Lopsided playing field: executives with deep pockets spend big on Oakland recall races

California's billionaires have altered San Francisco politics. The playbook is being repeated across the Bay

Oakland is in the midst of one of its most contentious, and one of its most expensive, election cycles.

Campaign finance records show that in the past 10 months, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on the effort to recall Sheng Thao, the embattled mayor of the northern California city. Tens of thousands of dollars have gone into city council races, and to the effort to recall the local district attorney, Pamela Price.