California lawmakers wrapped up this year’s state budget with the usual flurry of last-minute deals — but tucked inside the massive spending package was something far less visible to the public: roughly $1.3 billion in earmarks steered to pet projects in individual legislators’ districts, decided largely behind closed doors.
The list of beneficiaries ranges widely. Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, secured $29 million to renovate a college gym in her district. Marin County, where Gov. Gavin Newsom lives, landed $13 million for a farmers market and food innovation center. And in Santa Clara County, $3 million will go toward fixing up the ballpark used by the San Jose Giants minor league team.
These kinds of targeted allocations — often called earmarks or “pork-barrel” spending — aren’t new to California politics, and they show up even in years when the state is grappling with massive deficits. They let individual lawmakers claim credit for bringing home money to their communities. But the process by which the money gets divvied up remains largely hidden from public view, drawing criticism even from some legislators who benefit from it.
“It is done all behind closed doors,” said Julie Baker, CEO of California for the Arts. “It is somewhat inequitable … to have a grant-making process that everyone’s competing over and then have a process that’s non-transparent.”
The mechanics are straightforward, if opaque. Assembly and Senate leadership — both controlled by Democrats — set rough spending limits and invite members to privately submit wish lists. Then, just days before the Legislature adjourns for the year, the requests materialize as line items in a budget bill, leaving almost no time for public review. Lawmakers’ names typically aren’t attached to specific requests, making it difficult to trace who asked for what.
This year, Limón set an informal cap of roughly $5 million per senator, according to Sen. Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat who ultimately secured $6.5 million in earmarks for his district. Cortese said lawmakers generally don’t share their requests with one another ahead of time — at least not until they’re ready to announce the funding publicly.
“It’s a confidential process between each office and leadership,” Cortese told CalMatters.
Even so, he acknowledged the process could use more sunlight. “Why couldn’t we do this process a little earlier and get our requests into subcommittees so the public could just see what’s going on?” he said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of here.”
Money flows to the powerful
The bulk of this year’s earmark funding flowed to urban, Democratic-controlled areas — particularly Los Angeles and San Francisco — along with districts represented by legislative leadership. Republican-held districts, by contrast, generally received little or nothing. At least 17 counties, most of them rural and represented by GOP lawmakers, appear to have gotten no earmark funding at all this year.
“The leadership decides the major portions of the budget,” said Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican and vice chair of the Senate Budget Committee. “That is frustrating, but it is the system that we have.”
A CalMatters review of Assembly Bill 113, the budget measure containing the earmarks, found that more than $550 million — about 42% of the total identified — went to nonprofits and other non-governmental organizations. That includes at least $93 million for arts programs, museums and murals, along with funding for immigration services, land conservation, and housing and homelessness programs. The remainder went largely to city and county governments for infrastructure work such as parks, pools, wildfire prevention and road repairs.
CalMatters requested detailed funding lists from Newsom, Limón, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and more than 20 other lawmakers. Most declined to provide them. Newsom, Rivas and Limón would not discuss individual projects but each issued general statements defending the practice.
A spokesperson for Newsom, Tara Gallegos, said the spending will “make a lasting, meaningful difference in communities across California,” touting investments in natural resources, recreation, the arts and food access.
Supporters argue the earmarks let lawmakers respond quickly to local needs without forcing communities through lengthy state grant applications — and that the total amount is a tiny fraction of California’s $352 billion budget.
“My message to (state agencies) is, ‘You guys take the other 99.9% and leave this fraction of a percent to us,’” Cortese said. “I’ll help target some real need in these districts that you are never going to see in an office in Sacramento.”
Not everyone is convinced. Critics point out that lawmakers found room for $1.3 billion in local pet projects even as the state struggles to offset deep federal cuts to healthcare. This year’s budget leaned on an unexpected windfall tied to the AI industry boom, some tax hikes, and delayed payments to schools and reserve funds to avoid immediate healthcare cuts — pushing tougher decisions into next year.
“They’ve said, ‘Look … there’s no extra money to spend,’ and then a half billion dollars comes out in the last 48 hours of the session,” said Geoff Green, CEO of CalNonprofits, which represents thousands of California nonprofit organizations. “For entities that were working through what we considered normal processes through the entirety of the session, to then see this come out at the last second, it feels like, well, why did I spend all that time and energy?”
Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, was blunter still, suggesting lawmakers were rewarding allies at taxpayer expense. “From a taxpayer perspective, we don’t have the money for this,” she said.
From MMA fighters to museums
The single largest allocation this year — $125 million — will help convert the shuttered Golden Gate Fields horse racing track in Alameda County into a public park, a priority championed by Newsom along with Assembly Appropriations Chair Buffy Wicks and Senate Housing Chair Jesse Arreguín, both Oakland Democrats.
Some funding went to organizations with deep-pocketed existing backers. UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute, located in Wicks and Arreguín’s districts, received $25 million despite counting the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense among its funders.
Other notable earmarks include $20 million toward a new facility for San Francisco’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center, which is backed by dozens of foundations (though its executive director says endowments cover only about 2% of its budget); $15 million to renovate police and firefighter memorials at Sacramento’s Capitol Park; and $1 million to help fund the state’s newly created retirement program for mixed martial arts fighters, which is otherwise supported through ticket sales and specialty license plates.
Roughly $86 million went toward arts organizations, museums and performance groups — with more than 40% of that landing in San Francisco alone. Recipients included $3 million for the ODC Dance Company, whose founder was inducted into the California Hall of Fame by Newsom and his former wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom; $2.8 million for the Center for the Art of Translation, which counts Bloomberg Philanthropies among its supporters; and $400,000 for the San Francisco Mime Troupe. San Francisco-area lawmakers contacted by CalMatters either denied requesting the funds or did not respond to inquiries about who did.
Green, of CalNonprofits, worries the system favors organizations with the best political connections rather than the greatest need. “The capacity of a large, well-staffed institute to access resources is just a completely different universe than a smaller, volunteer, community-based organization in some more rural parts of the state,” he said.
Familiar names, familiar funding
For Cortese, relationships play an explicit role in his decision-making. Of the groups he sponsored for funding this year, only one nonprofit, Ashes to Beauty, was new to him; the rest are organizations he’s worked with since his time on the San Jose City Council in the 2000s.
“If some new group came along and they seemed hopeful … but I didn’t know of them very well, I hadn’t seen their work too much in the community, I’m probably not going to entrust them with $1 million or $800,000,” he said. “It’s not a matter of any kind of favoritism.”
Cortese’s earmarks this year included $2.1 million for First Tee Silicon Valley, which teaches golf and leadership skills to at-risk youth; $2.6 million for the environmental nonprofit Our City Forest; and $1 million for the immigration services group Amigos de Guadalupe.
Several earmarks this year benefited organizations with personal ties to Newsom. The Redwood High School Foundation, tied to the governor’s alma mater, received $4 million for a capital project. Kiss the Ground, a regenerative agriculture nonprofit whose 2020 documentary featured Newsom, received $250,000.
In Los Angeles, the Alliance for Community Empowerment received nearly $3.9 million. Its founder previously served on a community advisory board for Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee. Gabriel’s office did not address specific projects but said Assembly Democrats prioritized “smart, targeted, one-time investments” in healthcare, food banks, legal aid and local fire agencies.
In Sacramento, the homeless shelter City of Refuge received $1.8 million to open two new homes for children. Its co-founder is a close friend of Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Sacramento Democrat who has previously helped the organization secure state funding. A neighboring assemblymember also donated to the nonprofit from her campaign account last year. The shelter’s leader said she believes the governor’s office, which has previously visited the facility as part of anti-trafficking initiatives, may have also advocated for this year’s funding.
Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a Los Angeles Democrat, secured $13.5 million in earmarks, including $500,000 for the Los Angeles Black Workers Center, which she co-founded before joining the Legislature. Her office said the organization is the only one of its kind serving Black workers in the region.
Geography still shapes the outcome
Los Angeles County — home to roughly a quarter of all Californians — received at least $300 million in earmarks this year, more than any other county and nearly a quarter of the statewide total. Santa Barbara County, Limón’s home turf, took in at least $72.8 million despite having a population of only about 450,000. Tulare County, with a similarly sized population but represented largely by Republicans, received just $200,000.
“Part of the power … is the ability to get benefits for the district, and it’s not surprising that the legislative leaders tend to do pretty well in that respect,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.
Limón’s district alone accounted for $83.7 million in earmarks, including the $29 million gym renovation, $6 million to rehabilitate a historic building tied to the nonprofit La Casa de la Raza, $5 million for Pershing Park improvements, $3.3 million for a community pool in Carpinteria and $3 million for a high school aquatics center.
Rivas’ Central Coast district received about $10 million, including funding for a Salinas soccer complex, a King City recreation center and arts programming in Watsonville. Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and represents an overlapping area, secured $36.9 million for his district, including $10 million to expand public access to PG&E-owned land, funding for highway safety enforcement near Bixby Bridge, and $250,000 for a nonprofit dedicated to beaver conservation.
Gabriel’s district received at least $7 million, including money for a local YMCA, a youth filmmaking nonprofit and a family services organization.
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, say they’re working with far less. Niello said GOP senators were limited to roughly $1 million apiece to distribute this year.
“That means that I’m not able to do enough for my district (as) Dave Cortese is for his, and we both have the same size districts,” Niello said. “Is that fair? To me, it’s not.”
Original source: CalMatters
