Alameda County’s race for district attorney is no longer just a referendum on one scandal-plagued congressman or one cautious prosecutor; it is a verdict on whether the county’s justice system will keep orbiting the same tight circle of power, punishment and political protection that has defined it for decades. The Eric Swalwell allegations have simply made visible what was already there: a system where friends vouch for friends, old-guard prosecutors bankroll the future and victims are asked to trust an office that keeps drifting back toward the harshest tools of the past.
The Eric Swalwell scandal — involving multiple women alleging sexual assault and misconduct, documented in detail by CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle — has sent prosecutors in Manhattan and Los Angeles into motion, opening investigations and inviting accusers to come forward. In the Bay Area, however, Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson has taken a narrower line, emphasizing that no victims have yet filed complaints in Alameda County and urging anyone with information to contact law enforcement.
That restrained stance lands in a political landscape where Swalwell is not just a disgraced former congressman but a longtime insider: an East Bay power broker, a onetime endorser of Jones Dickson and a figure openly described as “a friend” by County Supervisor Nate Miley. Miley’s statement that he was “shocked, saddened and disappointed” by the allegations, yet still considers Swalwell a friend, illustrates the core tension here: Alameda’s justice and political leadership wants credit for supporting victims while keeping a careful, almost affectionate distance from condemning one of their own.
Tom Orloff’s $20,000 and the Old Order
Into this already crowded circle steps former District Attorney Tom Orloff, whose name still evokes an earlier era of Alameda justice: one defined, in many residents’ memory, by aggressive prosecutions, racial disparities and a reflexive alignment with institutional power. Campaign finance filings show that Orloff contributed $20,000 to the Friends of Ursula Jones Dickson for District Attorney 2026 committee — by far one of the most significant single contributions from a figure synonymous with the county’s old prosecutorial establishment.
Legally, there is nothing improper about that donation. But public trust is not measured by legality alone; it is measured by whether people believe the system can act independently of the people who built and benefited from its past injustices. When a former DA whose tenure is tied, in the public imagination, to unchecked prosecutorial misconduct and racially tainted death penalty cases now bankrolls the current DA, the message to marginalized communities is unmistakable: the old guard is not just back — it never left.
Silence Has Weight in a Friend’s Case
In this context, the DA’s measured response to the Swalwell allegations does not read as neutral. It reads as calibrated restraint. Jones Dickson’s office has said no victims have come forward locally and encouraged people to report if they have information. On paper, that is a legally cautious stance, grounded in jurisdiction and evidence; in reality, it sounds like an office determined not to get too far ahead of the political comfort zone of the men who helped shape and fund it.
As Manhattan’s DA and Los Angeles authorities field calls from accusers and publicly acknowledge their investigations, Alameda County’s top prosecutor essentially tells her own community: We are here if you come to us, but we will not press the issue. For survivors, especially those who know their alleged assailant is connected to a supervisor who calls him a friend and a DA he once endorsed, that distinction matters; it signals that some cases may be treated with “extraordinary care” when they threaten the comfort of the powerful.
A DA’s Race Financed by Insiders
Jones Dickson’s campaign is fueled by institutional support from inside the justice system itself. The Alameda County Prosecutors Association gave $10,000, the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council POWER PAC gave another $10,000, and the donor list reads like a roster of county officials, law enforcement stakeholders and legal insiders. That donor map does not prove corruption, but it sharpens a central question: When the same institutions that depend on the DA’s discretion are writing the biggest checks, who is the office really meant to serve?
In a county with a long memory of unequal justice, especially in Black, Brown and poor communities, the optics are devastating. A prosecutor’s office that looks like a club funded by prosecutors, unions and former DAs — now presiding over a scandal involving a powerful friend of that club — asks residents to believe that the rules will be applied evenly. The Swalwell case is not an anomaly; it is a stress test for a system already bending under the weight of its own alliances.
Reopening the Door to the Death Penalty
Meanwhile, Jones Dickson has been quietly reshaping Alameda County’s approach to its harshest punishment. Under recalled DA Pamela Price, the office had begun reviewing 35 death penalty cases after a federal judge found strong evidence that prosecutors had engaged in Batson violations — excluding Black and Jewish jurors to secure death sentences in violation of the Constitution. Price’s resentencing team identified multiple cases where misconduct and racial bias compromised the integrity of the verdicts, and she moved to support resentencing in several of them.
Jones Dickson, appointed in 2025 after Price’s recall, reversed course. Her office moved to withdraw resentencing recommendations in multiple death penalty cases, a decision that prompted the Alameda County DA Accountability Table, a coalition of community and civil rights groups, to accuse her of “choosing to ignore racial justice” and “allowing a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution to continue.” In their words, her actions “undermine community trust and send a dangerous message: racism in the DA’s office will continue to reign,” and signal a return to “tough on crime” politics rather than a commitment to repairing past harms.
Children in Adult Court
That same punitive drift shows up in how Jones Dickson’s office treats children. Between 2014 and 2023, only three young people in Alameda County were transferred to adult court. But in just six months under Jones Dickson, county officials reported that six youths ages 14 to 17 had cases pending transfer to adult court, representing roughly 10% of the youths held in juvenile hall.
Public defenders and juvenile justice advocates sounded the alarm, arguing that this surge undermines the rehabilitative mission of the juvenile system and exposes young people to adult prisons, where they are far more likely to be assaulted, traumatized and permanently derailed. The DA’s office has stressed that filing for transfer does not guarantee that youths will ultimately be tried as adults, and that no transfer hearings had yet been completed. But for families watching their children suddenly face adult charges — a life-defining difference — the message is unmistakable: Under Ursula Jones Dickson, Alameda County is once again willing to treat teenagers like disposable adults when it wants to send a political message about toughness.
Talking Accountability, Dismissing Cases
Jones Dickson and her supporters insist that she holds law enforcement accountable, recently pointing to the prosecution of San Leandro Police Chief Angela Averiett in a hit-and-run case as proof. Yet on other fronts, the same office has taken steps that appear to shield or soften the accountability burden for law enforcement and the system’s insiders.
In at least one highly scrutinized police shooting case, Jones Dickson’s office issued an official statement explaining why it would not move forward, citing exculpatory expert reports, withheld evidence and a lack of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Critics read that explanation as part legal argument, part political signal: a DA willing to stand with officers when the evidence gives her cover, even if communities see a familiar pattern of deference. Combined with her reversals on death penalty resentencing and increased efforts to send youths to adult court, these decisions have fueled a perception that the rhetoric of accountability is reserved for convenient moments — a police chief here, a press conference there — while the deeper structure of power remains undisturbed.
Two Standards, One County
The Swalwell scandal, Nate Miley’s friendship, Tom Orloff’s $20,000, the death penalty reversals, the rush to adult court for teenagers and the selective prosecution of law enforcement feed into a single, corrosive narrative. Alameda County appears to operate on two standards: one for the connected, another for everyone else. Cases involving poor, young or marginalized people move swiftly and harshly; cases entangled with donors, friends and political allies are handled with extraordinary care and a choreographed caution that masquerades as prudence.
In a county with decades of tension over policing, race and prosecutorial power, that perception is not a minor public relations problem; it is an existential threat to the legitimacy of the justice system. When survivors of sexual violence watch Manhattan and Los Angeles prosecutors engage openly while their home DA whispers carefully from behind the shield of jurisdiction, they are not just making note of legal nuance — they are deciding whether it is worth risking retaliation, humiliation or disbelief to come forward at all.
The Choice in Front of Voters
Alameda County voters are not being asked to choose between “soft on crime” and “tough on crime” slogans. They are being asked whether their district attorney’s office will be structurally independent of the power networks that have long steered it. The money is in the filings: $10,000 from prosecutors, $10,000 from a powerful labor PAC, $20,000 from a former DA who helped build the very death penalty architecture now under federal scrutiny. The relationships are visible: a county supervisor calling an accused rapist “a friend,” a disgraced congressman once treated as a political asset, a DA who talks of accountability while reviving the old system’s harshest tools.
The Swalwell allegations did not create this crisis of confidence; they simply exposed it. The question now is whether Alameda County will accept a justice system that still reflexively protects its own, or demand a district attorney who treats every accused person — whether friend, donor, ally or stranger — with the same urgency and scrutiny. For victims, especially those watching from the edges of power, the answer will determine whether the courthouse door feels like a place of refuge or just another gate held by the people who have always had the keys.
Disclaimer: Opinions are those of the writer and do not reflect those of The Vanguard or its Editorial Staff. The Vanguard does not endorse political candidates and is committed to publishing all public opinions and maintaining an open forum subject to guidelines related to decency and tone, not content.
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