Mei’s biggest supporters are charter school advocates and DaVita. Opportunity PAC, a committee funded by teachers’ unions, SEIU and other organized labor umbrella groups, has spent more than $663,000 opposing her.
Keeping Californians Working, one of the groups boosting Mei, isn’t funded by a single source or industry group, but represents several different spenders. California law requires the committee to list its top three contributors from the prior 12 months who have donated more than $50,000. In the case of Keep Californians Working, that’s Farmers Group, a PAC funded by employees of the Farmers Insurance company, Uber and Edison International.
That lack of transparency has its benefits for funders, said Dan Schnur, a political analyst who teaches at USC and who used to lead the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s campaign finance regulator. But if voters don’t know who funds the IEs, the candidates do. “The candidate is going to care a lot more about who funds these efforts than the average voter. So they’re going to know and they’re going to remember.”From a candidate’s perspective, a flood of friendly spending from outside groups has its obvious benefits. But it can also come with its costs., Democrat Angelique Ashby has been the beneficiary of nearly $2 million in spending by oil and gas companies and utilities.