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The Capitol Weekly Top 100: Sweet Sixteen!
Photo by Mike Rafter, taken at the California Lowrider Holiday. Design by Ted AngelHello everyone and welcome to the 16th edition of the Capitol Weekly Top 100.
As a young parent many years ago, I learned pretty quickly that Job One was simple: keep this baby alive. Because infants are so dependent on us, everything else was secondary to just keeping that little human safe and secure and among the living. But as time went on and my daughter became more self-sufficient, that parental task evolved…a lot. In many ways it became much more challenging each day, and as parents we were no longer the unchallenged authority in our house. It was in fact just the opposite – we got questioned about almost everything. It wasn’t necessarily fun at the time, but thinking back on it now, I realize how valuable it was.
That period in my life was definitely one of growth. Through my daughter’s eyes and persistent questioning of why things were done this way and not a different way, I learned to question my own pat ways of thinking. Because “we’ve always done it this way” is just not a good reason to keep doing it like that in perpetuity. Why not look at things with fresher eyes? Why not try new paths or new processes? Because as the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. (Please do not sic Jennifer Fearing on me – it’s just an expression. I have never actually harmed a cat or any other critter in my life!)
With serious gratitude for everyone who had done the hard work over the previous 14 years of keeping this baby alive – I knew my task last year was to help it evolve by truly casting our vision as far and wide as possible. To let many of the parameters we had gone by for years to become considerations rather than rules. To think of folks we had generally just not considered before.
And with that in mind, I specifically asked people in the many, many conversations I had during my research to also think of it this way. And man, did you folks come through! We had over 30 names on the 2023 list that were not there the previous year. Of those, 26 had never been on the list before. And for the first time in our history, the list was majority female. As I have said before, this was not something I intended to do, but rather an outcome based simply on seeing a fuller picture of the capitol community.
I was giddy. And based on the response we got, a lot of you were happy with the result as well.
That said, I honestly did not expect we would see anything close to that level of turnover this year. Some, of course, but not much.
I was wrong. We have 20 new names this year, 18 of which haven’t been on the list before. And once again, women make up the majority.
Many of our newbies are on the younger side, which makes sense. Younger people have long been the fuel that powers the Capitol community, and a lot of those young staffers from a few years back are now chiefs of staff, or have moved into positions of influence inside the building and out. Other newbies on this year’s list may not be so young, but have steadily ground their way to having the kind of power or influence that makes their place here hard to deny. (Looking right at you, Bob Salladay!)
And we also have an exciting new wrinkle for you this year – the Capitol Weekly Top 100 Hall of Fame.
There are folks who have a track record of influence so impressive and impactful in the Capitol community that we must acknowledge them in a way that stands the test of time. In doing so, we can permanently acknowledge their place in this community and honor them for all they have accomplished in their stellar careers. Donna Lucas, Gale Kaufman, George Skelton, Aaron Read and Steve Maviglio are towering figures in this community, and we are thrilled to present them as our first Hall of Fame class.
I’ll wrap this up with just a few notes. Every year has its own particular set of ups and downs and challenges and opportunities, and this one has been no different. Through it all, I’ve been buoyed by tremendous support and help from the entire Capitol Weekly team, our awesome board of directors, and to the many, many folks out there who shared their time and insights and perspectives with me. You are all invaluable.
I want to give a special thanks as well to Capitol Weekly executive director Tim Foster and our fabulous office manager Jyoti Alexander, without whom this task would go nowhere. I have to make the list, but they make everything else around it happen, so if you really like something about the book or the party or anything else, send your thanks their way.
And finally, a massive thank you to my colleague and dear friend Brian Joseph, who was beyond supportive in so many ways on this project. I think invaluable is the word I’m looking for. Kudos, Mad Dog.
And that’s a wrap! See you next year.
– Rich Ehisen, Capitol Weekly
Let’s start with the basics – the chief of staff to the governor usually tops this list because there isn’t a tougher job out there. All governors are by nature ambitious and driven, and most are also prickly, temperamental, and a touch narcissistic. All of which describes Gov. Gavin Newsom to a tee, even if we are only talking about running the state of California, which you might have heard is kind of a big job. In that regard, Newsom is prone to throwing himself into any number of issues, from insurance to mental health to homelessness to education and yada, yada, yada. It all blends into a stew that requires a chief who can multitask as well as he can, who knows Sacramento politics inside and out, who has their own gravitas baked in, and who is not afraid to plant a boot into the appropriate backside when needed. And folks, Dana Williamson is that person. A former advisor and cabinet secretary to Gov. Jerry Brown – speaking of challenging personalities – as well as a longtime political strategist behind some of California’s most notable ballot measure campaigns, Williamson manages the controlled fury of Newsomworld with a deft hand. She is loyal without being overly deferential, highly strategic and absolutely unafraid to go heads up with anyone. And as protective as she might be of him and his agenda, she has the thing every great chief of staff has – the willingness to tell the boss things he doesn’t want to hear. That is critical, particularly in that Newsom has traditionally surrounded himself with people who have been with him for years, which Williamson – like Jim DeBoo before her – has not. But she has clearly earned his trust and his ear, and in an environment as fluid and occasionally chaotic as this one, her ability to keep everything calm, in order and moving forward is invaluable. She is the obvious choice for this spot, and picking anyone else would have been just plain dumb.
Ann Patterson is Gov. Newsom’s cabinet secretary and top advisor on countless issues, placing her squarely within his innermost circle. Patterson rose to this prominence by earning the governor’s trust; she started out serving as Newsom’s legal secretary, advising him on thorny matters like the U.S. Supreme Court rulings on guns and abortion and ongoing problems with PG&E. In 2022, when Ana Matosantos left the administration, Newsom named Patterson acting cabinet secretary, but that soon became a permanent appointment. Previous to coming to Newsomworld, Patterson was an attorney with Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, where she focused heavily on the firm’s pro bono work. She also previously worked for then-Attorney General Bill Lockyer and then-Lt. Gov. Gray Davis. She is married to Nathan Barankin, former chief of staff to VP Kamala Harris, when she was state attorney general and U.S. Senator. Patterson and Barankin have direct lines to California’s most important and powerful elected officials, making them the Capitol’s No. 1 power couple.
The First Partner of California is many things aside from being the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom. She is an outspoken advocate for issues like health care reform, gender pay equity, social media addiction, and countering negative stereotypes and imagery of women in the media. She is an accomplished documentary filmmaker. She is a former actress with over 40 credits on IMDB. She is a sexual assault survivor who testified against her alleged attacker, film studio mogul Harvey Weinstein (that specific case ended in a mistrial, though he was convicted multiple other counts of sexual assault against other victims). Perhaps most important here, Siebel Newsom is widely perceived as a vital advisor to the governor, particularly on issues of gender equity, mental health and children’s well-being. That importance and influence is only sure to increase as her husband’s national profile grows. Whatever his eventual path, Siebel Newsom has shown she will not only share the road with him, but also blaze her own trail at the same time. She graduated with honors from Stanford in 1996 with a degree in Latin American studies and earned an MBA from Stanford in 2001.
Wade Crowfoot is the tip of the spear in the Newsom administration’s fight against global climate change, a top priority for the governor. As the secretary of Natural Resources, Crowfoot oversees 25,000 state employees in 26 departments, including Water Resources, Cal Fire and Fish and Wildlife. A veteran of the horseshoe, Crowfoot served as Gov. Jerry Brown’s deputy cabinet secretary and senior advisor before joining the Newsom administration in 2019 in an early round of appointments. Crowfoot, who boasts a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, has sterling environmental credentials, having led the non-profit Water Foundation and served as the West Coast regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund.
Joe Stephenshaw is the director of the California Department of Finance, making him the governor’s top advisor on the state budget. Compared to his counterparts with the Speaker and the Pro Tem, Stephenshaw is relatively new, having started in the job in August 2022. Given our current budget shortfall, one could argue his timing isn’t great. But then again, his experience with the state budget is deep, having served as staff director for the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee from 2017 to 2022. He also held other positions in the legislature from 2008 to 2018, including policy consultant to the Pro Tem and special advisor to the speaker and budget consultant for both the Assembly and Senate budget committees. In that regard, maybe the timing to have him on board at the executive level is perfect. Stephenshaw holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Menlo College and an MBA from Sac State
Tia Orr may be the most powerful unelected woman in California politics. The first African American woman and just the second Latina to serve as the executive director of the 700,000 member SEIU California, Orr is simply a force of nature. And good thing, as there is no major negotiation involving labor of which she is not an integral part. Opponents and allies alike describe her with words like “tireless” and “fearless” in her efforts on behalf of workers. And the results are indisputable. She had such an enormous year in 2023 – including shepherding legislation to raise the minimum wage for fast food and health care workers – it was hard to imagine she could top it in 2024. But while SEIU’s winning streak wasn’t as public or as obvious as last year, those in the know say several of this year’s biggest political deals – PAGA reform comes to mind – would not have come together without SEIU in general and Tia Orr in specific.
If Tia Orr is the most powerful unelected woman in California politics, California Teachers Association associate executive director Teri Holoman is a close second. And it makes sense: Holoman heads up government affairs for one of the most powerful interest groups in the Golden State, with the CTA representing 310,000 well-organized members she can call on when needed. And for a while this year it looked like that might be the case, as the CTA and others dueled with Gov. Newsom over education funding in the budget. Such deals are always tricky, and savvy players have to know just where and when they can openly joust with a governor as temperamental as this one. Thankfully for CTA, Holoman is as savvy as it comes. It all worked out in the end, due in no small part to Holoman’s leadership. Full disclosure: Holoman serves on the board of Open California, the publisher of Capitol Weekly. She is married to Andrew Antwih, No. 55 on this list.
Jim DeBoo was once Gov. Newsom’s chief of staff, a position which garnered him the top spot on this list in 2021 and 2022 and number three last year. He no longer holds that august title, but he still wields substantial influence not only in Newsom’s orbit but across all of California politics. Officially, he runs a consulting firm, DeBoo Strategic Affairs. But that’s only part of the story. He is also something of a consigliere for the governor, running interference on disputes, gathering intel, making connections in the legislative branch and among the third house. He knows the great game of California politics as well as anyone and is almost universally trusted in Newsomworld and well beyond. DeBoo’s network is expansive, and he influences the process with a deft touch rooted in personal integrity, not always something in abundance in politics. Not surprisingly, he is a mentor to many of the younger people on this list. Full disclosure: he’s also now on the board of Open California, publisher of Capitol Weekly.
Gov. Newsom’s trusted advisor and former deputy chief of staff, Jason Elliot has been with Newsom longer than anyone else in the governor’s orbit. In that role, he has run point on some of the administration’s most critical issues, including housing, homelessness and the treatment of the mentally ill. He’s served a variety of roles for Newsom, as a senior advisor to his gubernatorial campaigns, chief deputy cabinet secretary and director of intergovernmental affairs and even worked for him when he was mayor of San Francisco. Newsom chief of staff Dana Williamson compares him to Kramer from Seinfeld for his penchant for entering a room with a big pronouncement, his mind fully focused on whatever issue is at hand, oblivious to anything else already in process. Alas, he announced his departure from the administration earlier this year to start his own consulting firm, but like DeBoo he is expected to continue to have a strong presence around the governor’s office. Elliot is married to Nicole Elliott, the head of California’s Department of Cannabis Control, making the pair one of the Capitol’s top power couples.
A former state lawmaker, Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher leads the California Labor Federation, another of the state’s most prominent labor organizations. CLF is affiliated with 120 unions that represent a combined 2.1 million workers, including the United Farm Workers, whom Gonzalez Fletcher brought into the fold when she left the Assembly in 2022 to take over the organization. Given that reach, it is not hyperbole to say she is one of the few lawmakers who actually got more powerful after leaving office. And she is not shy about using that power. Driven, passionate about helping workers and often confrontational, Gonzalez Fletcher is not inclined to back down to anyone. She is not for everyone, but rest assured she doesn’t lose sleep at night over what anyone thinks of her. The daughter of an immigrant farm worker and a nurse, Gonzalez Fletcher was the CEO and secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial County Labor Council before serving in the Assembly. She has degrees from Stanford, Georgetown and the UCLA law school.
A list like this without Jodi Hicks is, in a word, inconceivable. As president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California — Planned Parenthood’s largest state organization – she has become the face of the ongoing battle for reproductive rights, certainly here in California but increasingly beyond our borders as well. In the wake of the SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Hicks and her organization went right to work on 2022’s Prop. 1, which enshrined abortion rights into the California constitution. With that victory in hand, Hicks has her sights on helping Democrats reclaim the U.S. House. And they are putting serious money into the game. But it isn’t just the money – Hicks is traveling far and wide to help boost candidates and get out the vote in what most observers expect to be a very close election. Previous to Planned Parenthood, Hicks was the legislative director for the National Organization for Women and a vice president of government relations at the California Medical Association. Full disclosure: She’s a board member of Open California, the publisher of Capitol Weekly.
Jamie Callahan’s official title in the governor’s office is Senior Counselor and Deputy Chief of Staff. But as we all now know, titles in Newsomworld don’t always accurately or fully reflect what someone does in that oh so unique land of Gavin. For one, Callahan is the rare staffer who is not a longtime resident of that enchanted world. Her forte is a long and fruitful working relationship with chief of staff Dana Williamson, going back to their days together in the Jerry Brown administration, where Callahan was the guru on external affairs. She later served as Newsom’s deputy cabinet secretary and chief of staff for Liane Randolph at the California Air Resources Board before returning to become Willamson’s right hand and occasional fixer. Or maybe more accurate, the utility infielder who can and often does step in whenever and wherever she’s needed. Casey Stengel once said “you don’t win pennants without those guys,” and he wasn’t talking about Maris and Mantle.
If not for Bob Salladay, Gov. Gavin Newsom might not have given a State of the State speech this year. We’re told Salladay was instrumental in getting the governor to do the presentation after he had almost 100 percent decided against it. Think what you want of the speech, which Salladay of course wrote, but kudos to anyone who can get the famously stubborn and prickly Newsom to do anything he really doesn’t want to do. Such is the sway the former award-winning reporter has inside the Horseshoe, where he has become a critical component in virtually every project the governor takes on. And unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the last six years, you know Newsom takes on a lot of projects here in California and points around America… and beyond. Honorable mention to fellow Newsom comms warriors Nathan Click and Anthony York, but this year Bob is the man.
The younger brother of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Rick Rivas is widely regarded as the power behind the throne in the lower house. While Rick draws a salary as a vice president with the American Beverage Association, he has his considerable clout because he is the Speaker’s closest confidant, weighing in on a bevy of interests that have absolutely nothing to do with drinks or his role with the association. Rick masterminded the historic takeover – or coup – that pushed former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon out of office and led to his older brother’s rise to power. Rick appears nowhere on the Assembly’s org chart, but we are told, he is involved in every major action the Speaker takes, if not actively pulling the strings behind the scenes. As one person close to the Speaker’s office put it: “Rick has his ear to the ground on everything happening in Sacramento, and his knowledge of campaigns is unmatched.”
Even in the best of times, California budget negotiations are a heated affair, and the temperature is turned up significantly when the state faces a monster deficit as it did this year. But for Jason Sisney, the Assembly’s top budget advisor since 2018, it’s all just another day at the office. A veteran of the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the unflappable Sisney is intimately familiar with the vagaries of California’s budget and its maddening machinations. As such, he works seamlessly with the rest of the Capitol budget hierarchy from the governor’s office, DOF and the Senate. Sisney also writes the #CABudget newsletter on Substack, must-read info for budget wonks or anyone else who wants real-time info on what’s going on with the state budget process. He holds an undergraduate degree in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and, fittingly, worked at Fitch Ratings as a bond rating analyst for debt issued by states and other entities before going into the building in 2005.
If Jason Sisney was unfazed by this year’s budget deficit, Chris Woods, his Senate counterpart, was doubly composed, having been in his role as the Pro Tem’s top budget advisor two years longer. Something of a local boy, with undergraduate and law school degrees from UC Davis, Woods is one of the standard bearers of California budget negotiations, having been involved in more state budgets than the current Pro Tem, Speaker or governor. At this point, his expertise is unparalleled, giving him and the Senate a strong hand under any scenario, deficit or surplus. Given the whopper of a hole in this year’s budget, along with the inexperience of both legislative leaders in dealing with such a beast, Woods’ years of experience and widely respected expertise make him invaluable.
As the secretary of Health and Human Services, Mark Ghaly is not only California’s top health officer but also the head of the state’s largest agency. A primary care pediatrician with degrees in biology and biomedical ethics from Brown University, a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a Master’s Degree from Harvard’s School of Public Health, Ghaly is Gov. Newsom’s top health advisor, an enormous job given the governor’s focus on health matters and that little pandemic we just emerged from recently. And while that particular crisis has abated, there is no shortage of others to deal with, from fentanyl abuse to mental health to artificial intelligence regulation and health care affordability (he is also the chair of the state’s Health Care Affordability Board), making his role one that will deeply impact California for years to come. Public health is also a family affair for him: Ghaly’s wife Christina directs L.A. County’s Department of Health Services.
California Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jennifer Barrera had a very good year. She was instrumental in the successful effort to reform the Private Attorney General’s Act (PAGA) – and to keep it off the ballot in November – as well as rebuilding the Chamber’s JobsPac into a serious weapon for the pro-business community and making the Chamber a go-to resource on antitrust and artificial intelligence legislation. In the words of one insider we queried: “Jennifer has made the Chamber formidable again.” Barrera previously led efforts on labor, employment and taxation as a senior policy advocate with the Chamber before taking the reins of the organization in October 2021. She holds a B.A. in English from Cal State Bakersfield and a law degree from the California Western School of Law; before joining the chamber in May 2003, she worked for a statewide law firm specializing in labor and employment defense.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas has surrounded himself with several top-notch advisors, but perhaps no one is more important to his day-in and day-out success than his chief of staff, Liz Snow. Known for her level head and steady approach, Snow draws upon a deep reserve of political experience, having served as president of the California Building Industry Association, chief operations officer of the California Dental Association and the executive director of the California Dental PAC. She also served for years as the COS to Assemblyman Jim Wood, who just happens to be one of Rivas’ staunchest supporters. Snow’s job requires a lot of juggling of priorities and personalities, and it is never easy to manage an environment where the boss has a family member exerting the kind of influence that is a daily occurrence in the Speaker’s office, but she handles it coolly, making her a perfect fit for the role.
Lipper is a Capitol icon, representing to many the pinnacle of what a legislative aide can become in Sacramento. A staffer for 48 years, Lipper effectively serves as the gatekeeper for all legislation involving clean water, clean air, climate change, energy, etc. If you’re a lawmaker or a political interest who wants to run a bill on an environmental topic, your proposal has to be blessed by Lipper – Lipperized – or it’s simply not going to move forward. That’s just a fact of life in Sacramento. California is a blue state, the sun rises in the East and Kip Lipper has a major say in all environmental legislation that runs through the Capitol. As such, he is one of the few Capitol denizens to have found a home on this list every single year of its existence, never once landing outside of the Top 25. And deservedly so.
Liane Randolph chairs the California Air Resources Board, one of the most aggressive government entities in the entire United States when it comes to fighting climate change. CARB is at the cutting edge of environmental regulations; its efforts to ban gas-powered leaf blowers and encourage Californians to purchase electric vehicles regularly are held up as a model for other states – and countries – to follow. An agency that prominent needs an experienced leader, which Randolph most certainly is. The first African American to head CARB’s governing board, Randolph previously worked for the Public Utilities Commission, the Resources Agency and the Fair Political Practices Commission. She’ll need every bit of that experience and leadership acumen to guide California in trying to reach its ambitious climate goals, a job that is almost Herculean in nature even without the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency looming on the horizon.
A perennial figure on the Top 100, Dustin Corcoran is the CEO of the California Medical Association, one of the Capitol’s most powerful interests, representing 50,000 doctors. The CMA always has a seat at the table whenever medical issues are debated in Sacramento. This year, the focus has largely been in Medi-Cal spending and – no surprise – Corcoran has been in the middle of the action from the get-go. CMA is one of a legion of health care entities backing Prop. 35, the ballot measure to extend an existing tax on health insurers and, among several things, use the funds to bolster payments to health practitioners that treat Medi-Cal patients. Corcoran is serving as a spokesperson for the initiative. His wife, Glenda Corcoran, is the district director for Congresswoman Doris Matsui, the U.S. Representative whose district includes the State Capitol itself. She and Dustin are an inseparable, and influential, pair in the Capitol community.
When Christy Bouma stepped down in March as Newsom’s legislative affairs secretary, her replacement might have been unfamiliar to folks outside the Capitol. But inside Newsomworld, Christine Aurre was 100 percent a known quantity. Previously a staffer for lawmakers Patrick O’Donnell and then-Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg, Aurre was already serving as Bouma’s deputy, and by all accounts already impressed everyone around her with her drive, intelligence and policy expertise. All of which is critical for someone who is essentially the governor’s advocate with legislative leaders. That’s a high-pressure job, and we would not normally have someone this new to the position on this list, but the praise from her colleagues was… convincing. More important, Newsom has taken to her, and more than one observer predicted she will someday be a gubernatorial chief of staff. So maybe we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, but then again maybe not.
There was a TV commercial back in the day that went like this: “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” The same thing can be said of Myesha Jackson, policy director for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. If it is a policy issue, be it a question from a reporter or a lawmaker or the Speaker himself, it goes through her. And there’s a reason for that: nobody knows more about the vast array of policy issues within the Assembly than she does. And because she has been in the building for so long, including serving in a similar role for former Speaker Anthony Rendon, her institutional memory is the gold standard. Soft spoken, even keeled, prone more to listening than speaking, her colleagues rave about her both for her work ethic and the calm demeanor she brings to even the most intense and pressure-packed situations. But mostly they rave about how indispensable she is to the Speaker’s legislative agenda.
The president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, Carmela Coyle is at the forefront of the fight for better medical care in the Golden State, battling against hospital closures and increased costs and attempting to address the state’s perpetual lack of health care workers. Recently, the CHA took its advocacy to the courthouse, filing a suit against Anthem Blue Cross, alleging that the insurance giant is violating state law by failing to provide timely “post-acute care” for patients after they’re discharged from the hospital. Coyle has been with the CHA since 2017, coming there after stints at the Maryland Hospital Association and the American Hospital Association, giving her a unique, well-rounded perspective on the state’s health care concerns. Good thing, as a recent report shows that 20 percent of California hospitals are at risk of closure and slightly over 50 percent are losing money.
There’s a strong argument to be made that John Latimer is the top lobbyist in California. For one, he leads the most lucrative lobbying firm in all of Sacramento, Capitol Advocacy, which boasts more than 80 clients – including such household names as Amazon, DoorDash, MetLife, PG&E, Pepsi and T-Mobile – that have delivered more than $13 million in payments during the first five quarters of the legislative cycle. He’s also done basically everything in California politics. He’s worked in the legislature as a chief of staff and as a consultant to several committees. He has managed multiple political campaigns. He even ran for the Assembly himself in 1998. No, he didn’t win that election, but he has rebounded nicely, finding unparalleled success in the third house and perhaps making himself more influential than he ever could have been as an elected official.
A relative newbie on the Top 100, having first been added to the list in 2022, Pruitt solidified his position as a figure of significant influence this year by remaking what is arguably the California Democratic Party’s most valuable annual fundraiser: the Speaker’s Cup. We’re told it was Pruitt’s idea to ditch AT&T’s longstanding sponsorship in favor of the newly-created Speaker’s Circle, which cost donors major coin to join. We’ll leave the actual number to your imagination, but suffice to say it has been talked about in hushed tones throughout the Capitol community. Although, to be clear, at the time of this writing, we don’t know exactly which interests donated big to the Speaker’s Cup, since the disclosure filings aren’t due until July 31. But whatever the final numbers turn out to be, Pruitt’s boldness as a fundraiser is now the stuff of legend. We’ve heard him called an “evil genius,” a title we’re sure he’d take as a compliment.
Viviana Becerra, Attorney General Rob Bonta’s chief of staff, effectively runs the California Department of Justice. In her role, she oversees the Office of Communications, Office of Native American Affairs, Office of External Affairs, Community Awareness, Response, and Engagement Team, and the Office of Legislative Affairs. Oh and she’s also the AG’s conduit to the governor’s office. So it’s not at all a stretch to say the state could have been in for some rough times when Becerra went on maternity leave this past year. But, in a testament to her dedication, Becerra has remained involved in all of Bonta’s major decisions even while she’s taking a well-deserved break. Becerra is a Sacramento native and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, with a bachelor’s in political science from UC Santa Barbara. She’s been with Bonta since his days in the Assembly. Don’t be surprised if – when? – she someday follows her ever-ambitious boss to the governor’s office.
Susan Santana is AT&T’s lobbying director in Sacramento, making her the maestro of the telecommunication giant’s well-organized advocacy corps. Her story is an inspiring one: going from a grocery bagger in Chula Vista to UC Berkeley, then to law school at UCLA. She joined AT&T in 2007 and lobbied for the company for 10 years in DC before heading out to Sacramento. No longer a registered lobbyist herself, Santana’s influence can nonetheless be seen in AT&T’s famously aggressively lobbying strategy – although the company’s influence has taken a hit of late as it lost sponsorship of the Speaker’s Cup, the annual golf tournament that serves as a major fundraiser for the California Democratic Party.
Lindsey Cobia has been described as Gov. Newsom’s “Swiss army knife,” involved in basically all manner of political decisions the governor makes. But as Newsom this year took on an even bigger national profile, her role as the executive director of the governor’s Campaign for Democracy PAC may have made her even more influential. Cobia orchestrates the PAC’s high-profile efforts to push back against conservative agendas in red states, a campaign that Newsom has embraced with the zeal of a true believer. It’s precisely these efforts that previous to July 21st led some in the Democratic party to view Newsom and not his old pal Kamala Harris as the person best suited to replace Joe Biden should he falter in the 2024 presidential campaign. But with Harris now the presumptive Democratic nominee (as of this writing) and Newsom having given her his endorsement, Cobia will be even busier guiding her boss’s efforts to support the Democratic ticket here, there and everywhere.
Alice Busching Reynolds wields enormous power as the president of the Public Utilities Commission, which oversees private utilities, natural gas operations, railroads, telecommunications and private water companies among other far-reaching industries and services. A consummate insider, Reynolds served for three years as Gov. Newsom’s senior advisor on energy and before that worked in Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, as a senior advisor for climate, the environment and energy and as chief counsel and deputy secretary for law enforcement at the California Environmental Protection Agency. She also served for about 10 years as a deputy attorney general in the California Attorney General’s office, where she litigated cases involving the protection of public trusts lands and coastal resources. Reynolds holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and a law degree from Santa Clara University.
As the secretary of the Senate, Erika Contreras serves as the non-partisan, chief administrator and parliamentarian of California’s upper legislative house. Contreras is the first Latina to ever hold the office and the first woman in the job in a century. She oversees more than 150 Capitol aides, yet is virtually unknown outside of the Capitol. But those inside the building know she is absolutely critical to the functioning of the legislature. For one, she oversees HR, operations, facilities, floor session politics, and as one longtime staffer notes, keeps lawmakers from sticking their fingers into light sockets. Contreras also has done much to modernize the Senate staff with an eye toward diversity and equity, and is lauded by virtually everyone for her professionalism, work ethic and humanity. It’s worth noting that she had a new Pro Tem to break in this year and will have at least a dozen new members in the next session. Born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, but raised in the San Fernando Valley, Contreras has worked in the Capitol since 2003 and was appointed Senate secretary in 2018.
As the chief administrative officer for the Assembly Rules Committee, Lia Lopez is one of the most important cogs in the machinery of the legislature. Her committee effectively runs the Assembly by not only overseeing the chamber’s administrative business but by also assigning bills to other committees, and this capitol veteran is in charge of it all. The daughter of Rubin Lopez, who worked as the chief counsel of the Assembly Judiciary Committee for over a decade, Lia Lopez started working at the Capitol during her dad’s last year in the building. She spent most of her career as the bill referral consultant under long-time former CAO Jon Waldie. She also had a brief stint as the director of Assembly Floor Analysis under Assembly Chief Clerk Dotson Wilson before taking over as CAO from Debra Gravert in December 2022. Lopez has degrees in political science and history from UC Davis and masters of public administration from USC, but perhaps her greatest education came from her mentors, Waldie, Wilson and Gravert, three towering figures in the history of the Capitol.
Not getting into the runoff for a state Assembly seat when you are the chair of the California Democratic Party would seem to maybe also knock you out of contention for being in the Top 100… But wait – of course Rusty Hicks is in the Top 100! After all, did we mention he’s the chair of the California Democratic Party? Lost primary or not, anyone holding that title in deep blue California makes the list. But Hicks is way more than his title. As the former president and political director of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, he personifies the symbiotic relationship between labor and Democrats in the Golden State. He also boasts a pretty significant connection to the national political scene, having served as the California political director of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. A Texas native, Hicks came to California in 2003 and has a law degree from Loyola.
In 2024, broadband is an essential service, which makes the California Broadband and Video Association, aka CalBroadband, the representative of the state’s leading high-speed internet providers, a rising political power. Leading Calbroadband is President Janus Norman, a rising political power himself, who cut his teeth as the senior vice president for government relations and political operations for the California Medical Association and as a legislative advocate for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO. Norman holds a bachelor’s in communication studies from Sac State and an MBA from USC and is married to Nikki Johnson, chief of staff to Assemblywoman Blanca Pacheco, chairwoman of the Assembly Rules Committee.
Jason Kinney practically came out of the womb doing politics, running a state Senate campaign at just 13. Okay, it was his mom’s campaign and he definitely had some help, but you get the point. There’s some gray around his temples these days, but Kinney is in many ways still the same wunderkind he was when he got to the California Capitol to work as a spokesperson for then-Assemblymember Don Perata in 1997. He has since rarely stayed still for long, quickly transitioning from there to the Senate to the governor’s office to big-dog political consulting, eventually co-founding Axiom Advisors with Cassie Gilson (No. 37) and Kevin Schmidt in 2019. Axiom hit the ground running and has since been one of the biggest players and top earners on the Capitol scene. Kinney’s smarts, tenacity, ability to build relationships, and position as one of the few folks inside Gavin Newsom’s inner circle is a big part of the reason why.
With Jason Kinney (No. 36) and Kevin Schmidt, Cassie Gilson co-founded Axiom Advisors in 2019 and the trio quickly turned it into one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms. Indeed, through the first 15 months of the legislative cycle, Axiom trails only Capitol Advocacy and California Strategies in payments, with nearly $11.9 million. That is not bad for a firm that was started less than a decade ago. And while Kinney may enjoy a higher profile, particularly in the news media, he’ll be the first to tell you that Gilson is Axiom’s beating heart. A widely respected player in clean energy, technology, state and national environmental issues and land use – among many others – Gilson is the only female managing partner among the top five Capitol consulting firms. Side note: her partner Loren Kaye is the head of the Cal Chamber’s California Foundation for Commerce and Education, meaning we just might have missed one of the more obvious choices in the inaugural Capitol Weekly ranking of Capitol power couples.
Tia Orr and Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher understandably get most of the notoriety for labor’s big wins of late, but insiders know that SEIU state political director Oscar Lopez deserves a lot of that credit as well. In that role he heads up all of the union’s ballot measures and political campaigns, coordinates member-to-member communications and – maybe most important – controls the independent expenditures, almost always working behind the scenes. He is well known as a coalition builder who can galvanize sometimes widely disparate groups toward one encompassing goal. A recent example: Lopez, working in tandem with Tia Orr, was integral in coordinating the campaign against the California Business Roundtable’s Taxpayer Protection Act, helping to bring together numerous unions and labor groups and coalescing massive entities like CalPERS in opposition. While the decision on whether to allow the measure to go to the ballot ultimately belonged to the California Supreme Court, it was that kind of broad yet organized opposition that helped to inspire the lawsuit to begin with.
To rise to Gov. Newsom’s level, you need to do a lot of fundraising. And indeed, the governor employs some fantastic fundraisers in Stefanie Roumeliotes and Ryan Baukol. But his top overall rainmaker is Kristin Bertolina Faust, who has also raised big bucks for Kamala Harris and served as campaign manager for Alex Padilla in his successful run to the U.S. Senate in 2022. Not that she’s resting on those laurels. Bertolina Faust is now working both as a fundraiser and advisor to Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis on her run to follow Newsom into the governor’s office, and you can bet she will be hitting it hard for Harris in the coming months as well. Bertolina Faust founded BB&G, a Sacramento-based fundraising and political consulting firm, in 1999, and quickly built a roster of dozens of the “who’s who” in Golden State Democratic politics. In that role she has proven to be invaluable to the rise of both Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris.
We at Capitol Weekly have almost criminally underappreciated Brian Brokaw for years. But no more! This year, we’re giving Brokaw his due. A Democratic strategist and consultant, Brokaw is one of the most well-connected players in California politics, including being a confidant of Gov. Newsom. He also helped get Kamala Harris elected to both Attorney General and the U.S. Senate. Those deep ties to the two most powerful and important political figures in California today alone should have put him high up on this ranking a long time ago. But, to his credit, Brokaw has mastered working behind the scenes. So even though he serves on the board of Open California, the publisher of Capitol Weekly, we can be excused (at least a little) for not truly appreciating Brokaw’s exceptional influence, which can be felt regularly throughout the administration, even though he doesn’t hold any official title in state government.
A V.P. with the California Apartment Association, Tony Bui has rapidly earned a reputation as a lobbyist to be reckoned with both for his ability to build key relationships and as the point person in all the group’s independent expenditures. And make no mistake, the CAA is writing some big checks these days. He is one of a group of similarly young, fast-rising, business-oriented phenoms around the Capitol who are flexing their political and fiscal muscle in ways that have a true impact on both ballot measures and candidate campaigns. Bui is managing the spending on the former, and has already been a factor in getting more business-friendly Dems into the fall runoff races. You want juice? You got it.
For years Laiza Negrete has been content to mostly fly under the radar. But as the head of the California Association of Realtors political action committee and the organization’s top political strategist, she is without question a major player in California policymaking. For one, her organization has a lot of members – around 200,000 – and a lot of money to spend. Or as one description of her once stated, “she is the director of more money than God and willing to spend it.” Well, we’re not deifying anyone, but that sounds about right. And it isn’t just in housing or development. Sources tell us Negrete has a finger in a lot of business-related pies around the region, and you can bet she and her group are already in with both feet on a few ballot measures in November. Because, as we’ve been saying, money makes a lot of things happen. Negrete previously worked for the Independence Party of New York and is a board member on the Independent Voter Project, which encourages nonpartisan voters to get out to the polls. She is a graduate of Sacramento State.
Uber also has a lot of money to spend, and Ramona “Monie” Prieto is the person they trust to spend it wisely. Prieto is officially Uber’s head of public policy and communications for the western region, but in that role she also controls the company’s independent expenditures through its Uber Innovation PAC. This year the rideshare giant dumped $30 million into that fund, giving her the kind of juice most Capitol denizens can only dream of. And be clear – she is not afraid to use it. Prieto was also instrumental in helping business-friendly Dems win in the primaries, and her PAC dumped $250K into Gavin Newsom’s Prop. 1 campaign. And it isn’t just writing checks. Prieto is well respected for her political acumen, both in dealing with lawmakers and ballot measures. She has been almost exclusively under the radar in media terms, but she is undoubtedly a force and a potential kingmaker.
Mark McKenzie, the staff director for the Senate Appropriations Committee, is a veritable Capitol institution at this point. He’s in his 20th year with the Senate Committee on Appropriations and has been staff director since 2012. He’s on his eighth committee chair and is working under his fourth Pro Tem, (Too many suspense files to count, as he jokes.) Any bill with a fiscal component will eventually come into contact with McKenzie, making him an obvious nexus of power within the building. His longevity in the job has increased his influence at the Capitol, especially when you consider that there has been turnover in recent years with his Assembly counterpart. A Capitol staffer since 2001, McKenzie has firmly established himself as a key figure in the building.
Gabriel Petek is just the sixth person to serve as the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst since the office was founded in 1941. If you’re reading this, you don’t need us to explain how influential the Legislative Analyst’s Office is. Its analysis of California’s fiscal matters is the gold standard – and Petek has headed up the whole operation since February 2019. He graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s in political science from Loyola Marymount University, with a portion of his undergraduate course completed at the Hansard Scholars Programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also obtained a master’s in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Before joining the LAO, he worked for two decades at S&P Global Ratings, where he was an analyst for Illinois and California.
If you’re looking for legislative drama, nothing beats the public safety committees, with their high-profile votes on drugs and crime. But while the hearings in the Assembly are often contentious and/or dysfunctional, there’s no such drama on the Senate side and that seems to be due in large part to Mary Kennedy, the Senate Committee on Public Safety’s chief counsel, who oversees the committee with a deft touch. Kennedy makes this list because of her competence and job performance. She may not be as high profile as some of the others on this list. But given her role, you’d be more likely to hear about her if she allowed problems to fester. She doesn’t.
Rob Lapsley has been described previously in this list as silver-haired and courtly, one of the last “real Republicans.” We’ve tried to update our bios this year, but that’s just too perfect of a description, so we’re keeping it. An Air Force vet, Lapsley is the president of the California Business Roundtable, a nonprofit research and advocacy group comprised of senior executives from major employers throughout the state – that is, the kind of business leaders who can command respect even in a Democratic-controlled state. That rings true even though the CBRT’s big anti-tax ballot measure got swept off the ballot by the California Supreme Court. While that loss was brutal, it says a lot about Lapsley and his pull that they got it onto the ballot in the first place. Lapsley is the former political director of the California Chamber of Commerce and served as the chief of staff to Bill Jones, the Republican secretary of state from 1995 to 2003, one of the last GOP statewide office holders.
Mark Weideman heads one of the largest lobbying firms in Sacramento, the Weideman Group, which billed more than $10 million through the first 15 months of the legislative session. The firm’s roughly 70 clients include AARP, Blue Shield of California and Carnival Cruises. Weideman received his bachelor’s from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UC Hastings College of Law and once served as an officer of AT&T California. He markets himself as having “decades of experience representing some of the nation’s most sophisticated and politically powerful clients” and we don’t quibble with that description at all.
As the CEO of the California District Attorneys Association, Greg Totten may be one of the most consequential names on this year’s list. The DAs, of course, have been on a mission to reform Proposition 47 and Totten in particular has resisted any efforts by Gov. Newsom and the Democrats to keep their proposal off the November ballot. And Totten’s stubbornness won out: the DAs’ measure, Proposition 36, will in fact be before voters this fall, and it’ll be on the ballot with no rival measure from the legislature. That was no small feat, but Totten has been adamant that California voters are far more inclined to reform Prop. 47 this time around than they were in 2020. Time will tell, but if he and the DAs can succeed with their Californians for Safer Communities campaign backing Prop. 36, they might change the state.
Manufacturing is one of the largest sectors of California’s economy. It accounted for more than 12 percent of the state’s gross domestic product in 2022 and employs more than 1.2 million Californians. Among the state’s most critical leaders for this industry is Lance Hastings, the president and CEO of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, which directly represents 400 businesses from the manufacturing community while also advocating for policies to benefit the sector as a whole. The CMTA’s agenda of tax incentives and pro-growth proposals are popular with Republicans as well as pro-business or so-called “Mod” Democrats, with Hastings of course leading the charge. A graduate of Sacramento State, Hastings was a vice president for national affairs for MillerCoors and worked in the U.K. for SABMiller. These days, however, he would tell you he’s always working to advance the cause of manufacturing in California.
You might have heard that California has a serious insurance crisis. It is as thorny as it gets, and Rex Frazier, the head of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, is right in the middle of it all. PIF represents a select membership of the insurance industry’s heaviest hitters – Farmers, State Farm, Mercury, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, Kemper and Nationwide – companies that, let’s be honest, aren’t exactly popular with the Democrats who control the state. But over the years, the canny Frazier has turned himself into a power player in Sacramento by shrewdly protecting his members from punitive legislation while also building support for them by funding business-friendly lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Can he keep that track record up in the wake of the insurance market’s current instability? Only time will tell, but Frazier’s perpetual inclusion on the Top 100 through always difficult circumstances is a testament to his skill and political insight.
Siva is the vice chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the owners and operators of the towering Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa north of Palm Springs, and the chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, the nonprofit that represents the combined political might of California’s gaming tribes. He’s a newbie to the list, but that’s our bad because his influence in tribal gaming – and therefor California politics – is indisputable. That star power was on full display at the annual Indian Gaming Tradeshow & Convention in Anaheim this year, where attendees seemed to hang on his every word when he spoke. Siva may not be well known outside of tribal communities, but make no mistake he is one of their critical and outspoken leaders, unapologetically demanding that state politics and commercial gaming interests bend to their will. Asked how tribal gaming operations would work with the likes of FanDuel and DraftKings whenever sports gaming becomes legal in California, Siva coolly responded, “We’ll let them know what terms we’ll be willing to accept.” Underestimate him at your own peril.
The Bearstar Strategies trio of Rodriguez, Sean Clegg and Ace Smith have all been individual regulars on this list. Last year we had them as a unit, a three-headed Hydra if you will, but this time we’re focusing on Rodriguez in deference to his leadership on the campaign to thwart an oil-industry backed effort to overturn a 2022 law imposing new restrictions on oil and gas wells near homes and schools. The ballot measure supporters backed down in June, agreeing to pull the proposal off the ballot. It was a huge win for environmentalists and a massive loss for the oil industry, which spent $20 million getting the signatures to put it on the ballot. But then Rodriguez is used to winning big. His career has seen him work with a star-studded list of clients, including Rob Bonta, Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla. And let’s not forget that Rodriguez managed the successful effort to defeat the recall effort against Gavin Newsom.
Andrew Antwih is a president of one of California’s premier lobbying firms, Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer and Lange, which through the first 15 months of the legislative cycle reported receiving the seventh most money from clients, $9.9 million. Antwih’s firm represents an astounding 90+ clients, including FedEx, the city of Los Angeles and the Humane Society of the United States as well as those in energy, healthcare, higher education, transportation, tech, land development, goods movement, air quality, labor, and local governments. Antwih spent nearly 13 years as a legislative staffer, with almost half of that time as chief consultant to the Assembly Transportation Committee. So, it’s no surprise his biggest claim to fame as a lobbyist is as an expert in transportation. Antwih is married to the California Teachers Association’s Teri Holoman (No. 7); together they form one of the Capitol’s top power couples.
Floreine “Flo” Kahn is the Sacramento point person for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, otherwise known as PhRMA. She leads the organization’s massive lobbying operations, which employs six lobbying firms (Fernandez Jensen Kimmelshue Government Affairs, the Apex Group, Capitol Strategies Group, Inc., Heyworth Government Affairs, Noteware Government Relations and Gladfelty Government Relations) and has spent more than $1.5 million through the first five quarters of the two-year legislative cycle. Kahn knows the pharmaceutical business, having previously handled state government affairs in the West for AbbVie and, before that, working for Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb. She also was deputy chief of staff to Kevin McCarthy when he was the Assembly Republican Leader. She is a political science grad from UC Berkeley.
The daughter of migrant workers from Mexico, Soyla Fernandez spent time in her childhood working the same agricultural fields they did. Motivated for a better life, she earned a degree in politics from UC Santa Cruz, a path that eventually led her to open Fernández Government Solutions in 2004, the first lobbying firm in California owned and operated by a Latina. Now known as Fernandez Jensen Kimmelshue Government Affairs, it has become yet another one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms, having received more than $4.33 million through the first 15 months of the legislative cycle. The firm boasts some serious heavyweight clients: Accenture, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Southern California Edison, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Meta (the owners of Facebook), U.S. Bancorp and Verizon. In addition to work as a lobbyist, Fernandez previously received gubernatorial appointments to the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency and the Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency, and was a senior consultant to the Assembly Budget Committee and former Assembly Speaker and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Kimberly Rodriguez has become something of a fixture in the Pro Tem’s office. She was policy director under Toni Atkins and now she’s policy director and deputy chief of staff under Mike McGuire. She manages an 11-person staff for the Senate Democratic Caucus, working to advance the caucus’ agenda. In her role as deputy chief of staff, she also helps the Secretary of Senate in managing legislative administrative matters for the upper house. A veteran of the building for more than two decades, Rodriguez works directly with senator’s offices and Senate committees on legislative processes to keep the trains moving.
When Rachel Michelin got to the California Retailers Association in 2019, it frankly was a mess. That is definitely not the case anymore. Michelin has steadied the organization, making it a force again in the Capitol. This year she has been instrumental in helping to shape legislation and policy proposals aimed at dealing with organized retail theft, working with lawmakers in both chambers as well as the governor’s office. But Michelin has been a voice in this space for much longer than the last eight months. She has been on the state’s Retail Theft grants review panel, which determines allocations for grant monies, since 2023 and has previously secured hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds for CRA’s organized retail theft mitigation programs. She was the CEO for California Women Lead, the state’s largest nonpartisan association of women leaders, for 16 years prior to coming to CRA.
Lobbyist Mike Belote is a Capitol standard bearer, with four decades of experience and deep insights into the machinery of California politics. He works for California Advocates, one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms, which billed more than $5 million over the first five quarters of the legislative cycle. The Cal Advocates’ client roster is deep, with heavyweights Apple, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and Verizon. But Belote himself has long represented legal clients, like the California Judges Association, a topic that he cares for as a lawyer himself. He’s also known for his philanthropic work for groups such as Volunteers of America, the Public Legal Services Society at McGeorge and My Sister’s House, an organization focused on domestic violence and trafficking in the Asian Pacific Islander community. Oh and he also serves on the board of Open California, the publisher of Capitol Weekly.
Nancy Drabble is something of a living legend in the capitol community. The executive director of the Consumer Attorneys of California, she was a key behind-the-scenes player in the legendary 1987 “napkin deal” brokered by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown with big tobacco, insurance companies, trial lawyers and the California Medical Association over a dinner of pot stickers and roast duck at Frank Fat’s restaurant. You don’t get any more insider than that in these parts. But Drabble doesn’t just live off her past accomplishments. She was an active player in the modern game as well, most notably helping to work the deal in 2022 on the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act California (MICRA) to a avoid what would have surely been a costly ballot measure campaign. Drabble, who once worked for Ralph Nader as one of his “Nader’s Raiders,” is a LA native with a law degree from UC Berkeley.
Joe Lang is the managing partner of Lang, Hansen, Giroux and Kidane, one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms, which has received nearly $6.23 million in payments during the first five quarters of the legislative cycle. Lang and just two other lobbyists – the also influential Bob Giroux and Awet Kidane – represent about 40 clients, including the California Academy of Eye Physicians & Surgeons, E&J Gallo Winery, Hilmar Cheese Company, Hollywood Park Casino and the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Lang began his political career on the staff of the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee and was the principal consultant who oversaw major legislation reorganizing the Health Services Agency and restructuring horseracing in California.
Kevin Sloat is the principal and founder of Sloat Higgins Jensen & Associates, another one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms, having received nearly $6.16 million during the first 15 months of the legislative cycle. The firm’s client list is diverse and impressive, including the likes of Anheuser-Busch, Chevron, DirecTV and the Dish Network, IGT (a major slot-machine manufacturer) and McDonald’s. Sloat began his career in the administration of Gov. Pete Wilson, where he worked as the governor’s legislative secretary and top aide. He’s also a recognized expert in the state budget and the legislative process. So, in other words, Sloat can offer his clients deep insights into both the legislative and executive branches of California’s government.
A savvy capitol veteran, lobbyist Erin Niemela has been in deep this year in negotiations over a bevy of contentious bills involving Ticketmaster. Her women-owned firm – in conjunction with business partner Emily Pappas – Niemela, Pappas and Associates, is larger than many may realize; it billed nearly $6.4 million through the first five quarters of the legislative cycle, employs seven lobbyists and represents more than 55 clients, including Blue Diamond Growers, Deere & Company (you know it as John Deere), eBay, FanDuel, HP (you might know it as Hewlett-Packard), JP Morgan Chase, Mattel (the makers of Barbie), PayPal and StubHub (the last of which put Niemela on a collision course with Ticketmaster this year). She spent years as a staffer for the likes of former Assemblymember Tom Bates and Speaker Willie Brown, and was chief of staff to former Senate Pro Tem Don Perata for over a decade. Niemela tries to keep a low profile, but insiders know she is a third house force.
Lobbyist Jonathan Ross leads KP Public Affairs’ technology practice and is touted as “a key voice on virtually all issues impacting Silicon Valley.” KP Public Affairs, one of the largest lobbying firms in Sacramento, with $9.9 million in billings through the first five months of the legislative cycle, boasts a bevy of impressive, name-brand tech clients, including Airbnb, Cisco, Google, Lyft and Stripe. In addition, he also reps five large national accounting firms (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers) as well as investment banks Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, among other clients. Ross helped start KP’s predecessor firm, Kahl Pownall, and alongside Ed Manning (no. 84) helped the firm transition to its current iteration.
At some point we are simply going to run out of superlatives to lavish on Paula Treat, who has been one of the most effective lobbyists in the game for a half century. Hers was one of the first woman-owned lobbying shops in California, and she still prefers to keep it a solo operation. Probably a good idea given that others have a hard time keeping up with her anyway. In recent years she has focused on plastics recycling and major tribal issues, including a bill to give the tribes standing to sue in their longstanding battle with card rooms. The fight is still not resolved as we go to press, but it is further along than it has ever been due in no small part to Treat’s relentless efforts. Affable, wicked smart, energetic and persistent – she is all this and more. It should come as no surprise that her favorite all time award is the “Barracuda Award” legislators used to hand out to the lobbyist hardest to say no to.
To call Mandy Isaacs-Lee a rising star in Sacramento really doesn’t seem appropriate anymore because she has already arrived in full force as a power player in California politics. She’s the founder and principal of Omni Government Relations, a serious firm representing serious clients like Tesla, CVS and Kaiser and a suite of heavyweight insurers, but which still has enough snark to quote Yoda on its home page (“Do or do not. There is no try.”). Isaacs-Lee is also a prominent and well-respected LGBTQ activist serving on the boards of Equality California and the California LGBT Leadership Fund. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from CSU, Hayward. She and her wife Alicia Isaacs-Lee, deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and No. 69 on this list, were named this year to Capitol Weekly’s first-ever Top 10 list of Capitol power couples.
As president of the California Professional Firefighters, Brian Rice represents 35,000 local firefighters across the Golden State, a constituency whose political potency may be unappreciated. Indeed, under Rice’s leadership, the California Professional Firefighters helped Gov. Newsom’s Prop. 1 ballot measure addressing homelessness and mental health cross the finish line, a surprisingly tight race that might not have gone the governor’s way if not for the firefighters’ assistance. A veteran of political battles, the outspoken Rice headed the Sacramento local 522 for 12 years. He may be most well-known – at least at the national level – for pushing back when President Trump claimed that California’s wildfires were the results of flawed forestry management.
Los Angeles-based communications expert Fiona Hutton is regularly knee deep in some of the most closely watched issues at the Capitol, including health care, technology, energy, water, infrastructure, and regulatory challenges. Hutton is also a vocal proponent of female entrepreneurship, where she leads by example – Fiona Hutton & Associates is 100 percent woman-owned and has been from day one. She is tough, tenacious, independent and very strategic, which is why from ballot measures to reputation management, Hutton is on almost everyone’s “first call” list. She is also something of a seminal figure here in that previous to her first appearance in the Top 100 in 2016, we didn’t really look that closely at folks outside of Sacramento. Now we do, and the list is better for it. Her eclectic client roster includes the likes of Comcast, Amazon, SoCal Gas, Sutter Health, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power and NBC Universal, all major players here in Sacramento. Full disclosure: she is also a board member with Open California, the publisher of Capitol Weekly.
A new entrant to the Top 100, Alicia Isaacs-Lee has more than earned her spot on this list. She is the deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and in the last year rose to prominence in the Capitol community with her consistent ability to make things happen under any circumstance. She is widely respected inside the building and out as a team leader and communicator, and is a key liaison between lawmakers and the Speaker. In short, if they have concerns about their bills or committee assignments or the brutal Sacramento summer heat, they start with her to get to him. She came to the Speaker’s office after serving as chief of staff to Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel. It’s also worthy of note that she was out for six months on maternity leave and came back to her same power and position. Men might not get it, but we’re guessing most women know how important she must be for it to work out that way. She is married to Mandy Isaacs-Lee, No. 66 on this list.
A savvy political veteran who keeps a low profile, Carrie Gordon is the chief strategy officer of the California Dental Association, a 27,000-member organization that ranks as one of the more effective trade groups in Sacramento. CDA’s success rests largely on Gordon’s shoulders as she’s played a critical role in achieving virtually all of the association’s policy goals over the past few years. Her big win this year? Again securing funding in this year’s budget for a program started last year that provides dental care to patients with special needs. As a newbie program in a truly horrendous budget deficit year, the $50 million program was among the governor’s initial round of cuts in January. But a steady push from Gordon, with an assist from Sen. Toni Atkins and Assemblymember Rick Zbur, got the funding restored. Gordon has been with CDA since 2001; she has a bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly and an MBA from UC Davis.
Direct democracy looms over everything that happens in Sacramento and Kurt Oneto, the leader of Nielsen Merksamer’s government law section, knows that world like the back of his hand. A recognized expert in initiative and referenda law, Oneto specializes in statewide ballot measures, having served as counsel and legal strategist to more than 60 ballot measures in California and more than a half dozen in other states. He primarily works for measures backed by business interests, but not always. One decidedly pro-business case on his docket this year has been the long battle over Prop. 22, the voter-approved ballot measure that allows gig companies like Uber and Lyft classify their drivers as independent contractors. Oneto argued the case for the gig companies before the California Supreme Court and won; the ruling could set a national precedent for how all gig workers are classified by employers.
Danny Curtin heads the California Conference of Carpenters, which has emerged as key player in the state’s ongoing debates over housing. Curtin and crew have staked out nuanced positions that have put them at odds with their labor comrades the State Building and Construction Trades Council. But that suits Curtin just fine; during the Schwarzenegger administration he developed a good working relationship with the Republican governor to the chagrin of other labor leaders. Curtin has spent most of the past 30-some years leading the carpenters, with a brief stint as chief deputy director for the Department of Industrial Relations from 1999 to 2001. He also serves on the California Water Commission, the Industrial Welfare Commission and on the board of the State Compensation Insurance Fund.
Chris Hannan is about a year into his new job as the president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council, having replaced former president Andrew Meredith, who replaced the legendary Robbie Hunter, who replaced the legendary Bob Balgenorth. (Can you say “big shoes?”) The council is the largest construction trades council in the country, representing nearly half a million members in 14 crafts, including about 70,000 apprentices. So, obviously, the holder of this gig has clout from the get-go. Hannan previously served as executive secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council since 2021, and as a council representative from 2012 to 2021. A native of Orange County, Hannan is a second-generation member of UA Local 709 Sprinkler Fitters.
The Bay Area gets a bad rap just about everywhere but down on Market Street these days. And maybe even there at times. But Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, a policy and advocacy organization repping about 330 of the largest businesses in the region, is one of The City’s biggest boosters. Under Wunderman, BAC has led or partnered on countless ballot measure campaigns that have secured tens of billions of dollars for transportation, affordable housing, early education, climate resilience and healthcare. But never one to stand pat, he is working now with Silicon Valley Leadership Group chief Ahmad Thomas on a merger of their two organizations that could make the newly-formed group even more dynamic and influential than either could be alone. Before taking helm at the council, Wunderman worked for both Dianne Feinstein and Frank M. Jordan when they served as San Francisco mayor.
As a commissioner with the California State Athletic Commission, we’re going to make the presumption that Scott Wetch is boxing fan. With that in mind, a famous quote attributed to Muhammad Ali – “It’s not bragging if you can back it up” – sure seems to apply to him. As we’ve said before in our bios for him on this list, Wetch has a reputation for being arrogant. But even his harshest critics will also tell you he is excellent at his job, with a laser focus on his clients, who love him. His firm, Carter, Wetch & Associates, represents a slew of labor unions as well as Amazon, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Verizon. He doesn’t always win, but – and forgive another sports analogy – with Wetch in their corner, his clients know they’re never out of a fight.
Michael Weinstein once described himself to the New York Times as being akin to “gum on your shoe,” a reference to his relentless efforts to get voters to endorse the ballot initiatives he is famous for sponsoring through his organization, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. His critics describe him in terms we can’t use here. AHF has run ballot measures in three of the last four election cycles, spending about $100 million in the process. We can only imagine what those efforts have forced opponents to spend. Two measures were seeking to lift restrictions on local rent-control policies, another would have required porn actors to wear condoms. A fourth would have capped costs on prescription drugs. All failed. But Weinstein is back again this year with another rent control ballot measure (Prop. 33), and has inspired another ballot measure (Prop. 34) that would require certain health care providers to spend 98 percent of their profits from federal prescription drug discounts on direct patient care. We’ll give you one guess which health organization that would apply to. Something tells us this won’t be over no matter what the voters say.
Catherine Reheis-Boyd has to have one of the most difficult gigs in California. As the president and CEO of Western States Petroleum Association, aka WSPA (“whis-puh”), Reheis-Boyd’s job essentially is keeping oil refineries and their employees working. So, she spends her time fighting California’s efforts to scale back the oil industry, which isn’t exactly easy in a deep blue state. Case in point, the oil industry took one hard on the chin, backing a possible ballot measure to overturn a law imposing new restrictions on oil and gas wells near homes and schools. That effort failed, but maybe pulling out before spending even more money to get it before voters in November shows her savvy and influence. Reheis-Boyd oversees legislative and regulatory issues dealing with transportation fuels policy, air and water quality, climate change, renewable fuels, alternative energy issues and crude oil and natural gas production. In other words, every issue facing the oil industry. But she’s more than up to the task, having worked in the sector for nearly four decades.
California has a lot of powerful gaming tribes, but none is more powerful than the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a tribe that has so well played its cards (see what we did there?) that it was able to buy a Las Vegas casino, the Palms, in 2021. So it should be no wonder that San Manuel’s chairwoman, Lynn “Nay” Valbuena, appears on this list. A fixture in San Manuel tribal government for decades, Valbuena recently began her latest stint as chairwoman in May, this time under a four-year term, as opposed to the tribal council’s old two-year terms. Valbuena is an undisputed icon of the San Manuel tribe, but also well respected in the larger tribal community, having served as vice chairwoman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, secretary for the National Indian Gaming Association, as a delegate to the National Congress of American Indians and as a trustee for the National Museum of the American Indian, which is part of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Let’s be straight here – Mark Macarro is as synonymous with tribal governance and gaming as anyone alive. The long-time chair of the Pechanga Band of Indians, his leadership drove the building of the tribe’s enormously successful Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula in 1995, and it has become the second largest of its kind in the state. Leadership is also in his blood, as his great-grandfather, Juan Macarro, served as tribal chairman (then known as “captain”) in the early 1900s. Macarro has been chairman since 1992, and has also long represented the Pechanga tribe in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Last year he was elected president of that organization. He is also a longtime veteran of the political battles over gaming, and was one of the key backers a few years ago of Prop. 26, one of two competing gaming ballot measures that went down in flames after the two sides spent a half a billion dollars.
Shari McHugh is a partner at McHugh Koepke Padron Government Relations, a lobbying firm she runs with her husband Gavin. With just four lobbyists on staff, the firm serves more than 40 diverse (and noteworthy) clients, including the American Beverage Association, California Life, the California Correctional Peace officers Association, Koch Government Affairs, the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, Shell Oil and the Western States Petroleum Association. Through the first five quarters of the legislative cycle, MKP billed nearly $3.52 million. Gavin started the firm in 2000; Shari joined in 2003, after a stints as senior vice president of the Coalition of California Insurance Professionals and senior vice president of the Professional Insurance Agents, which (obviously) is where she gets her expertise in the insurance sector. And the nickname, “Ms. Insurance.”
Wheeler last year became the first Black woman elected president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO (LA Fed), an organization with over 300 affiliated unions representing more than 800,000 members, making it the second largest central labor body in America. She was also elected to the executive council of the California Labor Federation, and this year to the position of First Vice President. So while her focus is on Los Angeles, she is most definitely a player in the Capitol as well. She is in many ways the complement to Cal Labor Fed president Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (No. 10 on this list), whose abrasive style doesn’t always endear her to others… such as the Newsom administration. The disdain is mutual, to the point where neither likes to talk with the other. Enter Wheeler, who has become someone the administration can directly communicate with on issues of broad interest to all labor, not just one or two groups. That level of respect and gravitas makes her well worthy of being on this list.
Margie Estrada is the legislature’s expert on the law. In fact, the chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee has reached such rarefied air that she has been referred to as “the Kip Lipper of legal issues in the Capitol.” You don’t get any more influential than that – at least not in Sacramento. Some of that is due in part to the committee’s broad jurisdiction, which gives her a lot of influence over a very wide range of issues. She is highly respected both for her legal expertise and her understanding of the legislative process. She is well organized and keeps a firm rein on what does and does not come through her committee. In short, if you want your bill to get through the Judiciary, you need to have your act together as much as she does. Estrada, who previously served as a principal consultant to former Senate Pro Tems Darrell Steinberg and Kevin de León, has a bachelor’s in rhetoric from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UCLA. We imagine both come in quite handy when dealing with lawmakers and lobbyists.
Paul Mitchell is Sacramento’s favorite political data guy, particularly during election years. The vice president of Political Data, Inc., aka PDI, and the owner of Redistricting Partners, which tracks the work of California’s independent redistricting commission, Mitchell is known for uncovering California election trends and communicating them in an engaging way. That is no small feat; election data can be seriously boring. But Mitchell makes it interesting with pithy quotes and colorful electoral maps. For decades, PDI gathered and analyzed campaign data for both parties, but went Democrat-only in 2021, which makes sense in a deep blue California. Although his focus is still primarily on California, he has in recent years also done redistricting work in 14 states and for the state and city of New York. Mitchell and his wife, Jodi Hicks, (No. 11) form one of the Capitol’s most potent (and high-profile) power couples.
Ed Manning is a partner at KP Public Affairs, one of the largest lobbying firms in Sacramento, with $9.9 million in billings through the first 15 months of the legislative cycle. Manning specializes in environmental, energy, water and resources issues and the firm, where he has worked for nearly two decades, represents loads of clients where those issues are critical, including American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance, California Licensed Foresters Association, Forest Landowners of California, Granite Construction Company, Marine Mammal Center and Offshore Wind California. Before he became a full-time lobbyist, Manning was a partner in the LA law firm Benshoof (which is now part of Alston & Bird), where he – surprise, surprise – focused on environmental, resource and land-use law. Like his colleague Jonathan Ross, (No. 64) Manning helped KP transition from its old brand, Kahl Pownall.
Transportation was another sector seemingly doomed to be a budget casualty this year when Gov. Gavin Newsom froze $2.4 billion in state transportation funds in April. One problem: local transit agencies had already begun huge projects based on expectations of getting those funds as part of a $5.1 billion transportation funding deal last year. Oops. Enter Pimentel, who went on a full-throated charm tour through the Capitol and the governor’s office in an effort to get the money released. In early July it worked, with the governor unclenching his fist from $1.9 billion to be distributed to 22 transit agencies around the state. Not the whole enchilada, but a big enough bite to keep most of the jobs in progress and Pimentel’s wide and very diverse group of members, well, not happy but happy enough. It is the second year in a row that Newsom has tried to pause transportation funding, and the second in which Pimentel has come out on top.
If something is happening within California’s tribal communities, Jacob Mejia is either involved or knows all about it. Always. The public affairs director for the influential Pechanga Band of Indians, Mejia was a critical player in the fight to keep sports betting out of California in 2022. But that’s just probably how he’s most well-known to the general public. His connections within California’s tribal communities are wide and deep. He’s the executive director of the Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian Nations, which made him something of a rock star at the annual Indian Gaming Tradeshow & Convention in Anaheim this year. Oh and he also serves on the board of directors of the Inland Empire Community Foundation, where he’s chair of the policy committee, and of Open California, the nonprofit publisher of Capitol Weekly. Mejia is a font of knowl- edge on all things involving California tribes and perhaps best of all he’s known for being approachable and affable, making him a sort of de facto spokesman for tribal interests statewide.
Attorney Karen Getman is the founding partner of the powerhouse political and governmental law firm Olson Remcho, based in Oakland. She is also a major player in education funding through her work for the California Teachers Association. That was on full display this year as the organization had a near knife fight with Gov. Newsom over education dollars in the woefully hurting state budget. The CTA ultimately won out. Getman got her start in the legendary attorney Joe Remcho’s law firm. In 1999, Gov. Gray Davis named her the first woman to chair the Fair Political Practices Commission. When her four-year term ended, she returned to Remcho’s firm around the time when he died in a helicopter accident in 2003. Seventeen years later, the Remcho law firm merged with another Democratic political law firm, forming Olson Remcho, with Getman named its first managing partner. She got her bachelor’s from Yale and her law degree from Harvard.
For a lot of years now, Jennifer Fearing has been known as the go-to lobbyist for anything benefiting animals. But in recent years she has branched out considerably, taking up any number of other causes, from transportation and recycling – she was a key figure in 2022’s historic SB54 recycling overhaul – to protecting our oceans and getting plastic bags out of grocery stores. This year she has also been a major player in getting approximately 180 organizations into a coalition that helped get a $10 billion climate bond on the November ballot. On that front, she also led the successful fight against proposed budget cuts to the Habitat Conservation Fund, which voters created all the way back in 1990. And lest you think she has abandoned our furry friends, she is the lead lobbyist on several efforts to codify the state’s new approach to managing the beaver population and preserving beaver habitat. Tough and passionate but also very pragmatic, Fearing is a formidable advocate no matter what she’s fighting for.
After almost two decades as general counsel and senior vice president of the California Medical Association, Francisco Silva began a new adventure in March 2022 as the president and CEO of the California Primary Care Association. CPCA represents more than 1,276 nonprofit community health centers that serve millions of people, which makes it a major force in political battles over Medi-Cal and puts Silva at the table for high-level negotiations. And as you might expect, he and his organization are big proponents of Prop. 35. Born in Mexico, Silva has a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University, a law degree from the UCLA School of Law and MBA from USC Marshall School of Business. With his education and experience, there’s virtually no situation he’s not prepared to handle.
Ashley Zavala debuted on this list last year when we dubbed her the “Oh, sh*t” reporter in the Capitol Press Corps. She earned that moniker based on the reaction she gets when lawmakers see her coming their way. And perhaps rightly so, because Zavala is not there to play nice. She regularly asks the toughest of questions and will doggedly pursue an answer no matter how far she has to go. Doubt that? Ask Assemblymember Gail Pellerin. (If you know, you know). Her critics in the building are many, but she is widely respected among her fellow journalists, who collectively had her back during a now infamous dispute with Assmblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer. This year, her reporting on the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in political negotiations helped lead to legislation seeking to ban the practice. Zavala is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s Columbia School of Journalism, and is the president of the Capitol Correspondents Association of California.
Larisa Cespedes is a partner at Miller, Cespedes & Associates, one of Sacramento’s smaller (and newer) lobbying firms, but no less mighty or influential. The firm of just three lobbyists, which billed nearly $3.24 million over the first 15 months of the legislative cycle, represents some big hitters, including Estee Lauder, FedEx, Hawaiian Gardens Casino, Phillips 66, Southern California Edison and Walmart. Cespedes is a hardened veteran of California lobbying, having worked for the lobbying firm Lang, Hansen, O’Malley & Miller for 10 years before joining Miller, Cespedes & Associates in January 2020. Colleagues say one reason so many of her clients love her is her innate ability to take complex issues and break them down to plain language. In a world of lawyer- and consultant-speak, that’s a super power.
The California Senate is assured of being majority female after this November, and the entire Legislature is on target to be so no later than 2028. If and when that happens, Susannah Delano will be one of the main reasons why. Delano is the executive director of Close the Gap, which recruits progressive women to run for office. Their success started in 2022, when a record 50 women were elected to the California Legislature, 20 of them Close the Gap alums. But that was only the start. Based on results from the March primaries, female candidates are all but guaranteed to fill 21 of the 40 Senate seats, the first such majority in California history. At least 30 percent of those women will have been recruited by Close the Gap. Why give Delano so much of the credit? For most of the time since coming on board in 2018, she was the organization’s lone full-time staff person. Who says one person can’t make a difference, eh?
Longtime campaign consultant Courtni Pugh’s track record tends to run hot and cold, but she is never far from the action. She was a key figure in defeating the 2021 recall effort against Gavin Newsom, and regularly helps manage his other in-state campaigns, like this year’s Prop. 1. Pugh has also been a top consultant for numerous other statewide ballot campaigns, including another Prop. 1, 2022’s measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. She’s also had her share of ignominious defeats, most notably tied to Kevin de Léon’s failed runs at the U.S. Senate and the Los Angeles mayor’s office. But she is a widely respected strategist and coalition builder who is strongly connected with just about every important Democratic figure in the country, from Newsom to Rob Bonta to Kamala Harris to Joe Biden. She is also deeply rooted in the Latino and AAPI communities. Pugh is a partner in Hilltop Public Solutions.
California has been blessed with two “normal” winters, meaning the dreaded word drought hasn’t been thrown around a lot lately. But even in wet times, water conservation and water issues in general remain a priority for the Golden State. Which is where Karla Nemeth, the director of the Department of Water Resources comes in. She’s been at the helm since the Brown administration and her importance has only increased. Gov. Newsom recently tapped her to advise his administration on water priorities, including achieving the governor’s water supply strategy, which involves modernizing the state’s water conveyance infrastructure. If your eyes glazed over at that last bit just know this: Nemeth is Newsom’s water guru and water is muy importante in California now and forever, thus making her more than worthy of this list.
When Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire needs, well, virtually anything, his first call these days is almost certainly to his long-time aide Jason Liles. With McGuire’s chief of staff Rebecca Wachsberg (No. 95 on last year’s list) out on maternity leave, Liles has stepped in to keep the trains running on time in the Pro Tem’s office. And McGuire could not have picked someone more loyal than Liles, who has been with McGuire since his days on the Healdsburg City Council. As with any leader, McGuire is blessed with an expansive staff to handle a litany of issues, from politics to policy to personnel. But Liles is his go-to man, the Pro Tem’s utility player and Mr. Fix It all rolled into one.
Politico’s expansion of its California operations has been one of the most significant developments in the Capitol’s media environment in years and Christopher Cadelago is one of the reasons why. Insightful and well-sourced, Cadelago has broken a litany of big stories since he was named Politico’s California bureau chief in February 2023, one of the biggest being Laphonza Butler’s appointment to fill out the remainder of Dianne Feinstein’s term in the U.S. Senate. But his bylined work is just half of the story. Cadelago has also been instrumental in expanding Politico’s California coverage, both in terms of reporting strategy and hiring great reporters like Lara Korte and Dustin Gardiner to man the California Playbook, which has established itself as a daily must-read in the Capitol.
Susan Jensen’s career has skyrocketed alongside that of her employer, the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, aka CNIGA, the nonprofit that represents California’s gaming tribes. In 1998, when Jensen became CNIGA’s first full-time staff person, Indian gaming was still a burgeoning force in the Golden State. Today, with Jensen now serving as the association’s executive director, Indian gaming is in full bloom, as is CNIGA, standing at 50 member tribes, making it the largest regional tribal gaming association in the United States. Jensen is a critical figure in all of the tribes’ biggest fights, including the ballot measure battle against the sports gaming and the ongoing war with California cardrooms.
No conversation about who might be the best reporter covering the Capitol is complete without mentioning Los Angeles Times reporter Taryn Luna. With her scoops, insightful analysis and obvious deep sourcing, Luna is widely respected both inside the building and out. She joined the Sacramento press corps in 2016 when she started at the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol bureau, covering the legislature and lobbying, after stints on the East Coast with the Boston Globe and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She moved to the Times in 2018, where she’s been covering Gov. Newsom and California politics in Sacramento ever since. In that role, Luna is a master of her beat, kicking out thoughtful, smart stories at a near-daily clip. Her profile of First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom is legendary, and her portfolio of must-read work is the kind of sharp, on-point reporting every Capitol scribe should aspire to. All due props also to her boss Laurel Rosenhall, the LAT Capitol bureau chief who oversees one heck of a team.
It might take a minute to find a Capitol staffer with more institutional knowledge than Krista Pfefferkorn. She debuted on the list last year, ostensibly in recognition of the tremendous challenges associated with being chief of staff to a member like Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco. Wiener seems almost allergic to the concept of carrying minor legislation – everything he does seems high profile. Legalizing psychedelics, major anti-NIMBY housing reforms, transportation, LGBTQ rights and so much more, whatever is likely to be very difficult and controversial, Wiener is all about it. And there quietly in the background is Pfefferkorn, dealing with the reality of the death threats her boss gets on the regular, managing the extra security he needs to get to and fro, regular hand-holding for nervous staff, etc. It’s a lot, and it became even more this year when Wiener became chair of the Senate budget committee. Some chiefs are higher profile, but nobody is better at keeping the trains running for her boss than Krista Pfefferkorn.
As chief protocol officer in the Newsom administration, Becca Prowda has the unique job of coordinating with the California Protocol Foundation, a nonprofit that collects donations from businesses and private individuals to pay for the governor’s travel and other expenses, so it doesn’t cost taxpayers. She also coordinates with visiting dignitaries from other countries and with the U.S. Department of State. In short, Prowda handles the practical logistics of elevating Newsom from a merely state-level figure to a national and even an international one, a critical role as the governor nakedly pines for the for a role far beyond California’s borders. By definition, that makes Prowda influential.
The print edition of the 2024 Capitol Weekly Top 100 Book is available for $20 per copy, plus shipping. Email: [email protected] or call 916 444 7665 X100 for details.
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