Following the Money - The Path to Power in California

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Rezul -- "America has the best politicians money can buy."
— Will Rogers

For most of California's modern political history, the donor alignment was legible. Business supported Republicans. Labor supported Democrats. Today, that alignment has collapsed — not because California's business community has become ideologically progressive, but because of something simpler: concentrated power.

Recent campaign-finance disclosures reportedly show a growing share of political money from organizations traditionally associated with agriculture, real estate, technology, and economic development flowing to Democratic legislators, Democratic caucuses, and the California Democratic Party itself. The explanation is not ideology. It is access.

Consider the California Chamber of Commerce. Its own policy materials warn about job-killing regulation, high energy costs, and affordability crises. Yet ChamberPAC reportedly directs substantial contributions to the Democratic legislators who vote on those very regulations — including reportedly approximately $11,800 to Senator Josh Becker and $9,900 to Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, among others.

The California Farm Bureau tells a similar story. Public records reportedly show its affiliated PAC directing approximately $16,200 to Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis and $7,500 to Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria — Democratic officeholders who control the water, land-use, and labor policies that most directly affect California's farming communities.

The California Association of Realtors — whose affiliated CREPAC reportedly carried approximately $6.3 million in cash on hand through 2025 — publicly opposes rent control and advocates for housing supply reform. Yet it reportedly directs contributions to Democratic legislative leaders including Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, whose majority has presided over decades of supply constraints that produced the very affordability crisis Realtors exist to solve.

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Even the California Cattlemen's Association — whose members depend on water rights, grazing access, and relief from environmental mandates — reportedly directs PAC contributions to the Democrats who control those outcomes, including reportedly approximately $8,000 in contributions to Congressman Jared Huffman since 2014, a Natural Resources Committee member with direct jurisdiction over grazing and water policy.

None of this is irrational. It is the mathematics of monopoly governance. California Democrats control every statewide constitutional office, the Assembly, the Senate, and virtually every major committee. A rancher, a developer, or a tech company that needs a hearing doesn't ask which party shares their values. They ask which party controls the outcome.

But business pragmatism is only part of the story. Public employee unions — the California Teachers Association, SEIU, CCPOA, and others — reportedly spend tens of millions across election cycles not to buy access, but to co-create power. They elect the legislators who negotiate their contracts, set their pension terms, and protect their budget allocations. The feedback loop is self-sustaining and largely invisible to ordinary voters.  And, this leaves the state, its counties and its cities awash in unsustainable unfunded liabilities.

Layered on top are reportedly Soros-affiliated entities that have helped reshape California's prosecutorial landscape — backing progressive district attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco, with results voters in San Francisco ultimately rejected through recall.

The consequence for California families is measurable: among the nation's highest housing costs, gasoline prices, electricity rates, and tax burdens. Employers are leaving. Families are leaving.

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The answer is not to fault organizations for adapting to political reality. The answer is to restore competition — so that elected officials must earn support through performance, not political inevitability.

California deserves better.  Vote Republican.

For more information: www.peterverbica.com

Pete Verbica is a fifth-generation Californian and a graduate of Bellarmine College Preparatory, Santa Clara University, and MIT, who holds a J.D. and the Certified Financial Planner® designation and serves as Managing Director of Silicon Private Wealth®. A small business owner with deep roots in California's agricultural heritage — his family operated Rancho San Felipe, a cattle ranch in the foothills of Northern California — he has dedicated decades of civic service to organizations supporting the San Jose Symphony, California State Parks, Asian-American culture, youth ballet, and military servicemen and women, including as former Chair of the Military Care Committee, which delivered hundreds of care packages to U.S. sailors and Marines. Verbica also writes about how the erosion of property rights in California — through decades of restrictive zoning, CEQA abuse, and land-use regulations — has driven up housing costs for middle-class families by stifling supply. He argues that Sacramento's top-down solutions often mirror the centralized planning failures of the former Soviet Union.The father of four adult daughters — the eldest of whom served in the U.S. Navy — Pete Verbica is running for Congress in California's 19th District to restore accountability, competition, and common sense to a state that has drifted too far from the people it is meant to serve.

Paid for by Verbica for Congress