A new website that went online last week calling for the recall of San Francisco supervisor Jackie Fielder is just one of at least 10 such sites tied to the same group, a political action committee based in San Diego County that was spun up in March and has almost no public footprint.
The Fielder site seems to have gone live Wednesday with a simple message: “Recall Jackie Fielder.” An associated X account tweeted that day that “District 9 has been left without a Supervisor” since Fielder took a mental health leave in April from the Board of Supervisors.
It called on residents to sign an online petition and “demand she step down.”
The X account has since shared a bevy of posts featuring AI-generated images of Fielder that racked up thousands of views and dozens of retweets. The petition has made the rounds among neighborhood mailing lists, and the X account claimed to have amassed some 3,400 signatures in a day.
Even if the claim is true, it means little at this stage. The petition is not an official recall; it is little more than a list-building effort.
To recall a public official in San Francisco, you must file notice with that officeholder and the city before collecting signatures, and then do so on paper petitions reviewed and approved by the city, not a website.
Both Fielder’s office and the San Francisco’s Department of Elections confirmed they had not received any such notice.
The contacts gathered could be solicited for an official recall later, however, and Fielder is not the only target.
The footers on six similar sites — targeted against other political figures — disclose that they were paid for by the same group, “Americans for Opportunity,” and link to a second, spare site that names that group as an independent expenditure committee, a kind of PAC.
That site says the group is “preparing to launch.”
The similar-looking sites are:
- “Fire Barbara Lee,” which is gathering signatures to oppose the Oakland mayor who this month launched a re-election campaign.
- “Recall Carroll Fife,” targeting the progressive Oakland city councilmember.
- The “Sheng Thao Files,” which presents what it calls the “definitive exposé” of the recalled former Oakland mayor’s time in office.
- The “Pamela Price Files,” is another dossier of recalled Alameda County district attorney Price’s time in office.
- The “Bonta Files,” aimed at California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.
All six efforts have associated X accounts that use a similar playbook: broadcasting fake, AI-generated images (like one of Thao behind bars or Lee dining on lobster in the Alps) and soliciting signatures.
All six sites’ source code identifies them as having been built with Vercel, a San Francisco-based AI company that can be used to quickly spin up clean-looking websites.
The PAC has moved beyond candidates: Four additional sites targeting a slew of Bay Area ballot measures are also linked to Americans for Opportunity — either explicitly, through a donation link, or through the site’s source code. Those sites focused on:
- Opposing Measure A, a proposed San Jose hotel tax.
- Opposing Measure B, the ultimately successful SMART train sales tax in Sonoma County.
- Opposing an upcoming Oakland minimum wage.
- Supporting Measure C, a small-business tax break that passed in Oakland.
It is unclear who is behind Americans for Opportunity. The group was registered with the Federal Election Commission on March 10, according to disclosures that link it to Preston Public Affairs, an unknown lobbying firm that says it provides “strategic government relations” in the Bay Area.
Peterson Jackson is named in FEC filings as the group’s treasurer with an address in Vista, a small city near Carlsbad in San Diego County.
Neither Jackson nor Americans for Opportunity responded to multiple requests for comment.
Fielder’s office, for its part, declined to comment on the nascent effort. Her team of legislative aides has been steering the ship in her absence.
The easy use of AI to cheaply create multiple websites, social-media accounts, and fake images is a concern for Jim Ross, a longtime Bay Area campaign strategist.
He said such fly-by-night operations lower trust among an electorate that is “already increasingly cynical.”
“I don’t think there’s danger in these efforts leading to Jackie Fielder’s or Barbara Lee’s recall,” he said. But, he said, “It’s going to create more cynicism. It’s going to turn voters off. It’s going to damage the political discourse and debate.”
Jackie has taken a stand against the myriad ways that city government is colluding with corporate interests to sell off our city to the highest bidder. She should be back soon. I’d rather someone I support take time to get well (something we’d all want at our jobs when we experience a health crisis) than be stuck with another corporate tool for several more years.
As an actual Mission resident I proudly support Jackie, and so do most of my neighbors, but I’m sorry to hear she’s losing the “San Diego consultants who love AI” constituency. Those of us who actually live here know she’s a real one who’s second to none in standing up for immigrant defense, housing affordability, trans healthcare, and the needs of working San Franciscans period. Her staffers Sasha, Ana, Jen, and now Sheila have been hard at work serving the district while she recovers and I look forward to her return to City Hall very soon.
rightwing AI enthusiast losers, what a sad and pathetic use of their time.
I would not be surprised if the folks behind this scam effort are associated with rich techbro a**holes who hate the idea of using public moneys to help the peasantry (aka the 99%) live a halfway decent life.
Right wing ops like this in places like the D9 only offer a convenient target for Fielder to deflect from legitimate anger by constituents over her abandonment of them while the Mission descends ever further into crisis. Government as play date.
Agreed 1000%. 16 & Mission is a dangerous disaster and should be the #1 priority to fix it. Thousands of residents have to put up with it everyday and Fielder not only doesn’t change it she actually support it.
Going MIA is not acceptable. SF Taxpayers want this crap cleaned up for once and did all. Ridiculous.
My mission neighbors and I will gladly sign a recall. She has brought us nothing but tents and disasters around 16/Mission.
Please step down immediately.
As a D9 resident, I appreciate Fielder’s representation and I know her office has still been at work during her absence. Looking forward to her return!
I left a comment earlier – but for some strange reason, it was suppressed and not published. I am a real live Mission District Resident (not AI) – and I support the efforts to recall Supervisor Fielder. I can attest to the fact that the groups behind the recall are real live human beings who are tired of living in squalid conditions while working hard to pay their mortgages and taxes, while people like Fielder (who is supposed to represent the working, tax-paying constituents of her district) instead perpetuate the intolerable neighborhood conditions. This has to stop! The Inner Mission needs real representation and desperately requires help to repair and revive our little corner of the city.
Sir or madam —
These comments are monitored in real-time, so they do not appear instantaneously. While your feelings are, no doubt, authentic, they have little bearing on the provenance of this so-called movement and the series of interconnected websites being spun up. That was the subject of this article.
Yours,
JE
Minor nitpick:
Vercel is not really an AI first company. They are a development platform company.
Fielder needs to leave office. She has done nothing to mitigate the hot mess that is her district around the 16th street BART PLAZA and immediate blocks.. the majority latino elementary school is put in line of safety and cleanliness issues. Every morning and night there are open drug dealing and their Fentynal tourists who are not from here laying out in our blocks. The issues are in many blocks further away from the BART plaza. There are noted scandals about Fielder including an FBI investigation- coincidentally when she left to get treatment. The signature legislation she has – was to have a big media event for the cat from the 16th street liquor store, whose owner carelessly let his cat get outside and hit by a car.
D9 deserves a progressive who is not naive has experience and is not frightened to meet with constituents that have serious safety and cleanliness concerns . Requests to meet were consistently denied.
Going to call it right now, there’s likely only 1 or 2 degrees of separation between the right-wing astroturf PACs launching these campaigns, and Mayor Lurie, Supes Dorsey/Mandelman, and all the other “moderate” Dems in SF.