Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – Author’s note. What follows is from an email sent to Zennie62Media by the legendary longtime Oaklander Charlie Pine. Charlie is known for his love of sifting through campaign spending data, and this Sep 12, 2022 email on Sheng Thao was no exception. But, in light of the FBI Raid on Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s home that she shares with her partner Andre Jones, what Charlie reported deserves another look. In his email, Charlie wrote “The evidence strongly suggests that Sheng Thao’s campaign received illegal “straw donor” contributions.”
I promised Charlie I would make a live vlog on the problem and based on his email, and did:
The Charlie Pine Email On How “Straw Donors” Fueled The Record $1.5 Million Sheng Thao For Mayor Campaign
Oakland mayoral candidate Sheng Thao said in a broadcast email on Aug. 3, “We’ve raised $310,000 from nearly 1,000 donors! … THAT is a grassroots campaign.” However, Thao’s Form 460 filings with the City Clerk reveal that she received nearly half her money from maximum-amount contributors. More troubling, a set of twenty of them raises a question of “straw donor” contributions, which would be illegal.
From Nov. 10, 2021 to June 30, 2022, Thao recorded 168 contributors who gave the legal maximum of $900. They provided more than $151,000 – nearly half of Thao’s funds. Small contributions (less than a hundred dollars) totaled only $12,000. In an Aug. 26 email, Thao asserted, “I don’t have a bunch of corporate donors or wealthy folks writing big checks.” The numbers indicate otherwise.
Among the contributors of the maximum legal amount, not that many list an Oakland address, just 29. Six are in Piedmont. The remainder live in places like Danville, Laguna Hills, Encino, San Diego, and Los Angeles. More than 30 live in Sacramento, including several political operatives. A dozen-plus out-of-state contributors live in Phoenix, Arizona; Eagle, Idaho; etc.
20 Max-Amount Sheng Thao Contributors Bear The Thao Surname
One set of donors is particularly troubling. Twenty of the maximum-amount contributors bear the Thao surname. Five live in Minnesota; the other fifteen reside in Sacramento, Stockton, and Merced. Although they live 80 to 2,000 miles away from Oakland, they gave $900 to an Oakland mayoral campaign.
Meanwhile, one person named Thao in Oakland donated $100. Another 19 Thaos in other cities contributed between $100 and $675. We don’t know if or how many Thaos donated less than $100; campaign filings are not required to list these. The distribution of Thao donors is not what we would expect, a pyramid with a broad base rising to fewer at the highest donation. Instead, the donors are an odd group who contributed the $900 maximum followed by the same number of contributors who gave a range of lesser amounts.
According to a report in Alameda Magazine, “Extended members of the vast Thao clan threw a celebration for [Sheng] Thao in late January [2019] in Merced that was attended by 500 people from across the country.” The Hmong culture has about twenty surnames. As a percentage, Hmongs named Thao are more common than Anglos named Smith, and there is no presumption of a close bond among a large group of them.
We have a clue to the Sheng Thao puzzle. Form 460 requires each donor to state his or her occupation. Among the maximum-donation contributors surnamed Thao are a stocker at Walmart, a daycare provider, a supervisor at a deli, two students, a production assembly worker, and a Head Start preschool teacher. These are honorable occupations, but they are not highly paid.
Perhaps these struggling workers dug deep and gave $900 each. An alternative explanation would be that the Thao campaign split someone’s very large contribution into $900 chunks and recorded the money in the names of “straw donors.” The California Fair Political Practices Commission states, “Failure to disclose the true source of a contribution is … a serious violation of the (Political Reform) Act.”