Tech Is Spending Big on California Races. This Bay Area Group Wants You to Know
As voters grow increasingly concerned about artificial intelligence and data centers, a progressive Bay Area nonprofit is spending $1 million to spotlight the influence of Big Tech in California’s legislative elections.
Tech interests are becoming a bigger force in down-ballot races. So far this year, two tech-backed super PACs have already spent more than $24 million boosting mostly moderate Democrats across the state.
Oakland-based TechEquity Action, meanwhile, is rolling out its million-dollar ad campaign this week targeting four districts where it expects tech to spend heavily during the final weeks before the general election. They are the North Bay’s Assembly District 12, Orange County’s Assembly District 68 and Los Angeles County’s Senate Districts 24 and 26.
“We want to make sure that the public understands the role that these tech billionaires and companies are playing in not just elections, but in the lawmaking process, starting with trying to influence who gets put into the Legislature in the first place,” said Catherine Bracy, founder of TechEquity Action.
The money will buy mailers, ads on streaming services and partnerships with social media influencers targeting voters in those districts. TechEquity Action also lobbies in Sacramento for policies that aim to ensure the benefits of tech and AI growth are shared broadly.
“We … have seen very up close how much attention these companies and these billionaires are paying to influence laws in California,” Bracy said.
Grow California, the larger of the two tech-backed super PACs that have poured money into state races this year, is financed by billionaire Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen and billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper. It has spent about $14.5 million so far this election cycle.
California Leads, which has significant funding from Meta and Google, has spent nearly $10 million.
Grow California declined to comment on TechEquity Action’s ad campaign; California Leads did not respond to a request for comment.
Grow California, meanwhile, also launched an ad buy of more than $1 million this week for three of the districts targeted by TechEquity Action.
“Grow California’s mission is to reset the state legislature as a counterforce to the status quo,” Shaudi Fulp, the strategist directing Grow California, said in a statement to KQED.
An ad funded by TechEquity Action for Assembly District 12, the only Northern California race the group is spending in, calls out tech and AI billionaires as the “newest corporate special interests” with an agenda to “replace California jobs with AI, block laws that keep kids safe online and raise electricity and water prices with data centers.”
Bracy said California is where the country’s AI guardrails are most likely to take shape, and her group worries that Big Tech is trying to buy influence over those decisions.
“They’re going to invest whatever they need to invest in order to prevent these guardrails from being established so that they can exploit children, exploit workers, [and] create extremely risky technology that has the potential for existential harms,” she said.
Jackie Elward, a progressive labor-backed candidate running to succeed Assemblymember Damon Connolly in District 12, applauds the group for taking on tech billionaires.
“Good on them to sound the alarm because our constituents need to know,” she said.
In the primary, Grow California spent $750,000 opposing Elward and $300,000 supporting Eric Lucan, a Marin County supervisor also running for the seat, according to independent expenditure reports.
“We’ve seen an extraordinary amount of outside money spending in this race, including significant spending during the primary, when they smeared me,” Elward said. “I think transparency about who is trying to shape the outcome of legislative races is incredibly important.”
Lucan condemned the outside spending in the race on both sides.
“Our democracy and our district deserves better,” Lucan said. “Outside spending, negative campaigning, it really has no place, and it’s something I will never engage in.”
TechEquity Action declined to state who is funding its ad campaign. The group said it is not required to file campaign finance reports because the ads don’t explicitly endorse or oppose candidates.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating an allegation made by a resident of District 12 that TechEquity Action violated state law by not correctly identifying itself on its mailers. The FPPC has not made any determinations yet.
Bruce Raful, a real estate appraiser in San Rafael who donated to Lucan’s campaign, said he filed the complaint after receiving mailers from TechEquity Action.
“One of the things that always gets my goat is dark money,” Raful said. “People ought to be willing to stand up and call it out for what it is.”
Elward said neither she nor her campaign has spoken to anyone from TechEquity Action, but she urges the group to disclose its funders.
“People need to know who they are too, I mean, fairly,” Elward said. “No matter who is spending money in this race or on whose behalf, voters should have the information.”