuser Busch.

—California Real Estate Independent Expenditure Committee-California Association of Realtors contributed $250,000 to the IE on April 27. The California Building Industry Association Independent Expenditure Committee added another $150,000 to the IE on the same day, according to campaign finance records. Philip Morris USA contributed a total of $50,000 to the IE this year, while Anheuser Busch added a total of $71,123 through nine contributions between Mar. 8 and April 29.

—The aggregate amount of fundraising going into the Keep California Golden IE is roughly the same amount as the IE created by AFSCME Local 3299 to support Kumagai’s fellow Democratic opponent, Liz Ortega, and seeded with $500,000. In yesterday’s newsletter, I reported the IE began its spending, allocating $450,000 for television commercials in support of Ortega.

—On Tuesday, Keep California Golden reported spending $53,728 in support of Kumagai’s campaign, according to finance records, primarily a mailer costing $39,542.