Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton’s re-election bid has received a hefty financial boost from billionaire George Soros while her opponent is getting a big lift from law enforcement unions, campaign finance records show.
The June 7 primary race shares themes with other California district attorney elections that featured competing visions for the future of criminal justice and law enforcement accountability. Becton’s progressive values have come under fire from her more conservative challenger, Deputy District Attorney Mary Knox.
Finance records show that Soros, a Hungarian-born investor and frequent donor to U.S. political campaigns, contributed $652,000 to a political action committee, California Justice and Public Safety, that has independently spent more than $1 million to oppose Knox’s candidacy and back Becton’s re-election.
Most of that spending went to digital and television advertisements attacking Knox, plus mailers, canvassing and support ads for Becton.
Soros also spent $100,000 toward Becton’s 2018 election bid, in which she ran as the incumbent after being appointed a year earlier to replace Mark Peterson, who resigned before pleading no contest to felony perjury. She went on to defeat another prosecutor in her office, Paul Graves.
Soros, a New York-based hedge fund manager, has poured millions into a number of district attorney elections in the state — including those in Alameda, Sacramento and San Diego counties — adding fuel to right-wing conspiracies that a Soros-led cabal is attempting to reshape the world’s politics.
In a statement, Knox called attention to the billionaire’s “unprecedented” level of spending to ensure her defeat.
“This money will not drown out the voices of the hundreds of volunteers and thousands of local donors who have worked tirelessly side-by-side with me over the past 11 months to spread our campaign’s message,” Knox said.
Becton’s campaign did not respond to interview requests about the spending.
Knox’s election bid has attracted its own special interests, including a PAC composed largely of law enforcement labor groups that spent $228,000 to get her elected and gave an additional $234,000 directly to her campaign.
Among the PAC’s top contributors is the Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, as well as police groups in Oakland, Concord, Brentwood, Walnut Creek and Moraga.
Knox has campaigned on bolstering police response to prevent the kind of brazen retail thefts perpetrated around the Bay Area last year by groups of people, including a ransacking of the Nordstrom in Walnut Creek.
She has also defended Sheriff David Livingston’s stance that former Contra Costa Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Hall should not have been charged in the 2018 fatal shooting of Laudemer Arboleda during a slow-moving police chase.
Hall, charged one month after fatally shooting another man while on-duty, was eventually sentenced to six years in prison for assault in Arboleda’s killing.
Knox couldn’t be reached for comment on the campaign contributions she has received.
Source: www.mercurynews.com