Congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti today donated $500,000 to support Proposition D, the June ballot measure that would raise taxes on large companies with wide pay gaps between executives and typical workers.
This brings Chakrabarti’s total giving to support Prop. D to $600,000, and the total supporting the measure to $2.5 million. No on D, which is backed by tech billionaires including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, venture capitalist Michael Moritz and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, has amassed some $6.3 million.
Brin just this week put in $500,000 to fight the tax. That donation and others convinced Chakrabarti to give, he said.
“I’m only doing this because I believe Prop. D needs to pass,” he said. “I think it’s ridiculous that Sergey [Brin] and Chris [Larsen] are spending millions of dollars to try to stop it.”
“It was a quick decision” on the eve of the election, Chakrabarti said.
He said he saw the news of Brin’s donation and texted Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, who’s a big supporter of Prop. D as well as his opponent, Supervisor Connie Chan. He asked whether it would be okay to match Brin’s donation on the other side. Clearly, he got the green light.
Unions, meanwhile, are thankful for Chakrabarti’s contribution, but said they would be unwavering in their sole support for Chan. Chakrabarti said “no there’s no deal” with labor unions in exchange for his donation.
“I’m really glad he’s contributing, it’s the right thing,” said Tavaglione. “It doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t been around for 12 years.”
The tech centimillionaire and former Capitol Hill staffer is so far the only individual who has contributed money to Yes on D. The rest comes mostly from labor unions, like SEIU Local 1021, SEIU 2015 and IFPTE Local 21.
Ten days before the June 2 primary, in which only two candidates can advance to November’s general election, polls reveal that Chakrabarti is now neck and neck for second place with Chan, who earlier this week earned the endorsement of speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi.
Chan has earned a broad coalition of labor support; Prop. D, or the “Overpaid CEO” tax in unions’ wording, has been a top priority for labor in June. Unions argue it would “provide a lifeline for San Francisco” by asking “the largest corporations to pay their fair share” and potentially reduce layoffs during the city’s budget cuts.
Scott Mann, spokesperson for Yes on D, said he had just heard about the $500,000 donation shortly before Mission Local called.
Still, he echoed Tavaglione’s point: “No connection between the two, labor still supports Connie,” said Mann. “We are watching all of the money that’s coming in from Silicon Valley billionaires to try to stop Prop. D. It’s nice to have someone with resources who understands the importance of Prop. D and is willing to stand behind it.”
Yes on D aligns with Chakrabarti’s campaign message of taxing the ultra-wealthy, including himself. But it was also a politically smart move in the eyes of insiders: “He wants to make sure that, if he does win [in June], labor and progressive forgive him [for fighting Chan] and support him over Scott,” explained one strategist.
Opponents of Prop. D were unamused.
“It’s great to see Saikat thinks he can buy more than one election,” said David Harrison, the spokesperson for the No on D campaign.