Welcome to the Friday, April 19, Brew.
By: Mercedes Yanora
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Alameda County to hold first ever recall election for district attorney
- Voters in Irvine, California, add council members and change elections from at-large to by-district
- #FridayTrivia: How many state legislators have switched parties since 1994?
Alameda County to hold first ever recall election for district attorney
On April 15, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters announced that the recall campaign against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price had submitted enough valid signatures to qualify for an election. According to ABC 7, this will be the first time a district attorney has faced a recall election in Alameda County.
The California county has a population of approximately 1,622,188. We cover two cities in the county: Oakland and Fremont.
Ballotpedia has covered 33 district attorneys who have faced recalls since 2009. Of those, 31 served at the county level and two at the city level.
Save Alameda for Everyone initiated the recall in 2023. The group describes itself as “[a] broad coalition of Alameda County residents, business owners, victims, victims’ families, and concerned citizens.” The group said, “DA Price is failing us in her responsibility to enforce the law, prosecute criminals and keep violent offenders off our streets.” The group said Price refused to charge cases, lowered sentences, and replaced prosecutors who resigned with unqualified individuals.
Price said Republican-connected special interest groups organized the effort. Price defended what she called her criminal justice reforms, including alternatives to incarceration, charging juveniles as juveniles, holding police accountable, and not adding enhancements to charges. Price said, “Any time that we can divert someone from the criminal justice system, that is a goal because the criminal justice system has shown to be racially biased. Often what studies have shown — and it’s true in Alameda County — many times people who are perpetrators or labeled as perpetrators were actually victims.”
To place the recall on the ballot, supporters needed to collect a number of signatures equal to 10% (73,195) of the number of registered voters in the county. The group submitted 123,374 signatures on March 4. On March 14, the county registrar’s office announced it had begun a manual count of the verified signatures after the state-authorized random sampling method could not determine if supporters had submitted enough valid signatures.
A March 18 KRON 4 report said Protect the Win, the group opposing the recall, submitted a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) asking him to investigate claims of signature fraud. According to the group: “Signature petitions were left unattended on tables and some signature gatherers were from outside the county and others from outside the state, which they say may be illegal. … some signers were lured to sign an unrelated petition, and then presented with the Price recall.” Bonta’s office directed the petitioners to submit the allegations to California’s secretary of state. Protect the Win has also asked the U.S. Attorney for Northern California to investigate the fraud allegations.
Of the 123,374 signatures submitted, 74,757 met the validation requirements.
Jim Sutton, Price’s attorney, said the recall was illegal because “[w]e believe that the recall basically violates the law, because they did not count all their signatures by March 15, by 10 days after they turned in. And the charter says explicitly, the signatures have to be verified within 10 days.”
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors must select an election date “within 14 days of the registrar completing their count.”
So far, 26 recall efforts have been initiated in California this year, targeting 43 officials. Three recalls have been successful and one has failed. In 2023, 34 recall efforts were initiated in California, targeting 58 officials. One recall was successful and one failed.
From 2010 to 2024, city council members faced the most recalls. The only exception was in 2021 when we covered 237 school board recalls.
Voters in Irvine, California, add council members and change elections from at-large to by-district
So far this year, Ballotpedia has covered five ballot measures that could change election policy. Two of these were statewide ballot measures in Wisconsin. The remaining three were all local, with two in California and one in Washington state.
In today’s Brew, we are going to focus on one measure in particular: Irvine, California, Measure D, City Council Size and Districts Amendment (March 2024).
Voters in Irvine approved Measure D on March 5, with 59.8% voting for the charter amendment. Beginning with the general election in November, Measure D will increase the size of the city council from five to seven members, including the mayor, and require the council members to be elected by-district to four-year terms, instead of at-large as they currently are. The mayor would still be elected at-large to serve a two-year term.
The amendment staggers the district elections with Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 holding elections for their city council member on Nov. 5, 2024. Districts 5 and 6 will hold their first by-district general election in November 2026. Under Measure D, city council candidates must be legally registered voters and residents of their respective districts.
Measure D authorizes the city council to adjust the district boundaries following the federal decennial census to maintain a nearly equal population in each district.
According to LAist, Irvine, with a population of more than 309,000, was the largest California city without district elections.
Soledad Measure P was also on the ballot on March 5. It was defeated with 89.1% of voters rejecting it. The population of Soledad, California, was 24,190 as of 2022. Soledad is the only other locality that has voted on a local ballot measure that both increased the size of the council and changed elections from at-large to by-district in the past two election cycles in California.
#FridayTrivia: How many state legislators have switched parties since 1994?
In the Monday Brew, we looked at the number of state legislators who’ve switched parties over the years. It doesn’t happen often—we’ve counted an average of six per year. The most recent case came on April 3, when Nebraska Sen. Mike McDonnell switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
McDonnell is the second state lawmaker to change parties this year. New Hampshire Rep. Matthew Coker left the Democratic Party and became a Republican in February.
In 2023, we tracked 10 party changes.
How many state legislators have changed their party affiliation since 1994?