Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to pay a $13,000 fine Friday for failing to report on time over a dozen charitable payments made at his request by notable foundations and businesses, including Microsoft, Amazon and T-Mobile, between 2018 and 2024.
California’s political ethics law requires elected officials to report donations made on their behalf within 30 days. On 18 occasions, the Fair Political Practices Commission said, Newsom and his 2018 campaign committee failed to make those reports on time, often submitting them several months late.
The commission noted that Newsom, having served in public office for more than 25 years, should have known better than to lose track of what amounted to more than $14 million in payments. Newsom has filed more than 1,100 such reports since 2011, totaling over $300 million, and eventually filed all the reports before being confronted by enforcement officials.
One payment from T-Mobile was more than $12 million — others ranged from $5,000 up to almost $500,000 from Amazon. Newsom’s campaign said some filings were late because it had to rely on third parties to track the necessary filing information.
“There is inherent public harm in non-disclosure of the payments because the public is deprived of important information and deprived of the timely opportunity to scrutinize the payments,” the FPPC wrote in its settlement agreement with the governor.
The commission did not fine Newsom for missing deadlines on several payments he requested to help the state during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is common for elected officials to ask companies to make charitable donations to specific organizations, and such payments are not subject to the limits that apply to direct campaign donations. The reporting requirements are meant to allow timely public scrutiny over these “behested payments,” which might be an attempt to curry favor with elected officials.
Concerns were raised when Newsom reported requested payments that were six times as much in 2020 as those reported by former Gov. Jerry Brown over his final eight years in office combined.
A Newsom spokesperson defended the governor’s record of soliciting charitable donations.
“This work, connecting private resources to public needs, is what we need more of across government,” Nathan Click said in a statement.
Click noted that Newsom has filed a thousand other reports on time, and said, “Many of these identified in the report were filed only a few weeks late and due to delayed notification of receipt of payment by the recipients.”
