War of the Labor Unions: PACs Flood Supervisors Race with Money, Mailers and Outlandish Attacks

Over $1.2 million has been spent so far by union-backed committees in race between Shanelle Scales-Preston and Mike Barbanica for District 5 Board of Supervisors seat

The hotly contested race to succeed Federal Glover on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors has quickly devolved into an ugly, attack ad-fueled battle between deep-pocketed, independent political action committees backed by competing labor unions.

Reviewing the most recent campaign finance filings in the race, these PACs — which are not constrained by the same contribution limits that apply to individual campaigns run by the candidates — had spent roughly $1.27 million as of Oct. 19 trying to sway voters. Much of that money has gone toward a dizzying array of mailers attacking candidates with increasingly outlandish — and sometimes plain false — claims.

A sampling of the attack ads that have flooded my mailbox from independent expenditure groups in the county supervisors race.

The PACs trying to elect Barbanica, an Antioch city councilman and former police officer, are sponsored by the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriffs Association and funded largely by law enforcement and public safety interests. They have attempted to portray Scales-Preston, a Pittsburg councilwoman, as soft on crime, even producing a mailer with echoes of the infamous Willie Horton television ad from the 1988 presidential election, featuring a police mug shot and rap sheet for a repeat offender (who happens to be a minority) who was freed on a plea deal (city council members and county supervisors have no role in prosecuting crimes or agreeing to plea deals). Another mailer claimed falsely that Pittsburg has no major grocery stores (in fact, it has both a Safeway and WinCo Foods).

On the other side, a consortium of trade and service-oriented labor unions such as electrical workers, boilermakers and service employees, have steadily ratcheted up the attacks on Barbanica, zeroing in on changes to his voter registration status over the years and most recently branding him “MAGA Mike” in a mailer (Barbanica has said in a mailer of his own that after being a political independent much of his life, he changed his registration to Democrat after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election and now embraces the values of the party). They’ve also tried to tie him to a police racism scandal in his hometown of Antioch, as well as the city’s own crime problems, and have repeatedly used an image of Barbanica speaking into a bullhorn (with no context for the photo) in mailers.

The PACs also have produced ads supporting their candidates and seeking to combat the attacks from the other side; pro-Barbanica mailers have prominently featured images of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris in an attempt to portray him as a strong Democrat, despite the fact that Scales-Preston has the overwhelming support of local Democratic Party officials (Barbanica’s campaign has also put out its own mailer featuring Obama and Harris). A pro Scales-Preston mailer plays up her endorsements from the California Democratic Party and the likes of former and current Democratic Party congressmen and Planned Parenthood.

It’s important to note that these “independent expenditure” mailers from PACs are not authorized by the individual candidate campaigns and legally cannot be coordinated with them. In contrast, the mailers and other campaign material put out by the Barbanica and Scales-Preston campaigns tend to focus positively on the attributes of the candidates themselves and their platforms, and lack the increasingly sharp-edged, often-misleading attacks that routinely pop up in these more frequent PAC-funded ads.

The special-interest PAC money flooding this campaign, however, dwarfs what’s been raised and spent by the candidates themselves. Here’s a breakdown:

• The Contra Costa County Works PAC campaign backing Scales-Preston had raised $518,549 and spent $490,830 so far this year as of Oct. 19.

• Two PACS sponsored by the Contra Costa Deputy Sheriffs Association had raised a combined $876,045 and spent $776,905 over the same period.

• By contrast, Scales-Preston’s campaign had raised $157,637 and spent $173,687 through Oct. 19 (filings since Oct. 19 show an additional $6,999 in contributions).

• Barbanica’s campaign has raised $109,755 (including a loan of $24,999 by Barbanica himself) in contributions and spent $166,689 over the same period.

At recent election forums on the race, Barbanica has addressed the PAC hit pieces, saying that International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) members had come to him and disavowed the ads being funded by their union’s leadership. “This is an opportunity for both of us to denounce fake ads,” he said during the 30-minute forum produced by Contra Costa Television.

For those interested in hearing directly from the candidates themselves — not what special interest PACs are saying about each — Barbanica and Scales-Preston addressed a range of topics during the forum, in some cases expressing agreement on public safety approaches and strategies to combat homelessness. The primary difference, however, is that Barbanica made no bones about the fact that he believes “public safety has to be the priority” for the next District 5 supervisor, while Scales-Preston focused more broadly on “taking care of the people in District 5” as her top priority, which encompasses public safety as well as topics such as housing, jobs, transportation and community outreach.

As far as fighting crime goes, it’s important to note that the primary role county supervisors play in that area is in providing funding to the county Sheriff’s Office, which is responsible for law enforcement in the unincorporated areas of the county only, as well as the District Attorney’s and Probation offices. Law enforcement within individual cities is the domain of those city governments, which fund and oversee individual police departments. County supervisors have no authority over crime fighting in cities such as Martinez, and even its oversight of the county Sheriff’s Office is constrained by the fact that the county sheriff — unlike city police chiefs — is elected by voters. While city leaders can hire and fire their police chiefs, the county sheriff can only be hired and fired by voters.

The forum can be viewed at the following link:

My take: I am supporting and voting for Scales-Preston in this race, based on her positions and life and professional experience (her focus on youth services is particularly appealing to me, especially given that it comes up in so few local, state and national political campaigns despite the challenges and struggles our youth population is facing right now). That said, the role that these special interest PACs have played in this campaign — on both sides — is a blemish on our electoral system and more evidence of the crying need for campaign finance reform. The fact that independent expenditure political action committees such as these can dominate the messaging received by voters with outlandish spending — and equally outlandish and often false or misleading attacks on the candidates — speaks to the current fragility of our democratic systems, and the outsized role that big money and organized interest groups have come to play in manipulating voters and the electoral system to their benefit.

While some of these PAC-sponsored mailers touch on legitimate issues worthy of serious debate, many are completely unserious in their tone, and shameful in their attempts to mislead and deceive the voting public (like most voters, I haven’t had time to research the substance behind all of the various charges, but I have no doubt that many are embellished, deceptive or outright false). Serious voters should not take them seriously; they should do their own homework on the candidates, review their platforms and read their own campaign statements — in their own words — in the Voter Information Guide and elsewhere, ultimately basing their decision on who they believe best reflects their values and beliefs — not on which PAC can flood their mailboxes with the most outlandish mailers. Legitimate criticism of the candidates and their records should come primarily from independent, informed observers, such as the news media and political watchdogs, and their opponents, who are accountable to the voters for standing behind their words and allegations. Sadly, special interest PACs have proven that they cannot be trusted to act in good faith and be truthful with the public. If as a voter you feel overwhelmed by the competing and dubious claims and don’t feel that you can make a choice that you are comfortable with, it is also fine to leave that race blank on your ballot and focus on the issues and races that you do feel strongly and well-informed about.

Regardless of the outcome of this and other races locally, statewide and nationally on Nov. 5, our democracy, and faith in our electoral systems, will continue to suffer as long as we continue to see the type of special interest manipulation of voters — and the huge spending that fuels it — that has occurred in this race. In this race, it happens to be powerful labor unions, on both sides of the political divide, doing the manipulation; but just as often, it can be business or corporate interests, or single-issue advocacy groups that care only about their narrow agenda, doing the manipulation. When it comes to the insidious role of special interests in our elections, the opportunity to deceive the public is often equal among the political players and too tempting to resist. Too often, they will do whatever it takes to further their own interests, regardless of what it means for the public’s, raising the ante in response to each attack ad from the other side and overwhelming voters with nonsense. It’s up to well-informed, engaged voters to stop them in their tracks and demand that election campaigns focus on a healthy debate of real issues affecting real people, not the garbage we see in so many of these PAC-funded attack ads. In an era when independent, reliable, fact-based news coverage of local politics has dwindled, that is no easy task, but it’s one we must nevertheless embrace for the sake of our democracy and the cause of electing candidates who will truly pursue the public interest.

More campaign finance updates

Here are more updates from the latest campaign finance reports (as of Oct. 19) posted on the county elections site on local races (I will have an update on the City Council race between Greg Young and Dylan Radke in coming days).

Contra Costa County Board of Education

Vicki Gordon: $20,298 in total contributions; $18,773 in expenditures

Yazmin Llamas: $200 in total contributions; $17,559 in expenditures/outstanding debt

Martinez Unified School District Board of Trustees

Logan Campbell: $11,150 in total contributions, including $5,500 from Service Employees International Union (SEIU); $8,928 in expenditures (Campbell’s campaign also contributed $2,000 to Scales-Preston’s supervisorial campaign on Oct. 24).

Carlos Melendez: Melendez previously committed to raising and spending less than $2,000 on his campaign, which means he is not required to report individual contributions and expenditures.

Martinez Unified School District Measure O bond

Martinez Schools — Yes on Measure O: $41,489 in total contributions, including $20,000 from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW); $50 in total expenditures.

City Council meeting update

The City Council on Wednesday updated its Municipal Code related to Marina regulations, approving a number of amendments pertaining largely to berthing and mooring. Details can be found in the following staff report: https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/2929940/Staff_Report_-_Marina_Regulations_Amendments.pdf

The council postponed a related matter on updating Marina fees, asking for more information from city staff before making a final decision. Under the proposal, the fees would increase for electricity and water usage, making them double the current rate but still less than the average for Bay Area marinas, according to a staff report.

Carjacking at Amtrak station

The Martinez Police Department issued a news release Friday about a carjacking incident at the downtown Amtrak station in which two victims as well as a police officer were injured.

The suspect, Christina Starnes, stole a person’s vehicle while the victim was arranging luggage in the back seat of her parked car, according to police. The suspect allegedly ran over the victim’s foot as she sped away, and a second elderly female passenger was forced out of the moving vehicle and dragged prior to freeing herself. Both victims were taken to the hospital for treatment of their injuries.

During the apprehension of Starnes in Walnut Creek, a Martinez police officer suffered minor injuries and later received medical treatment.

Prior to the alleged carjacking, Martinez police had been called to the Amtrak station for a report of Starnes causing a disturbance on the platform.

The full news release is below.

And finally…some food for thought

With the election upon us, the issue of politics, and the role it should or shouldn’t play in our lives, is weighing on many of us. A new feature I’m introducing in the newsletter is “food for thought” where I provide a quote with no commentary for your consideration on a topic that affects us locally as well as nationally.

Today’s quote on politics comes from Catholic theologian and commentator Richard Rohr. I hope it sparks some food for thought as readers consider their role in the upcoming election and in politics in general.

There is no such thing as being nonpolitical. Everything we say or do either affirms or critiques the status quo. Even to say nothing is to say something: The status quo—even if it is massively unjust and deceitful—is apparently okay. This “nonpolitical” stance is an illusion we must overcome.

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