Ten organizations, all closely related and funded by the same handful of very rich people, have raise more than $33 million to influence San Francisco politics since 2020, a new study shows.
That’s almost $40 for every human being in the city.
The report, by the Phoenix Project, an organization studying the influence of big money in the city, also shows that more than half of that—$18 million—is “dark money,” meaning the donors are never disclosed.
Of the funds that have been disclosed, 74 percent came from just 23 people and corporations with a net worth of $22.2 billion.
The money went to a network of organizations with innocent-sounding names like “Neighbors for a Better San Francisco” and “TogetherSF.
The groups are pouring money into the efforts to elect a conservative slate of candidates to control the Democratic Party and to promote Breed’s efforts to give more power to the cops and to attack poor people.
Some of the money even went to oppose Prop. A, the affordable housing bond that Mayor London Breed is cosponsoring.
The groups are pouring money into the efforts to elect a conservative slate of candidates to control the Democratic Party and to promote Breed’s efforts to give more power to the cops and to attack poor people.
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“Many of the donors have given directly to Donald Trump, insurrectionists who were at the Jan. 6 riot, and the Gavin Newsom recall attempt,” the report says.
William Oberndorf, who gave $1.002 million, also gave $100,000 to help Sen. Mitch McConnell and the Republicans win a majority in the Senate, “making it possible for Trump to appoint extremist Republican judges to the Supreme Court and every level of the judiciary.”
Eight of the big donors, accounting for $2.4 million in money to the groups, have also given significant amounts of money to Republican candidates on the national level, including Trump, Bush, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
That’s who is trying to buy San Francisco politics.
The groups may have different names, but they are closely linked. “This coordination is highlighted by the November gathering at the home of Garry Tan, in which, according to a media report, Tan gave assignments to each organization for the March and November elections,” the report states.
Tan, of course, also issued a late-night tweet calling for the slow death of seven supervisors.
I have been watching big money in local politics for more than 40 years, and I have never seen anything like this.
Tomorrow: What the billionaires want for San Francisco’s future—and why you are probably not a part of it.
