State Sen. Susan Rubio has a strong place in Sacramento. As chair of the Insurance coverage Committee, the Baldwin Park Democrat might help go or kill any laws affecting that trade.
Resulting from a legislation meant to stop corruption, Rubio can’t settle for marketing campaign donations from insurance coverage lobbyists — or another lobbyists — as she raises cash for her 2026 reelection to the Legislature. State legislation forbids California lobbyists from donating to the campaigns of state lawmakers.
However there aren’t any such restrictions on lobbyists donating to campaigns for federal workplace, even when the candidate is a state lawmaker. In order Rubio runs for Congress this 12 months, she will be able to take donations for her federal marketing campaign from lobbyists who might search to affect her votes in Sacramento.
And she or he is.
Rubio has obtained practically $43,300 in contributions from registered state lobbyists in her marketing campaign to interchange retiring Rep. Grace F. Napolitano in California’s thirty first Congressional District. It’s a sliver of her total fundraising as of Feb. 14, however essentially the most lobbyist cash of any California lawmaker who’s operating for federal workplace. A lot of these who donated to Rubio’s congressional marketing campaign symbolize firms that foyer payments which are heard earlier than committees she sits on as a state legislator, together with the Insurance coverage Committee and people that oversee coverage associated to healthcare, alcohol rules and vitality and utilities.
Eight state legislators are operating for Congress this 12 months. Six have obtained lobbyist donations, in quantities that modify extensively, including as much as $96,090.
The donations are authorized and make up a small portion of the candidates’ total fundraising. Nonetheless, some watchdogs say they need to be prohibited due to the chance that lobbyists’ cash might form lawmakers’ selections within the work they’re doing on the state stage.
“It doesn’t imply they’ll vote of their favor, however the chance that might occur exists,” mentioned Sean McMorris, a program supervisor on the authorities watchdog group Widespread Trigger.
His group was a part of the coalition that fifty years in the past launched California’s Political Reform Act, the legislation that bans lobbyist donations to state lawmakers.
Bob Stern, co-author of the legislation, mentioned the state prohibition was put in place as a result of “legislators had been receiving enormous quantities from individuals who had been lobbying them, and we thought there ought to be a disconnect between lobbying and marketing campaign contributions.”
In apply, Stern mentioned, the prohibition’s impacts had been restricted, because the firms hiring lobbyists might nonetheless give on to candidates, as can affiliated political motion committees. However there was “symbolism” to the separation, he mentioned.
Rubio’s marketing campaign supervisor, Giovanni Ruiz, mentioned all contributions she had obtained from people had been “solely based mostly on mutually respectful relationships,” and she has opposed points that donors lobbied for up to now.
Ruiz additionally famous that Rubio was being massively outspent by her opponent Gil Cisneros, who has put $4 million of his personal cash into his marketing campaign.
Silicon Valley congressional candidate Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Campbell) obtained $21,650 from lobbyists, making up 2% of his fundraising. He joined the late-breaking race to interchange retiring Rep. Anna G. Eshoo in early December, simply months earlier than the March major.
State Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who’s operating to interchange Rep. Katie Porter in an Orange County seat, obtained about $16,500 in lobbyist donations, accounting for 1% of complete fundraising since he launched his marketing campaign originally of 2023.
Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who’s vying to interchange Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Los Angeles), obtained $4,000, and her opponent state Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank) obtained $6,500 from lobbyists. These totals account for lower than 1% of every of their fundraising.
Portantino and Friedman have each been operating for the Los Angeles congressional seat for greater than a 12 months.
Central Valley congressional candidate State Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) obtained about $4,000 from lobbyists — a sum that accounted for six.1% of her fundraising since she launched her marketing campaign in August 2023.
Hurtado instructed The Occasions that lawmakers ought to be capable of obtain these donations however acknowledged that “cash has the flexibility to deprave folks, it’s plain and easy.”
Since August, Hurtado has raised lower than $100,000; she mentioned she is in debt from placing her personal cash into the race. The one cash she doesn’t settle for is from the hashish trade, she instructed The Occasions.
Friedman went additional, saying she sees the potential points and would help a legislation that forestalls federal campaigns from accepting cash from state lobbyists.
Friedman famous that her marketing campaign was turning down all company PAC cash and described that as a much more salient situation in races like hers. She characterised the lobbyist contributions she and her colleagues had obtained as small in contrast with the “avalanche of cash on the market” from shoppers of the lobbyists.
Portantino, Low and Min didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Two state legislators operating for Congress haven’t obtained any lobbyist donations: Sen. Bob Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera), who can be operating for Napolitano’s San Gabriel Valley seat and launched his marketing campaign final summer time, and Assemblymember Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield), who’s operating for former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s vacant Bakersfield seat. Fong launched his marketing campaign in December.
Due to the restricted disclosures required by the state, lobbyists aren’t required to publicly report which lawmakers they’ve tried to affect on varied payments, making it troublesome to attract direct strains between their lobbying efforts and their donations. However marketing campaign finance and lobbying data present that a number of of the candidates have obtained donations from lobbyists who work with firms looking for to affect coverage within the areas during which they’ve energy, based mostly on committee positions.
Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) is certainly one of a number of state lawmakers operating for Congress.
(Robert Gourley / Los Angeles Occasions)
Sacramento lobbyist Mandy Lee gave $3,300, the utmost allowable donation, to Rubio. Her agency represents the American Property Casualty Insurance coverage Assn., a significant commerce group for residence, auto and enterprise insurers. The affiliation lobbied on payments heard within the Rubio-chaired Senate Insurance coverage Committee. Lee additionally donated $500 to Min.
Rubio’s spokesperson famous that the senator’s relationship with Lee lengthy predated her election to the Legislature.
Rubio additionally obtained $2,000 from lobbyist Paul Gladfelty, whose agency represents the Vacationers insurance coverage firm.
“It’s not unusual for state lobbyists to make private contributions to congressional candidates we all know and imagine in, which state legislation permits. Previous to the Senator operating for Legislative workplace, I had the chance to determine a private friendship,” Gladfelty mentioned by textual content message, including that his friendship with Rubio “exists no matter her committee assignments.”
Lobbyists Soyla Fernández and Kirk Kimmelshue, homeowners of Fernández Jensen Kimmelshue Authorities Affairs, each donated to the campaigns of Min and Rubio. Their agency’s consumer record consists of the Regional Water Authority and Northern California Water Assn., which each lobbied on payments that had been heard within the Senate Committee on Pure Assets and Water that Min chairs.
Their agency additionally represents Southern California Edison, which routinely lobbies on payments within the Power, Utilities and Communications Committee that Min and Rubio each sit on; the Anheuser-Busch beer firm, which lobbies the committee that regulates alcohol, of which Rubio is a member; and the Pharmaceutical Analysis and Producers of America, which lobbies the well being committee that Rubio sits on.
Lobbyist RJ Cervantes, whose shoppers embrace commerce associations for cryptocurrency and digital fee firms, gave $3,300 to Low, who serves as co-chair of the Legislative Expertise & Innovation Caucus, a gaggle of lawmakers who need to foster a tech-friendly local weather in California.
Cervantes, Kimmelshue, Fernández and Lee didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Jessica Levinson, an election legislation professor at Loyola Regulation Faculty and former president of the Los Angeles Ethics Fee, sees the state of affairs as much less clear-cut than Widespread Trigger’s McMorris does. She mentioned she doesn’t suppose it’s unethical for state lawmakers to simply accept lobbyist donations to their congressional campaigns, since there’s “a really actual opening within the legislation” that enables them.
“It’s as much as the voters to find out if that is one thing that bothers them,” Levinson mentioned. “My guess is that for many voters, it’s fairly far down on the record.”
