By Jeremia Kimelman, CalMatters

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Illustration by Gabriel Hongsdusit, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

For the record: An earlier version of this article contained a number of erroneous characterizations and conclusions based on an incorrect interpretation of campaign finance data. The article has been corrected to reflect that Prop. 50 is not the third most expensive campaign in state history. The article has also been updated to reflect that MoveOn.org is not among the top five donors to support the measure, but the California Nurses Association is. An incorrect reference to the amount of small-dollar donations by the House Majority PAC has been removed. The story has also been updated with new contribution data that changes the list of top opposition donors, which now includes Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan. Other totals have been adjusted accordingly. Read a detailed methodology of CalMatters’ data analysis.

The fight over changing congressional districts in California to favor Democrats has already become one of the most expensive ballot measures in recent state history.

The official campaigns supporting and opposing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 reported raising more than $140 million as of Oct. 8.

The campaign to support Prop. 50, led by Newsom, raised nearly $99 million with $12 million, or about 10% of the total, coming from donors who gave less than $100. Five major donors collectively contributed a little more than $30 million. They were:

$10.99 million: House Majority PAC, a SuperPAC focused on electing Democrats to Congress;

$10 million: George Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform, which focuses on drug policy and electoral reform, according to IRS filings;

$3.3 million: The California Teachers Association, a powerful union with close ties to Democrats;

$3.3 million: The California Nurses Association, another large union that often contributes to Democratic campaigns;

$3 million: The National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country that gives overwhelmingly to Democrats.

Newsom also transferred $2.6 million from his 2022 gubernatorial campaign. More than 66,000 unique contributors gave money to the “Yes” campaign, according to a CalMatters analysis of data from the California Secretary of State.

The groups opposing the redistricting measure are relying on two major donors who gave more than 90% of the $41 million raised for their campaign. They have a smaller share of small donors, raising $8,300 from people who gave less than $100. Below are the top five donors:

$33 million: Charles Munger Jr., who contributed to the original ballot measure that created the independent redistricting commission;

$5 million: The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super PAC controlled by Republican leadership in Congress;

$1 million: Kevin McCarthy, former Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who transferred the money from his campaign account, far less the $100 million he said he would raise a few weeks ago;

$1 million: Thomas Siebel, a Bay Area billionaire businessman who is related to First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom;

$300,000: Jim Jordan, a Republican Congressman from Ohio.

Other groups unaffiliated with the campaigns are spending money, too. At least 25 organizations spent more than $1.5 million in support through ad buys and outreach, while at least 14 groups spent more than $640,000 in opposition.

Newsom proposed the ballot measure after the Trump administration pressured the state of Texas to gerrymander its congressional districts in a way that would flip five Democratic seats to Republican in the upcoming 2026 midterm election. 

Newsom needs voter approval because Californians created an Independent Redistricting Commission through a 2008 ballot measure. Prop. 50 would suspend the maps drawn by that independent commission until 2030.

Methodology

Our analysis is based on data downloaded from the California Secretary of State’s Power Search website on Oct. 8. Campaign committees that are on the same side of an issue can transfer money between each other, potentially leading to double counts of contributions. We manually excluded financial data by the federal counterparts of California-based PACs that are required to be disclosed as contributions by state law but are the amounts the federal PACs raised nationally, not necessarily specific to Prop. 50. We then standardized contributor names and aggregated contributions to come up with total contributions. 

We asked the Secretary of State’s office about differences between its reported totals and the amounts reported by the committees when contacted directly. Laura Schultz, a staffer at the agency’s Political Reform Division, referred us to a law that prescribes how the total contributions should be calculated on the website.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.