There's a window of opportunity for a left-wing nominee that may not come again for a generation. Democratic-socialist and liberal victories in New York City and elsewhere - with potentially more this fall - have changed the political playing field.
A nonprofit watchdog legal group has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) alleging that a billionaire whom President Donald Trump pardoned made illegal straw donations to a Trump-aligned super PAC The complaint filed earlier this week by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) requests the FEC to open an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding donations to a group called MAGA Inc. It also alleges that the donations were made for the sole purpose of obtaining a pardon from Trump.
PG&E scaling up to provide power to new data centers is beyond comical. They can't even deliver reliable power to residential customers. My area of San Jose, including my own home, has experienced over a dozen power outages since 2022, the longest lasting eight and nine hours back-to-back during the 2022 heatwave. Before we rely on PG&E to supply power to these new data centers, city leaders should be asking the utility how committed they are to serving their residential customers.
The New York Times recently reported that four conservative operatives spent the Biden years quietly building the legal and regulatory infrastructure to kill the federal government's ability to fight climate change. Russell Vought. Jeffrey Clark. Mandy Gunasekara. Jonathan Brightbill. They drafted executive orders. They got Heritage Foundation money. They solicited white papers from friendly scientists. They built the whole thing in secret so nobody could stop them before it was done.
Sam Bankman-Fried's PAC spent $70 million on donations in 2022, and Fairshake, a super-PAC formed to support pro-crypto politicians, spent a whopping $245 million in 2024. In just a few years, their bipartisan donations helped reshape the Senate, with cash going to support swing-state Democrats like Ruben Gallego, who pledged to play ball with industry-friendly legislation, while stymieing the election of swing-state Democratic crypto skeptics like Sherrod Brown.
He'd noticed that a local member of the state legislature, Mike Lang, had become a vocal advocate for using public money for private schools despite the fact that Lang campaigned as a supporter of public education. With a little research, Tackett found that Lang had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the Wilks brothers and Tim Dunn, billionaire megadonors whose deep pockets and Christian nationalist views have consumed the Texas GOP.
Initial fundraising reports from the first week of Matt Mahan's gubernatorial campaign filed Tuesday reveal the depth of support for the moderate Democrat from Silicon Valley executives and venture capitalists. Reports filed with the California Secretary of State show just 21 individuals contributed more than $1.6 million to Matt Mahan for Governor 2026 in the first two days of his campaign.
Recent campaign finance reports show Mahan has raised more than $2 million, though he has touted raising a total of $7 million so far on social media. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and YCombinator CEO Garry Tan are among the Silicon Valley elite who maxed out their legally-allowed contributions - $78,400 each - into Mahan's governor campaign in January. David Baszucki, the billionaire CEO of the gaming platform Roblox, and his wife Jan gave a combined $156,800 to Mahan's campaign, records show.
OAKLAND Federal prosecutors have signaled they may call a San Leandro city councilman as a witness in the upcoming bribery and fraud trial against former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and the men accused of bribing her. The revelation by Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine came as hints emerged during a federal court hearing Thursday of broader corruption across the East Bay, particularly in Oakland.
Lee's disclosure seems to indicate she's going to run for a full term. The mayor raised $31,863 in the second half of 2025, according to a report filed with the city on Monday. She spent just under $6,000, mostly on routine office and professional services. It's a small amount compared to her total haul in 2025 for the special election - $580,000 - but it's far more than any of the possible challengers already in the race have raised.
The Chronicle reports today that Lurie has spent $870,000 out of his own pocket since taking office in early 2025, with most of that sum going to outside speechwriters, PR consultants, and top advisers to the centrist political agitator group GrowSF. More specifically, the Chronicle found that Lurie's own personal dollars were spent getting advice from local PR firm Szabo and Associates ($130,000), Democratic mega-consultant Lis Smith ($50,000), speechwriter Jennifer Pitts ($60,000), and political consultant Tyler Law ($60,000), among others.
Following the money shows some big ties to real estate for incumbent Karen Bass heading into Los Angeles' June mayoral race. Campaign contribution filings, the most recent of which were due Monday for the reporting period through Dec. 31, show Bass in a big lead having raised $2.4 million since sending out her first fundraising email in the summer of 2024.
An investigative subcommittee of the Ethics panel released a 59-page report last week detailing a litany of allegations against Cherfilus-McCormick. Most notably, it said there is "substantial" evidence to back up criminal charges the Florida Democrat is facing that she laundered a $5 million government contract overpayment to her family business and funneled it into her congressional campaign. The report also alleged instances of misreporting campaign finances, accepting illegal donations, improper employment practices and steering federal funding towards allies and associates.
That Supreme Court decision, Buckley v. Valeo, happens to turn 50 years old this week. It's Buckley, and not the often-excoriated 2010 Roberts court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, that created the conditions for the ultrawealthy to transform their vastly unequal economic power into lopsided political power, and for a billionaire like Elon Musk to contribute a staggering $291 million to help elect Republican candidates, including Donald Trump, in 2024.
It's very nice for Larry Stone if he's paying only $3,000 a year in property taxes on a $3.8 million home. I'm guessing he has a very nice pension, too. However, property taxes are a significant burden on other seniors like me, who pay more than five times as much on a much cheaper house, and with a limited fixed income. In fact, my Social Security income isn't even sufficient to cover my property taxes.
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has written his biggest political check in years, donating $3 million to a California business group leading the fight against a proposed billionaire wealth tax. The move positions the Palantir co-founder as one of the earliest and most prominent financiers of an emerging campaign to stop the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act before it reaches voters. Thiel made the $3 million contribution on December 29 to the California Business Roundtable,
The Tory and Labour candidates who Nigel Farage beat to win his Westminster seat of Clacton have described a Reform campaign that felt like a juggernaut, as police began assessing claims of overspending by the Reform UK leader. The candidates spoke after a former aide alleged that Reform UK falsely reported election expenses in Clacton, where Farage won in last year's general election.
The claims have been made by a former Reform councillor, who the party said was expelled several months ago. Richard Everett, a former member of Farage's campaign team, told the Daily Telegraph he believes Reform exceeded the 20,660 spending limit set by electoral law in the Essex constituency and failed to declare some costs, although he said Farage was "blissfully unaware" of the omissions.
The dairy industry sought a deal with President Richard Nixon to write a huge campaign check to his reelection campaign-in exchange for price supports that would artificially raise the cost of milk. But federal law strictly limited the amount it could donate. So Nixon's henchmen devised a workaround: Dairy companies would funnel $2 million through various Republican Party committees, which could then transfer the cash to Nixon's campaign.
Sacramento lobbyist Greg Campbell pleaded guilty Thursday to a conspiracy charge tied to a federal investigation of Democratic political operatives. The case involves Gov. Gavin Newsom's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, and a former advisor to gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra. The three allegedly conspired to siphon funds from Becerra's dormant state campaign account between February 2022 and September 2024.
A commentary in the Opinion section of Sunday's newspaper, Bay Area local leaders need protection against violence, mischaracterized details of a state law, due to inaccurate information provided by the League of Women Voters of Oakland.
A defendant in the bribery and corruption case surrounding former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao allegedly took a secret, compromising video of Attorney General Rob Bonta. That's just one of the explosive accusations in a letter obtained by ABC7 I-Team's Dan Noyes that appears to have sped up the FBI investigation. The letter may also help to explain why the Bonta spent $468,000 of campaign contributions on legal fees, to help him deal with FBI investigators.
Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for allegedly stealing $5 million in FEMA funds and using a substantial portion of the dough to fund her 2022 campaign to join the House of Representatives. The Justice Department said Cherfilus-McCormick's family healthcare company received a $5 million overpay for a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in 2021. Rather than return the funds, the Democratic lawmaker routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source, according to the Justice Department's announcement. She conspired with multiple people, including her older brother, Edwin Cherfilus, to pull off the scam.
