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- Derek Weston via Fast Company
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New Index Tracks California's Top Political Donors
ReNew Index Tracks California's Top Political Donors
The California Oligarch Index reveals that the state's top 99 political donors spent $5.8 billion from 2005 to 2024, more than the bottom 99.9% of residents combined.
A new project tracking political spending in California shows that a small group of wealthy donors and corporations has spent billions to shape elections and legislation over the past two decades. The California Oligarch Index, created by the Social Movement Support Lab, found that the top 99 individual and corporate political donors in the state spent roughly $5.8 billion on campaigns and lobbying from 2005 to 2024.
That figure exceeds the combined political spending of the bottom 99.9% of California residents, businesses, and organizations over the same period. The index's creators say the concentration of spending power raises concerns about democratic representation in the nation's most populous state.
Jim Freeman, a Colorado-based civil rights lawyer who founded the Social Movement Support Lab, said the research grew out of a need to understand who is influencing state policy. «These companies and people tend not to be particularly transparent or forthright about their political activity,» Freeman said. «We don't know enough about who they are, what they're doing and why they're doing it.»
The index ranks Chevron as the top spender, with more than $260 million directed toward campaigns and lobbying from 2005 to 2024. Much of that spending went toward fighting oil and gas regulation and environmental safeguards. DaVita follows with $256 million, largely spent to defeat state measures regulating dialysis clinics. The California Association of Realtors spent $254 million, often to oppose rent controls and affordable housing laws, while Philip Morris and Altria spent $237 million, mostly to fight higher cigarette taxes and bans on flavored tobacco products.
Other major corporate spenders include Kaiser Permanente, Pacific Gas & Electric, AT&T, and Uber. The index's authors argue that major corporations function as oligarchs because they are largely controlled by the ultra-wealthy. They note that three Wall Street firms—Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street—are major shareholders in 95% of S&P 500 corporations, and that the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 51% of all corporate equities and mutual fund shares.
Freeman said one surprising finding was that these corporations appear to share a broader political agenda hostile to social justice efforts. «It wasn't just big pharma spending their money against efforts to reduce prescription drug prices, or big oil fighting climate change efforts,» he said. «What we also found was all of these organizations investing heavily in a broader agenda that is deeply hostile to social justice efforts.»
That agenda is advanced through pro-business lobby groups like the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Business Roundtable, both of which appear among the index's 99 largest spenders. These groups routinely oppose efforts to raise worker wages, increase taxes, or impose regulations on businesses, arguing such measures would drive up prices or expose owners to costly litigation.
Individual donors have also made their mark. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Gap co-founder Doris Fisher, and members of the Walton family have spent heavily over the past two decades, much of it supporting measures to expand charter schools in California. The index does not include some significant political contributors, such as labor unions and self-funding individuals like Tom Steyer, who spent more than $215 million on his unsuccessful primary campaign for governor this year.
Eight law enforcement groups rank among California's 99 largest political spenders, with money largely directed at expanding local and state correctional systems and increasing budgets. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union representing state prison guards, spent $95.6 million.
The index arrives as California's billionaires are spending heavily to defeat a proposed one-time tax on their wealth, known as Proposition 40 or the Billionaire Tax, which will appear on the November ballot. The creators say the larger pattern of mega-money in state politics has been building for two decades and shows no signs of slowing.
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