{"id":178112,"date":"2026-02-14T16:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178112\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T16:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:47:07","slug":"who-pays-for-newsoms-travel-hint-its-not-always-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178112\/","title":{"rendered":"Who pays for Newsom’s travel? Hint: It’s not always taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Gov. Gavin Newsom sat onstage at the Munich Security Conference in Germany<\/a> on Friday and described one of the primary ways he is responding as the Trump administration shifts federal climate priorities.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m showing up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In recent months, that has meant trips to Brazil, Switzerland <\/a>and now Germany, where he has repeatedly positioned California as a global climate partner. The travel has also revived a recurring question from critics and watchdog groups: Who pays for those trips?<\/p>\n

In many cases, the costs are not borne by taxpayers. The governor\u2019s office said his international travel is paid for by the California State Protocol Foundation, a nonprofit that is funded primarily by corporate donations and run by a board Newsom appoints. <\/p>\n

For decades, California governors have relied on nonprofits to pick up the tab for official travel, diplomatic events and other costs that would otherwise be paid with taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Foundation\u2019s mission is to lessen the burden on California taxpayers by reimbursing appropriate expenses associated with advancing the state\u2019s economic and diplomatic interests,\u201d said Jason Elliott, a former high-ranking advisor to Newsom, who the governor added to the foundation\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

While the arrangement helps the state\u2019s pocketbook, critics say it is another avenue for corporate interests to gain influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with the protocol foundation and others like it is that donors to these foundations receive access to the politicians whose travel they fund,\u201d said Carmen Balber, executive director of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.<\/p>\n

When did nonprofits start paying for gubernatorial travel?<\/p>\n

The protocol foundation was created as a tax-exempt charity during Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s administration in 2004. <\/p>\n

Similar nonprofits have existed since Gov. George Deukmejian created one in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, Gov. Gray Davis dramatically increased the use of nonprofits to cover travel, housing and political events.<\/a> <\/p>\n

When Schwarzenegger left office, his supporters turned the protocol foundation over to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown\u2019s backers, who in turn handed it over to Newsom\u2019s camp. The foundation describes its mission in federal tax filings as \u201crelieving the State of California of its obligations to fund certain expenditures of the Governor\u2019s Office.\u201d <\/p>\n

Newsom appoints members to the foundation board, which then is responsible for determining what expenses to cover in the governor\u2019s office. In its most recent tax filing covering 2024, the foundation lists its board chair as Steve Kawa, who served as Newsom\u2019s chief of staff when he was mayor of San Francisco. The foundation\u2019s secretary in those filings is Jim DeBoo, who was Newsom\u2019s chief of staff in the governor\u2019s office until 2022.<\/p>\n

The foundation reported total revenue of $1.3 million in 2024 and, after expenses, had a balance of less than $8,000.<\/p>\n

What is the foundation paying for?<\/p>\n

Publicly available records are vague, but annual financial disclosure forms show the foundation paid more than $13,000 for the governor\u2019s 2024 trip to Italy, where he delivered a speech on climate change at the Vatican.<\/a> <\/p>\n

That same year, the foundation paid nearly $4,000 for his trip to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of Mexico\u2019s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. The cost of both trips included flights, hotel and meals for his \u201cofficial travel,\u201d according to the disclosure records, which are filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission and known as Form 700s. <\/p>\n

Newsom has reported receiving $72,000 in travel, staff picnics and holiday events from the protocol foundation since he took office in 2019, according to the disclosures.<\/p>\n

The foundation paid $15,200 for the governor\u2019s 2023 trip to China,<\/a> where he visited five cities in seven days during an agenda packed with meetings, sightseeing and celebrations, including a private tour of the Forbidden City. <\/p>\n

In 2020, the foundation paid $8,800 for Newsom to travel to Miami for Super Bowl LIV \u2014 where he said he was representing the state as the San Francisco 49ers faced the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s office said it did not yet have the amount picked up by the foundation for Newsom\u2019s travel to Brazil <\/a>to attend the United Nations climate summit known as COP30 or to Switzerland for the World Economic Summit.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Who are the donors behind the foundation?<\/p>\n

In some cases, the well-heeled funders behind the foundation\u2019s cash flow are easy to identify on state websites. <\/p>\n

Donations to the foundation that are solicited directly or indirectly by Newsom are recorded with the Fair Political Practices Commission as behested payments.<\/a> A behested payment occurs when an elected official solicits or suggests that a person or organization give to another person or organization for a legislative, governmental or charitable purpose.<\/p>\n

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $300,000 in a 2023 behested payment earmarked for the California delegation traveling to China for the meetings on climate change. UC Berkeley gave $220,000 for the governor\u2019s office\u2019s trip to the Vatican in 2024. <\/p>\n

Most donations simply indicate that they are directed for \u201cgeneral operating support\u201d of the foundation. That includes two donations from the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox Inc. cumulatively worth $80,000. <\/p>\n

Two charities set up to pay for Newsom\u2019s inaugurations in 2019 and 2023 moved more than $5 million to the protocol foundation since 2019. The financial backers behind those inaugural charities include powerful unions, corporations, tribal casino interests, trade associations and healthcare giants \u2014 organizations with significant financial stakes in state policy decisions.<\/p>\n

Past spending by the foundation has been criticized<\/p>\n

During Schwarzenegger\u2019s administration, his office avoided fully disclosing $1.7 million in travel costs paid for by the foundation, instead relying on vague internal memos and, in some cases, oral accounting, according to a 2007 Los Angeles Times investigation.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Schwarzenegger\u2019s expenses picked up by the foundation included leased Gulfstream jets costing up to $10,000 per hour and suites going for thousands of dollars a night. The Times\u2019 investigation found among the costs was $353,000 for a single round trip to China on a private jet in 2005.<\/p>\n

The foundation also paid for Schwarzenegger\u2019s travels to Japan, Europe, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

At the time, Schwarzenegger\u2019s representatives told The Times the governor did not have to report the travel costs on his annual disclosure forms because the payments for the jets and suites were gifts to his office, not to him.<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s office said the governor travels commercially, not on private jets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Gov. Gavin Newsom sat onstage at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday and described one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[84658,7,9,8,84657,83273,1750,6386,943,2458,3290,5751,346,25297,5560,9577,2422,5988],"class_list":{"0":"post-178112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-appropriate-expense","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-california-state-protocol-foundation","13":"tag-corporate-donation","14":"tag-cost","15":"tag-foundation","16":"tag-governor","17":"tag-mexico-city","18":"tag-newsom","19":"tag-nonprofit","20":"tag-office","21":"tag-schwarzenegger","22":"tag-staff","23":"tag-taxpayer","24":"tag-travel","25":"tag-trip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}