Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Mona Pasquil Rogers

No. 77 Mona Pasquil Rogers

You might have heard tech is having a moment in the Legislature. Or a string of moments adding up to several years of growing influence throughout government. Much – but certainly not all – of the hubbub is around the mega-issues of AI, social media protections for young people, and data privacy. Not surprisingly, Meta (Facebook) Director of California Public Policy Mona Pasquil Rogers has a hand in all of it. Which isn’t always fun. After all, everybody says they hate Facebook and they never use it…except for all the times they do. It has in fact become ubiquitous in our lives. Unless you’re under 30, and then it’s TikTok, but that’s a whole other discussion. In any case, her job is to keep lawmakers and Meta giving each other lots of likes. And she is quite good at it. Which is not surprising given how steeped in politics and policy she has been for decades, including being the Appointments Secretary for both Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown. The rest of her CV is also incredible – suffice to say she is one of the most respected and influential people in the Capitol sphere, and will be until our AI robotic overlords render us obsolete.

Updated Aug. 26, 2025