(OCR) Sacramento is broken. It’s a culture of corruption so pervasive elected officials are blind to how nakedly this pay-to-play environment operates. They’re equally dismissive of its corrosive effect on public trust.
At the center of the most recent example are Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Mrs. Newsom operates a non-profit foundation called The Representation Project.
It promotes left-wing political causes and finances documentaries she directs and produces, the most recent being “The great American Lie.” In her review, film critic Patricia Ducey scorched the propaganda flick for portraying the US as “greedy and uncaring, despite the American people’s astounding charitable donations.”
According to the Sacramento Bee, since 2011 The Representation Project paid “Siebel Newsom more than $290,000 per year – $2.3 million in all.”
The Representation Project receives funding from large corporations and their executives, each heavily regulated by state agencies accountable to Gov. Newsom and his political appointees. These corporations actively lobby the governor and those agencies, whose regulatory decisions enormously impact market share and profitability.
Pacific Gas & Electric, AT&T, Comcast, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland Athletics Owner John J. Fisher – these are a few examples of the corporations and executives making huge donations to the foundation. These companies actively lobby state government seeking favorable regulatory treatment from the Newsom Administration.
This is pay-to-play politics at its sleaziest.
Does anyone think AT&T or PG&E are writing huge checks because shareholders are clamoring to finance “The Great American Lie” and other Big Lies about our great country? Of course not. They’re currying favor with Gov. Newsom by underwriting his wife’s political filmmaking hobby.
Corporate donations to The Representation Project skyrocketed from a paltry $600,000 in 2011, the year Gavin Newsom became lieutenant governor, to $2 million in 2019, his first year as governor.
Gov. Newsom is the direct financial beneficiary of these corporate donations via his wife’s salary. Mrs. Newsom’s income is part of what Gov. Newsom and his family live on. Those corporations effectively are helping Gov. Newsom pay his living expenses while they lobby his administration for favorable treatment.
Astonishingly, Gov. Newsom denies there is any conflict of interest here. Newsom is either being brazenly cynical or revealing a disturbing moral blind spot.
This is another example of the corruption in California’s current one-party system. Those in power feel like the rules don’t apply to them. They see nothing wrong with having their lifestyles and household expenses underwritten by the special interests seeking to extract favors from them.
The Newsom slush-fund virus is spreading. As the Bee detailed, Attorney General Rob Bonta “set up a nonprofit and steered $25,000 of its funds to another nonprofit where his wife was CEO.” And, “companies with business before the Legislature had pumped $500,000 into nonprofits run by the wife of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
I’m running for governor to end that culture of corruption. Cleaning up Sacramento is necessary if we’re going to solve the serious problems facing our state.
My three-point plan:
1 Pass legislation prohibiting the tax deduction of contributions to non-profit entities employing the spouses and family members of elected officials;
2 Immediately investigate the current officeholders of every constitutional and legislative office to determine whether or not they’re engaged in this type of unethical behavior;
3 End the laundering of behested payments (donations at the request of an elected official). We need absolute transparency as to where these funds are coming from – and going.
