Gavin Newsom’s requests for private donations to fund COVID response soar.
Six Flags and Facebook are among the private companies that donated to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s coronavirus response efforts in 2021, continuing an explosion in philanthropic giving to California governmental efforts that began in 2020.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of money Newsom has solicited from companies and foundations for charitable or governmental purposes, so-called behested payments, has skyrocketed.
In 2020, companies, foundations and other entities donated $226 million on his behalf, mostly to his COVID-19 relief efforts, according to a report released Thursday by the Fair Political Practices Commission. That’s far more than the next highest total – $1.6 million that then-Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, solicited in donations.
In 2021, Newsom reported $13 million in behested payments, much closer to his total in 2019 and what former Gov. Jerry Brown reported during his final year in office.
Newsom boasted about many more donations from 2021 in a “Social Innovation Impact Report” released last month. The report details $138 million in “public-private partnerships” developed “under Governor Newsom’s leadership.” They include $24 million in philanthropic funding for Newsom’s pandemic housing program Project Homekey and $25 million for the California Immigrant Resilience Fund, an effort Newsom has publicly promoted to help undocumented immigrants during the pandemic.
Newsom described those philanthropic partnerships as a major success.
“Our partnerships to ensure every Californian had access to the COVID-19 vaccine are a perfect example,” he wrote in the report. “Thanks to the combined efforts of federal, state and local government, companies, community-based organizations and philanthropy, California leads the nation in vaccinations.”
Most of the philanthropic donations detailed in Newsom’s impact report are not reflected in the behested payments his office reported to the Fair Political Practices Commission because they did not meet the requirements for behested payment reporting, said Daniel Lopez, Newsom’s press secretary.
“We are incredibly fortunate that our state is one of the biggest economic and innovation engines in the world,” Lopez said in a statement. “Governor Newsom is leveraging that strength by working with companies, nonprofits and foundations to tackle some of our most pressing issues such as homelessness, fighting the pandemic and helping immigrant families.”
A Bee review of Newsom’s 2021 behested reports found Six Flags contributed nearly $4.5 million in free tickets as part of Newsom’s vaccine incentive program, which gave free amusement park tickets to people who got vaccinated against COVID-19.
Newsom touted his vaccine incentives program, which also featured a multi-million-dollar lottery, as a success. However, an analysis by The Bee found the vaccine uptick he touted coincided with young teens becoming eligible for their second Pfizer shot. It was unclear how much the financial incentives helped.
During the pandemic, the trade group representing Six Flags parks – the California Attractions and Parks Association – lobbied the Newsom administration for reduced COVID restrictions to allow parks to reopen.
Facebook made $2.1 million in donations, including $1.5 million in ad credits for COVID public service announcements from Newsom’s Public Health Department, $650,000 million for Project Homekey and $20,000 to support local vaccination efforts.
The social media giant made the donations as it was lobbying on a range of issues at the Capitol, including housing policy and the state budget. The company has also donated $50,000 to Newsom’s reelection campaign.
Priscilla Chan, the wife of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, also donated $750,000 to Newsom’s anti-recall effort.
Behested contributions can allow elected officials to solicit donations for good causes, said Jessica Levinson, a government ethics expert at Loyola Law School. But she said they also might provide an avenue for donors who are “just trying to curry favor with the elected official,” or get around campaign contribution limits. Unlike campaign donations, behested payments are not capped.
John Pelissero, who studies government ethics at Santa Clara University, said it’s good that the donations are publicly disclosed, but said they could present an apparent conflict of interest for Newsom, even if the donations were made completely free of conditions.
“The potential problem comes in if there is any perception in the public that these payments are being made at the behest of the official for the company to get some sort of favor from the government,” he said.
In 2020, when Newsom’s behested payments skyrocketed, Facebook gave nearly $27 million in contributions toward the governor’s COVID-19 response efforts, according to the Fair Political Practices Commission report.
Blue Shield of California gave $20 million to support the governor’s pandemic housing program. That year, the insurance company dominated Newsom’s testing task force. The next year, the governor tapped the company to run the state’s vaccination efforts.
Behested payment records don’t always reveal the full extent of a company’s giving, however. As the Los Angeles Times reported last year, Kaiser Permanente gave $25 million to the governor’s housing efforts in 2020. The health care giant promoted the donation in press releases, but behested payment reports filed by Newsom’s office only list the community foundations the company channeled the money through, not Kaiser itself. Including the $25 million donation through foundations, Kaiser made roughly $35 million in donations at Newsom’s request.
This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 9:00 AM.