The Top 100 Hall of Fame 2026

Carmela Coyle

Carmela Coyle, the president and CEO of the California Hospital Association since 2017, is planning to retire early next year, making now a good time to induct her into the Top 100 Hall of Fame. Coyle has steered the association’s roughly 400 hospitals through an unprecedented decade of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and massive cuts to federal Medicaid spending, not to mention the state’s perpetual lack of healthcare workers and the never-ending financial distress of its rural hospitals. Coyle played a major role in the 2024 victory of Prop. 35, which made permanent a tax on managed healthcare insurance plans to fund Medi-Cal services. She came to California after leading the Maryland Hospital Association for nine years. There, she played a key role in recasting the hospital payment system, making it value based. Before that, she spent two decades in senior policy positions with the American Hospital Association, including 11 years as its Senior Vice President of Policy. She rose to a member of the AHA’s executive management team, which lead policy development for the nation’s hospitals. And before all of that, she spent six years at the Congressional Budget Office, where she advised members of Congress and their aides about the fiscal implications of legislation. In April, Coyle received the 2026 AHA Board of Trustees Award for her contributions to the AHA and the healthcare field in general. We think that’s fitting after roughly 40 years of championing hospitals here and across the nation. Enjoy retirement, Carmela.

Robbie Hunter

Before he retired in 2021, Robbie Hunter was widely considered one of the most powerful labor figures in the state. That sure sounds like a Top 100 Hall of Famer, doesn’t it? For nearly nine years, Hunter served as the president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, which is affiliated with unions representing 450,000 workers. Hunter first appeared on the Top 100 in 2013, at No. 55. Two years later, he was in the top 10 and remained there through the duration of his career. The last time he appeared on the list, in 2021, he was No. 6 — the highest ranked labor leader. Before his election to the state council, Hunter served as Executive Secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council. He apprenticed as a steel erector working in the Harland & Wolff shipyards, where his great-grandfather John Quinn was a union organizer (and built cranes for the Titanic). Hunter’s world was rooted in unions and his Irish heritage: his great-grandpappy used to regale him with stories about the famed Irish labor leader James Connolly sleeping on the family couch. Fearless and hard charging, Hunter had no compunction about picking fights, like when he called out Newsom for booting him off of a work commission or when he smacked Capitol Weekly for inviting a speaker he didn’t like to one of our forums. He was a classic labor leader through and through.

Paula Treat

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

Artistic sorts among you might recognize this line spoken by the character Helena in Shakespeare’s classic play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Helena is referring to her friend Hermia, but she just as well could be describing Paula Treat. Because whatever she lacks in size, Treat more than makes up for in guts, guile and most of all, smarts. And brother, you don’t survive as a solo operator in the lobbying world for more than half a century without plenty of all three. Although her career has also taken her to Washington D.C. and Carson City, it has been in the Capitol where Treat has carved out her reputation as a tireless coalition builder and champion for her clients. She has represented a wide array of groups – perhaps none more effectively than her work for California’s tribal governments – but her impact has been so much more than that. She has also been an incredible trailblazer. Hers was one of the first woman-run lobbying shops around, making her an inspiration and often a mentor for the growing number of women-owned firms that now dot the Capitol landscape. That is a big deal because for most of her career the third house was not a welcoming environment for women. Treat’s longevity – and to be clear, she’s not done yet, not by a long shot – is a testament not only to her skill as a lobbyist but her strength and courage in lighting the way for others to follow.

Bob White’s legendary career in California politics began an astounding 58 years ago, when Ronald Reagan was governor. In 1968, after serving in the U.S. Coast Guard, White joined the Sacramento staff of a first-term Republican assemblymember, a fellow by the name of Pete Wilson. What happened next is the stuff of Golden State political lore. White became Wilson’s most important advisor and confidant, and the pair rose through the political ranks together. White moved to San Diego in the early ‘70s when Wilson was elected mayor. Then he moved out east in the early ‘80s when Wilson became a U.S. Senator. Then they came back to Sacramento in the early ‘90s when Wilson became governor. By the time White unexpectedly resigned as Wilson’s Chief of Staff in 1997, he was an undisputed giant of California politics. But in many ways, you could argue that was all just a prelude to his second act, as the founder and chair of one of the largest and most successful lobbying firms in state history, California Strategies. CalStrat is a colossus, with receipts of more than $2 million for each of the last 19 consecutive quarters. The firm’s reach is so wide and deep, it’s allowed White to remain as influential in Sacramento as he was as the governor’s Chief of Staff — if not more so. From his perch in the third house, he became one of the first people to work with Arnold Schwarzenegger in politics, serving as a key strategist for the movie star’s after-school initiative Prop. 49 in 2002. The following year, White became Schwarzenegger’s campaign manager during the historic recall of Gov. Gray Davis that propelled the Hollywood icon to Horseshoe. It’s not at all a stretch to say White has his fingerprints on many of the most consequential events in California politics over the past half century, particularly when Republican interests held more sway.

Scott Lay

Scott Lay got his start in politics while a teenager at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. In 1991 he met Paul Mitchell in a speech class, and the two soon cofounded a College Democrats chapter – a show of youthful optimism at a time when Orange County was the heart of “Reagan Country.” Lay made other connections there, including future Lincoln Party cofounder Mike Madrid and future California Medical Association CEO Dustin Corcoran. Lay, who didn’t graduate high school due to health issues but later got his GED, turned his passion for education into a career, working at the Community College League of California for nearly 20 years, including eight as president. But it was for his work as a journalist and political gadfly for which he was best known. With journalist Anthony York, Lay launched The Roundup, a pithy daily email about California politics, in 2004. A decade later he created The Nooner newsletter, which quickly became a must-read for anyone involved in state politics, and turned to publishing full time. A generation of staffers learned how things work from Lay and The Nooner. Scott Lay’s official resume – legislative advocate, lawyer, CEO, journalist – does not present the measure of the man. Beyond whatever was on his business card, Lay was the ultimate capitol insider. He had every phone number, he knew every scandal (before it broke) and his understanding of the political process, including the all-important human element, was unparalleled. In his final Top 100 bio we wrote, “If there is a person who lives and breathes capitol politics and intrigue more deeply than Scott, we don’t know them.” He was one of a kind.

Allan Zaremberg

For nearly a quarter century, Allan Zaremberg served as the de facto face of business for the state of California, home to the fourth largest economy in the world. Before he retired as president and CEO of the California Chamber of Commerce at the end of 2021, he appeared in the first 13 Top 100 lists, never missing one in which he was eligible. He epitomizes the kind of Capitol titans we seek to enshrine in the Capitol Weekly Top 100 Hall of Fame. But he was also unique, the rare Sacramento power player with a steadfast allegiance to the GOP. A Pennsylvania native,  Zaremberg graduated from Penn State with a bachelor’s of economics before embarking on a five-year stint as an Air Force captain and flight navigator on a KC-135 jet air refueling tanker. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in 1978, then went to work for Attorney General George Deukmejian. Zaremberg followed his boss to the governor’s office, then stayed on for a time working for his successor, Pete Wilson. For six years, Zaremberg served as Executive Vice President and head of CalChamber’s legislative advocacy program before ascending to the organization’s top spot in 1998. In his role as the leader of California’s business interests, he developed a reputation as a pragmatist who was willing to work across the aisle as well as an expert of spin, with the Chamber’s labeling of bills it disliked as “Job Killers.” When he announced his retirement, Donna Lucas, a member of the Capitol Weekly Top 100 Hall of Fame herself, called
Zaremberg’s work “legendary.”