California lawmakers reported receiving extensive sponsored travel and gifts last year, including international trips and luxury perks, with the disclosures showing that many sponsors also had business before the Legislature, according to financial disclosure reports reviewed by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
The review found that nearly 120 organizations—including nonprofits, corporations, foreign governments, state agencies, tribes and campaigns—spent at least $1.2 million on travel for legislators, most of it sponsored and attended in connection with the lawmakers’ legislative roles. CalMatters reported that the nonprofit sponsors were the largest category of travel providers and that disclosure rules can leave donors unidentified in many cases.
Sean McMorris, a transparency, ethics, and accountability program manager at California Common Cause, said the situation “muddies the water,” arguing that the public needs to know who funds nonprofits that provide travel. He said the nonprofits “didn’t just materialize out of thin air,” and that understanding the sources of funding matters for evaluating sponsored access.
In addition to travel, the filings reviewed by CalMatters and AP described lawmakers receiving an additional $330,000 in gifts from dozens of organizations. Those gifts included dinners at restaurants around the Capitol, suite tickets to professional sports games, tickets to Disneyland, and free massages; the story said some of the same organizations that sponsored trips also provided these gifts.
Under state rules, officials can accept gifts up to $630 from a single source in a given year, with the cap increasing biennially to reflect inflation. The review said officials must refund or donate any amount above the limit, and that they can generally accept unlimited travel sponsored by nonprofits as long as the trips are for governmental or policy reasons.
Details in public filings, however, were often described as broad, CalMatters reported, with some lawmakers revising their disclosures only after CalMatters contacted them about over-the-limit gifts or previously undisclosed trips. Lawmakers and the nonprofit sponsors said the travel is often educational and can inform policymakers’ decisions, while ethics advocates said the perks help interest groups gain private access.
Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, a Downey Democrat, reported more than $45,000 in sponsored travel last year, the most of any lawmaker in the review. CalMatters said her sponsored travel included $16,800 for a study tour to Spain, $5,700 for a policy conference in Maui, and $4,300 for a golf tournament and fundraiser at Pebble Beach, among other trips. Pacheco’s spokesperson, Alina Evans, said the trips helped Pacheco learn about “challenges and solutions affecting California” and informed two measures she introduced this year, including a bill that would allow public agencies to charge a fee if a public records request takes more than two hours and another that would change state workers’ disciplinary process. Evans said, “These trips do not impede her ability to represent her constituents,” adding that they “enhance her understanding of pressing issues by providing the different perspectives on complicated problems.”
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ spokesperson, Nick Miller, said lawmakers “answer to their constituents, not the highest bidder” when asked about the influence of sponsored trips and gifts. Miller said Rivas reported receiving $5,600 in sponsored travel within California and another $4,900 in golf tournament tickets, dinners, jackets and other gifts.
Ethics advocates have criticized sponsored travel for years, arguing that it allows special interest groups to buy access to policymakers that is out of reach for most Californians. McMorris said the public should be able to see the funding behind the access, while Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former staffer in Congress and in the New York Legislature, said special interest groups sponsor trips and luxury treatments because they expect lawmakers to be more receptive in upscale settings than in everyday environments.
Pitney said lawmakers could be spending time and attention on public issues in other ways, asking why special interests take lawmakers to places such as Maui rather than to local communities. In response to lawmakers’ and sponsors’ claims, Pitney also said that while the interaction might not be an explicit quid pro quo, the access still makes it easier for interest groups to get policymakers’ attention.
The review identified major nonprofit sponsors that have funded travel for lawmakers over multiple years. The California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, has taken public officials on international study tours since 1984 and spent at least $324,000 on trips to Spain, Norway, Canada, Utah and California last year that 48 lawmakers attended. The story said the foundation hosts workshops on energy, housing, technology, transportation, water and recycling, and is funded through membership fees from its board, whose representatives include members from Big Tech, labor unions, oil companies, environmental groups, public utilities and local governments.
The foundation does not publicly disclose membership fees, the review said, and it states no single donor contributes more than 2% of the organization’s budget. The story said that in its 2024 tax filings, the group reported $2.6 million in revenue and $2.4 million in expenses. It also said last October the group spent $146,000 to send 10 lawmakers to Spain for 12 days for a study of topics that included wind and solar energy, green hydrogen, low carbon farming and high speed rail, according to the foundation’s website.
The review said the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy also spent $87,000 to take eight lawmakers on a nine-day green energy tour in Norway in April and $38,000 for six lawmakers to go on a weeklong recycling study trip to Vancouver and Victoria, Canada, in August. It said Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat, was part of the Norway delegation but failed to disclose the $12,000 trip; his spokesperson said he will amend his filing after CalMatters reached out.
The foundation’s spokesperson, PJ Johnston, told CalMatters in an email: “We believe that knowledgeable leaders pursuing sound public policies is an aspiration that serves the best interests of all Californians,” and that “If others want to attack that, so be it.”
CalMatters said the Independent Voter Project, a nonprofit that authored the proposition creating California’s top-two primary in 2010, was the second-highest trip sponsor last year. It spent $145,000 hosting 21 lawmakers at its annual policy conference in Maui in November and another $44,000 taking 12 lawmakers to its “Make it with Mexico” conference in July at a four-star resort on the private peninsula of Punta Mita, according to the review. The story said the group is among the few that discloses the donors who sponsor and attend those conferences, and said its 2024 filing described sponsors and representatives from dozens of interest groups.
The review also described a pro-building housing group, California YIMBY, which champions housing policies. It spent more than $56,000 sending four lawmakers to New Zealand and Australia in December through its charitable education fund, according to the story, and Abigail Doerr said the trip focused on officials’ housing supply struggles and zoning reforms, with no donors accompanying officials onto the trip.
Other lawmakers described their own experiences with international tours and policy exchanges. Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Van Nuys Democrat, said she visited four universities in El Salvador last year and introduced a bill this year to allow physicians from El Salvador to provide care in underserved California communities for up to three years. CalMatters said Clínica Romero, a Los Angeles medical clinic, paid $1,307 of her travel costs and sponsored the bill.
“I can’t be in a bubble,” Menjivar said. She said, “I go to other countries or other places where I get to learn and bring back those practices for potential policy introductions.”
The review said perks extended beyond meals and travel and included spa treatments, golfing, and sports and entertainment access. It reported that at least eight lawmakers received free massages or spa treatments valued between $124 and $450 apiece, and said at least eight lawmakers reported accepting free golf, including several at Pebble Beach Golf Links, where the story said a round starts at $675.
Assembly Minority Leader Heath Flora, a Ripon Republican, reported $1,200 in golf expenses while attending the Governor’s Cup Foundation’s annual golf tournament last July, which was paid for by the foundation and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the story said. It also said Assemblymember José Solache and Sen. Tony Strickland reported receiving spa treatments; Strickland’s spokesperson said the senator “inadvertently included” a spa treatment for his wife priced at $124 and would reimburse the cost.
The story said six other Republican lawmakers received free massages from Legislative Action California at the group’s leadership conference in Palos Verdes last September. It said that none of those lawmakers responded to CalMatters questions.
Free tickets also emerged as a common perk. CalMatters said that at least 59 lawmakers reported receiving tickets to sports events, concerts, award ceremonies, fine dining experiences or theme parks. It described a specific example involving Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a San Francisco Democrat, who reported a $630 suite ticket from Blue Shield of California to a December Warriors game. Stefani’s spokesperson Daniel Herzstein said Stefani attended the game at a friend’s invitation and “had no prior knowledge” she would be sitting in a Blue Shield-sponsored suite, and he said the gift did not sway her position. Herzstein said Stefani pressed Blue Shield’s CEO in January about cancer treatment denials for retired firefighters and later demanded a meeting with company executives, adding that the actions were “not the behavior of someone whose judgment has been compromised by a suite ticket she didn’t know she was getting.”
The review also described Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, a Solana Beach Democrat who reported attending 11 sponsored trips last year, who said she is “morally inflexible” and that “There’s no dollar amount that would buy my vote.” Pitney said arguments like that resemble “talking points” he used to write and said interest groups may not try to buy votes directly, but that their sponsorship buys easier access to lawmakers.
“(The lawmakers) are denying that there is an explicit quid pro quo, and in nearly all cases, there is no quid pro quo,” Pitney said. He added that ordinary citizens “don’t have the luxury of schmoozing with lawmakers in luxury settings.”
CalMatters also said it was difficult to determine exactly who bankrolled the nonprofits’ events and access. Under a 2015 law, nonprofits must disclose donors only if they meet certain thresholds for sponsoring trips and officials’ travel spending. The review said that nonprofits generally must disclose donors only if they spend more than $10,000 on sponsored trips or at least $5,000 on one official’s trip and if travel spending makes up at least a third of the organization’s total expenses that year.
Many groups, the review said, meet the first threshold but not the second, and an audit last year prompted by CalMatters’ reporting found that nonprofits with significant donor activities were often exempt. CalMatters reported that the Fair Political Practices Commission is sponsoring legislation this year to eliminate the second criterion and broaden donor disclosure.
Assembly Bill 1788, authored by Boerner, would remove the one-third expense threshold and require more nonprofits to disclose, the story said. It would also require those nonprofits to report itemized spending for each official’s trip and to retain detailed records for an unspecified period, according to the review. Boerner said, “If you have nothing to hide, there’s no problem disclosing more.”