Ex-Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, named California Secretary of State by Gov. Newsom, continues her fearsome fundraising drive to hold onto the seat when she comes for election next year.

Mean tweets about Nathan

San Diego Assembly Democrat Lorena Gonzalez, the putative front-runner in the California Secretary of State race until Shirley Weber’s appointment to the post by Gavin Newsom, has gone quiet on fundraising. However, she continues to hand out previously raised cash. The three latest recipients include Assembly Democratic hopeful Isaac Bryan of Los Angeles and Assembly candidate Malia Vella, the vice mayor of Alameda. Both got $4900 on May 10 from Gonzalez’s remaining 2020 reelection campaign kitty. Keeping things personal, on February 2 Gonzalez gave $4900 to the 79th Assembly campaign of Leticia Munguia. The latter went down in flames against Weber’s daughter Akilah Weber in an April 6 special election to fill Weber’s former seat in the legislature.

Nathan Fletcher: “I’m making lemonade”

Meanwhile, Gonzalez’s husband, Democratic County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, has a new fundraising pitch for his 2022 reelection campaign. “Twitter trolls are just a reality of public life. However, I choose to live by a ‘when-life-gives-you-lemons’ philosophy,” he says in a recent email to would-be givers. “In this case, I’m making lemonade out of some downright mean tweets. Watch me tackle my haters head on with another installment of ‘Mean Messages.’” Explains the missive, “Republicans are eyeing Nathan’s seat on the County Board of Supervisors and even tried to stir up a recall campaign over the summer.”

According to a February 1 disclosure, in 2020 Fletcher raised a total of $140,534 for the 2022 race, including $1500 from La Jolla’s Dave Alberga, who is on the board of drone warfare contractor Citadel Defense and a top bundler for President Joe Biden. According to an April 27 report by the website NationalDefense.com, Citadel “recently received a multi-million-dollar contract from the Pentagon for its artificial intelligence-based counter-unmanned aerial system technology.” Christine Cernosia, who shares an address with Alberga, gave $1500.

Oakland’s Mary Quinn Delaney, who with husband Wayne Jordan was an early backer of Barack Obama, came up with $1700. San Diego attorney Dan Gilleon, who gave the same, has represented an ex-congressional intern who accused School Board member Kevin Beiser of sodomy. Gilleon obtained a $1.5 million settlement on behalf of 17 strippers caught up in a police raid in another case. Dallas financier Don McNamara and Irvine-based developer Poonam Patel kicked in the same.

The Sacramento insider crowd also made significant contributions, likely reflecting Fletcher’s matrimonial link to Gonzalez. Lobbyists Bob Giroux and Kelly Jensen, along with Sacramento political fundraiser David Pruitt each gave $1700. Another $1700 giver was Julie Green Sloat of Sacramento. Corporate records show she has been a manager of Onpoint Public Affairs, LLC, of which lobbyist Kevin Sloat has also been a manager. In 2014, Sloat was fined $133,500 by the state Fair Political Practices Commission for illegally furnishing legislators with sports tickets, flowers, booze, and cigars. He’s not down for a gift to Fletcher, but Moira Topp, a lobbyist with Sloat Higgins Jensen & Associates, gave $850 on August 12.

Ann Ravel: former campaign fund overseer gives $8100 to another fund overseer

Weber’s cash cows

Ex-Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, named California Secretary of State by Gov. Newsom, continues her fearsome fundraising drive to hold onto the seat when she comes for election next year. One of the latest to give to the San Diego Democrat’s cause is the Senate 2024 campaign of Ann Ravel, the ex-Federal Election Commissioner formerly head of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, making the $8100 May 11 contribution a gift from one campaign regulator to another. (As California secretary of state, Weber now regulates state campaign disclosure filings.)

On April 30, Darren Robbins of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd kicked in $5000. The law firm has been making anti-utility waves in Ohio as the lead counsel in a five-shareholder class action case against the state’s largest electric utility, First Energy Corp. The company faces a scandal involving an alleged $60 million bribery scheme to get state legislators to bail out two nuclear power plants. “It’s not very often you have facts compelling enough for the speaker of a statehouse to be taken into custody,” Robbins told the Associated Press in December regarding the federal busts of Larry Householder and four others. On April 10, the Smart Justice California Action Fund came up with $8100. Founded by Anne Irwin, the group is backing campaigns to save the job of San Francisco City Attorney Chesa Boudin, facing a recall effort. Irwin gave $11,000 to Boudin, with Smart Justice contributing $15,000, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

— Matt Potter

(@sdmattpotter)

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