A number of companies with lobbying interests in California contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to an advocacy organization founded and run by the wife of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The corporate donations were reportedly paid in support of The Representation Project, Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s nonprofit organization, which supports the creation of her films about gender equality and paid her $2.3 million in salary between 2011 and 2018, according to a new report.
AT&T, Comcast, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, or PG&E, and Kaiser Permanente are on The Representation Project’s donor list, each of them being corporate heavyweights in their respective industries that have lobbied Newsom and other state agencies, the Sacramento Bee reported, based on a review of tax records and interviews with the companies.
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The Representation Project, which Siebel Newsom founded in 2011 as an organization “dedicated to ensuring all humans achieve their full potential, unencumbered by limiting gender norms,” received more than $185,000 from AT&T between 2017 and 2020, while Comcast gave $15,000 to the organization during the same stretch, the report found.
Both companies, which also gave Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign and inauguration fund hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, have lobbied against California’s “net neutrality” law and public policy efforts to expand broadband.
While Newsom has criticized PG&E for its role in the state’s recent wildfires and has since declined to take donations from it, the company donated $290,000 to The Representation Project between 2016 and 2018 and gave over $100,000 to Newsom’s campaign.
Healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, which has lobbied against the creation of a single-payer system, gave $20,000 to fund The Representation Project’s events between 2018 and 2019.
After Newsom announced his gubernatorial campaign in 2015, the organization’s donations were boosted by 30% to nearly $16 million for that year, the Sacramento Bee’s report found.
“This is just a subtler variation of a lobbyist hiring an elected official’s spouse,” Mark Davies, a law professor at Fordham University and a former director of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board, told the outlet.
In all, The Representation Project was given more than $800,000 from a dozen companies that frequently lobby the state on behalf of their interests.
The governor is “proud of the First Partner’s longstanding leadership on gender equity,” a spokesperson for Newsom said in response to the report.
“His decisions, always grounded in sound policy and good governance, are made in the best interest of the State of California.”
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Newsom, who is facing the ire of enough California voters to be subjected to a recall, has also received corporate support in the midst of the effort to boot him from office. Paramount Pictures has donated $40,000 to Stop the Republican Recall of Governor Newsom, a campaign against the recall effort.
The Washington Examiner could not immediately reach The Representation Project or Newsom’s office for comment.
