The Top 100 Hall of Fame 2025

This year we announce our sophomore class for the Capitol Weekly Top 100 Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is our way of honoring a few folks each year whose impact on the Capitol community has been so significant that we must permanently acknowledge and honor them for all they have accomplished in their stellar careers.

The five titans being enshrined this year – joining our inaugural class of Donna Lucas, Gale Kaufman, George Skelton, Aaron Read, and Steve Maviglio – are Mike Belote, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, Rex Frazier, Kip Lipper and, in a special in-memoriam tribute, the late Nancy McFadden.

Rich Ehisen
Editor, Capitol Weekly

Mike Belote

The Capitol community may be a small world, but it covers a lot of ground: policy issues ranging from the judiciary to transportation to real estate, the logistics of campaigning and fundraising and the accumulation of power, palace intrigue and the personalities of the electeds and their aides. No one person has a handle on all aspects of it, but Mike Belote – a 10-time member of the Top 100 list – sure comes close. He is one of the Capitol’s standard bearers, with nearly 50 years of experience and a deep, deep understanding of the machinery of California politics. And don’t think he’s slowing down any. He was a pivotal part of the effort last year that led to the first major reforms in California’s lemon law since its inception in 1970. Which isn’t surprising since for a long while now he’s been a major player with the powerhouse firm California Advocates, whose roster of clients is deep with heavyweights Apple, Bayer, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and Equifax, although Belote himself has long represented legal clients, like the California Judges Association and the California Defense Counsel. Before joining California Advocates in 1990, he was a legislative advocate for the California Society of Certified Public Accountants and the California Association of Realtors. A lawyer, Belote also served as Vice President and Legislative Counsel for the California Land Title Association and is known for his philanthropic work for groups such as Volunteers of America, the Public Legal Services Society at McGeorge and Battlefields to Ballfields, an organization which helps train veterans to become sports officials. Full disclosure: he also serves on the board of Open California, the publisher of Capitol Weekly.

Rex Frazier

Some people around the Capitol become synonymous with their industry. Such is the case with Rex Frazier, who has been in the Top 100 15 times in his more than 20 years at the helm of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, which represents the insurance industry’s heaviest hitters, including Farmers, State Farm, Mercury, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, Kemper and Nationwide. Over those two decades he has diligently guided them through years of catastrophic fires and regulatory uncertainty the likes of which the industry has not seen before. More than that, Frazier has overseen significant growth in his organization – when he started at PIFC in 2005, it had just five members and represented 50 percent of the market. Fast forward to now and you’ll see PFIC has 14 insurer members that collectively represent 80 percent of the property insurance market and 90 percent of the auto insurance market. It’s not easy getting diehard competitors to sit around a table and think about collective public policy issues, but he has proven more than adept at bringing those disparate folks together. That alone would warrant his inclusion in the Hall of Fame, but Frazier also believes deeply in the institutions of government, and served as a Deputy Insurance Commissioner for the California Department of Insurance from late 1994 through 1999, when he graduated valedictorian from the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. For all his success elsewhere, he is most proud of two original classes he created at McGeorge on how to effectively lobby – including a clinic where students developed original bills, 14 of which became law in the five years of the clinic’s operation.

Kip Lipper

Kip Lipper is another of our HOF inductees who at this point cannot be separated from his issue of expertise, his of course being the environment. He can’t really be separated from this list either – he’s been on every single one of them. That is because for years he has served as the de facto gatekeeper for all legislation involving clean water, clean air, climate change, energy, etc. and it doesn’t appear as though that’s going to change any time soon. A staffer for nearly a half century, Lipper is not just a veritable institution around the Capitol, he’s become a verb: bills blessed by him are said to be “Lipperized” or else they’re simply not going forward. That’s the kind of influence and trust the unelected Lipper enjoys in Sacramento. Lipper’s name may never appear in any history book, he may never be recognized outside of our little, insular community, but among those who understand the nuts and bolts of politics and policymaking in California, his impact on this state is not only undeniable but also outsized for a single individual. Lipper is the ultimate incarnation of a Capitol staffer, a sort of Platonic ideal of that critical, behind-the-scenes role. Whenever he hangs it up, Lipper will leave a gaping hole in the state’s capacity to evaluate and further environmental policy, a statement which seems like it should be hyperbole, but we all know is true.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd

For the last 15 years Catherine Reheis-Boyd has served as the CEO of the Western States Petroleum Association, aka WSPA (“whis-puh”), where she has had the unenviable task of trying to lead her industry through California’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. Through it all she has proven herself to be a formidable warrior in defense of petroleum interests, with several of her toughest and most public jousts with a certain governor with presidential aspirations. And whether he wants to admit it or not, she’s won more than she’s lost – which is why she’s been on this list a dozen times. Overall, Reheis-Boyd has held a variety of roles during her 33 years at WSPA, from Chief of Staff to Executive Vice President to Chief Operating Officer. And before that, she worked in environmental compliance for a Getty Oil, Texaco and a consulting firm, giving her more than four decades of experience in the oil industry. A graduate of the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she received her Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources Management, Reheis-Boyd often finds herself at odds with California Democrats, but her longevity in the position speaks to her ability to deftly work angles, see around corners and build coalitions. Over the years, she’s been appointed to the California Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force and the National Marine Protected Areas Center’s Federal Advisory Committee and in 2016 was named Distinguished Woman and Petroleum Advocate of the Year by the California Latino Leadership Institute. Like Frazier and Lipper before her, Reheis-Boyd has become synonymous with her issue in California.

Nancy McFadden

When she was Gov. Jerry Brown’s Chief of Staff, Nancy McFadden was seemingly not only involved in everything, she was in charge of everything. In 2017, after five years in the top three, and just a year before her untimely death from ovarian cancer at age 59, we named her No. 1 on the Top 100 and wrote, “She shapes every major political and policy issue that emerges from the administration and manages the staff to get it done. Whether it’s extending the state’s cap-and-trade program or pushing for new revenue to overhaul the state’s crumbling infrastructure – the two biggest issues of the year for the Brown administration — McFadden was at ground zero when the deals were cut. Indeed, she seems to be everywhere when negotiations reach critical mass, and nothing happens unless McFadden signs off on it.” At the peak of her powers in Sacramento, she was the epitome of the Capitol power player, respected by everyone and yes, at times, feared by some as well. But that emotion was certainly not driven by any Machiavellian bent on her part – McFadden was in fact well known as one of the truly good and affable people around the Capitol community. She worked in and out of both the state and federal government for years, acting as aide to a who’s who of Democratic heavyweights: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Gray Davis. Her stature was so also recognized well beyond California politics: her tragic passing was documented in an obituary in the New York Times. This Hall of Fame is intended for the greats of our community and no one excelled more in the incredibly difficult job of Chief of Staff to the governor than her.