With the Proposition 40 wealth tax on the ballot – along with two billionaire-backed measures seeking to nullify it – the Nov. 3 election in California is shining a bright spotlight on the power and influence of wealth in politics.
But political spending by corporations, advocacy associations and billionaires extends far beyond the current crop of ballot measures. Across California, groups funded by businesses and rich donors advocate for state and local policies that extend beyond their immediate scope.
To counter this influence gap, there’s a movement by community-minded advocates to help the public keep tabs on this spending. Today, representatives from two of these groups, TechEquity Action and the Social Movement Support Lab, explain why they built data-backed tools tracking the billions spent by California’s biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals and the policies they are targeting.
Golden State staff
The 99 'oligarchs' undermining democracy and well-being in California
By Marisol Cantú and Jim Freeman
Marisol Cantú is a leader in Reimagine Richmond, a movement fighting for a system of care that is rooted in community, not criminalization. Jim Freeman is a civil rights attorney and director of the Social Movement Support Lab, which created the California Oligarch Index.
Most people understand that our politics are dominated by deep-pocketed interests. But very little is known about the specifics of who spends the most money, what they spend it on and why they choose to invest their resources that way.
For example, in the Bay Area city of Richmond, most residents are surprised to learn that the single largest campaign spender isn’t a tech billionaire or a large corporation such as Chevron, which had long dominated local politics; it's actually the Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA). The RPOA has accounted for more than one-quarter of all spending citywide over the past seven years. Much of that investment was to support "tough-on-crime" candidates who were in favor of the same mass incarceration policies that police associations advocate for all across the country.
While this latest proposal strikes many in the community as outlandish, because its primary proponent is the largest political spender in the city, all residents are now forced to grapple with these issues on the RPOA’s terms. Police officers are quite literally setting the political agenda for the city.
These dynamics aren't limited to Richmond, of course. All across the state, concentrated, largely unaccountable wealth is undermining democracy at both the state and local levels.
The California Oligarch Index was built to expose the most corrosive influences on our politics. Drawing on 20 years of public lobbying and campaign finance records, the index documents the ways in which extreme wealth has been used to dominate the policymaking agenda and impede efforts to create healthier, safer and more equitable communities across the state....
Uncovering the AI and Big Tech money behind California election ads
By Catherine Bracy, founder and CEO of TechEquity Action
For decades, powerful interests like health insurers, utility monopolies and Big Oil have spent millions on California elections and lobbying state legislators. Everyone in Sacramento knows their names, and skeptical voters instinctively look for them in the fine print of campaign advertisements.
But as California has taken a more active role in regulating artificial intelligence, a new force has emerged in political spending: tech and AI corporations with just as many resources as those traditional big-money influencers. That’s why the group I founded is stepping up to give the public a powerful new tool for identifying these companies and the legislators benefiting from their money.
Spending by Big Tech and the AI industry on elections and lobbying in California has exploded. Last year, these companies burned $39 million on lobbying alone in Sacramento, exceeding even the $34 million that fossil-fuel companies spent the same year. In the June primary, political groups funded by tech and AI executives spent $25 million supporting their preferred legislative candidates; for Nov. 3, they’ve already spent more than $16.5 million. We are tracking every dollar at thetruthabouttechmoney.com, so voters can see the spending for themselves....
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