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Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Jennifer Barrera

Illustration by Chris Shary

20. Jennifer Barrera

Jennifer Barrera, president and chief executive officer of the California Chamber of Commerce, commands the state’s most powerful pro-business political group. The chamber has the money and the resources to move legislation in the Capitol, nurture like-minded political candidates, shape campaigns and attend to the needs of business. The Chamber still maintains its “job killer” list of largely Democratic bills that, it contends, are throttling businesses and working folk. (According to CalMatters, only 7 percent of the bills that the chamber puts on the list are signed into law without significant changes that benefit businesses.) Barrera has been with the chamber for 13 years and knows it inside out. She worked on key chamber concerns and led the advocacy on labor, employment and taxation, serving as a senior policy advocate. (She was on the Top 100 list back then too.) Barrera earned a B.A. in English from California State University, Bakersfield, and a J.D. with high honors from California Western School of Law.

Updated Aug. 15, 2023

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