A Super PAC funded mainly by ex-New York City mayor and billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg transferred more than $100,000 to another Super PAC that funded the astounding Congressional District 16 recount, new campaign finance filings show.
The two-and-a-half-week voter-requested recount in the race to replace U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo kicked off on April 15. The recount of more than 182,000 votes broke a tie between Assemblymember Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, sending Low into the general election to face former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. If the recount hadn’t occurred, Liccardo, Low and Simitian would have competed in an unprecedented California congressional three-way November runoff.
The recount was requested by Jonathan Padilla, a former Liccardo mayoral campaign staffer and 2020 and 2024 Biden delegate. Low’s campaign accused Padilla and Liccardo of colluding — an allegation the former mayor denied — and demanded the recount requester “disclose his secret donors so we know who Sam could be beholden to.” Low’s attorneys tried to stop the recount before it even began, alleging that certain recount deadlines were missed.
Bloomberg and Liccardo have been linked politically for several years now. In 2018, Bloomberg Philanthropies accepted San Jose into a two-year program to help the city meet its climate goals when Liccardo was mayor. A year later, Liccardo backed Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential bid and served as the California co-chair for his campaign.
Several days before the recount began, a pro-Liccardo Super PAC called Neighbors for Results started funneling money into Count the Vote — the Super PAC that funded the recount.
Between April 12 and April 17, Neighbors for Results moved $102,000 to Count the Vote, according to its May campaign finance reports.
Neighbors for Results treasurer Matthew Alvarez said the reason for the shifting of money between PACs was simply a practical matter of expediting payment to the registrars in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, which conducted the recount, by the April 12 deadline.
“When the decision was made to confirm that every legal vote was counted, Neighbors for Results had money on hand while Count the Vote was just getting started,” he said in a statement. “Moving that money provided time for Count the Vote to get up and running and raise its own money from then on. Count the Vote’s donors will be disclosed July 31st, presumably at the same time the special interests who bankrolled the $750,000 independent expenditure campaign for Evan Low will disclose their donors.”
Neighbors for Results spent more than $500,000 in the primary supporting the former mayor and lists only three donors: former NetApp CEO Daniel Warmenhoven, Cypress Semiconductor founder Thurman John Rodgers and Bloomberg.
The former New York City mayor and billionaire philanthropist is the largest donor to the Super PAC, having shelled out $500,000 in February. Warmenhoven gave $50,000, and Rodgers donated $15,000. A source close to the matter said that Bloomberg was never asked to fund the recount and never contributed directly to Count the Vote.
The recount being funded by a Super PAC sparked concerns over transparency in local Democratic Party circles starting with Eshoo herself who called for “full disclosure of the donors.” Eshoo endorsed Simitian in the primary.
As a longtime proponent of full financial transparency and disclosure in political campaigns, last week I called for the full disclosure of the donors and the amounts they’ve contributed to pay for the recount taking place in California’s 16th Congressional District.
— Anna Eshoo for Congress (@Eshoo4Congress) April 19, 2024
Then on May 2, the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee passed a resolution asking the Super PAC to reveal its donors immediately instead of waiting until the July deadline.
Chair Bill James said he doesn’t understand why supporters of the recount haven’t published the donors and that the lack of disclosure has hurt “confidence in the voting process and system.”
“What this disclosure shows is why we wanted this information to be made public to begin with — which is that, as suspected, really wealthy outsiders have funded this recount,” James said. “The question we should have as Californians concerned about D16 and the Santa Clara County area is do we want New York billionaires to come in and change the outcome of our elections?”
A campaign spokesperson for Liccardo declined to comment and spokespeople for Bloomberg and Low did not respond to a request for comment.
