California’s Oligarchy

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

“It is an American oligarchy,” Gov. Gavin Newsom accused the Trump administration.

But it’s California’s Democrat elite who much more closely resemble an oligarchy. Take Gov. Newsom, the son of Judge William Alfred Newsom III a friend and lawyer of the Getty clan, whose father Newsom II had been a crooked political machine man who financed and ran future Gov. Pat Brown’s campaign. Gov. Pat Brown held down two terms in office. His son, Gov. Jerry Brown also held two terms and his daughter, Kathleen Brown became the State Treasurer.

Newsom II’s daughter, Barbara Newsom-Pelosi, married Ron Pelosi, the brother of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for twelve years. Newsom III, Gavin’s dad, and Ron Pelosi both ran for state senate. And Rep. Nancy Pelosi is the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr, a congressman and the 41st mayor of Baltimore and the sister of Thomas D’Alesandro III, the 44th mayor of Baltimore.

The Newsom-Pelosi families made a good deal of their money from a crooked arrangement with Gov. Pat Brown’s administration in which Newsom II and John Pelosi, Nancy’s father-in-law, partnered together on a former 1960 Winter Olympics site that was summed up as California

“paying for everything and getting nothing.” Pat’s son Jerry then appointed Gavin’s father to a judgeship and Gavin later replaced Brown as governor of California.

Democracy might be the formal identity of the state’s political system and the party that dominates it, but it’s as inappropriate a term when applied to California politics as it is when applied to North Korea. California isn’t a democracy: it’s much more aptly an oligarchy.

The convoluted relationship of the Newsom and Pelosi families is all too typical in California and is filled with enough drama to make up a dozen seasons of a Mexican soap opera.

Take the Calderon family. Assemblyman Tom Calderon passed the seat on to his brother Ron. Sen. Ron Calderon later joined his brother Sen. Charles Calderon, a former assemblyman who became a state senator, in the state senate. Ron and Tom were busted by the FBI on various bribery charges. Former Sen. Charles Calderon’s son Ian then served in the State Assembly. He was in turn replaced by Charles’ wife, Lisa Calderon, and Ian’s stepmother, who had formerly worked for Willie Brown.

Sen. Ron Calderon, who had formerly chaired the Senate Insurance Commission, was replaced by Sen. Susan Rubio, a former illegal alien also reportedly also under federal investigation. Susan used to be married to former Assemblyman Roger Hernandez. Then Susan accused Roger of domestic abuse and while his political career collapsed, in a move worthy of the Borgias, her sister, Blanca, stepped cooly and neatly into Roger’s old seat.

Former State Sen. Mark Ridley Thomas, a Mayor Karen Bass crony, was found guilty in a bribery and fraud scheme on behalf of his son, former Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas who had been forced to resign after sexual harassment complaints.

“Yes, having a parent can help significantly open doors, but you have to be able to walk through those doors,” Sebastian Ridley-Thomas had claimed.

By some estimates, 10% of California’s legislators are family members of other legislators so it seems as if quite a few sons, daughters and spouses (Assemblywoman Mia Bonta is the wife of Attorney General Rob Bonta who was a former member of the Assembly), not to mention sisters and brothers, nephews and nieces, along with sons-in-law keep walking through that open door.

Take State Sen. Dave Cortese who is the son of Assemblyman Dominic Cortese.

Or take the Papan and Mullin families in San Francisco. After the district was held by Assemblyman Lou Papan ‘the Dean of the Assembly’ and Assemblyman Gene Mullin, the district went to Kevin Mullin, Gene’s son, who was then succeeded by Diane Papan, Lou’s daughter. This is a level of political incest that the Hapsburghs might have been ashamed of.

Then head on over to Fresno where Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, the son of Assemblyman Juan Arambula who held the same district, survived a trial on charges of wilful cruelty to a child. Arambula II had replaced Assemblyman Henry Perea whose father Henry R. Perea was a member of Fresno’s Board of Supervisors.

Last year, a local news outlet celebrated the fact that three members of Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria’s family were running for various offices. “Four Valley Siblings Running for Office. Are the Sorias a California Political Dynasty in the Making?” the headline cheered, claiming that the Sorias are “living the American Dream.” This seems less like the American Dream and more like the California of the old Dons dominated by powerful clans.

California Democrats don’t have a democracy, from the top on down, they have an oligarchy run by clans with longstanding relationships where family members rise to political power. Or as the Los Angeles Times summed up the transition from Gov. Jerry Brown to Gov. Gavin Newsom, “Brown and Newsom are members of a political fraternity that dominated their shared hometown of San Francisco for much of the 20th century.”

And as the Pelosi and Newsom clans remind us, California’s oligarchy doesn’t stay in California.

Some may remember the pre-9/11 scandal that engulfed Congressman Gary Condit over the disappearance of an intern he had been having an affair with. While Rep. Gary Condit’s career ended, his son Chad ran unsuccessfully for office, a number of his grandsons have gone into politics, and his son-in-law Rep. Adam Gray is now in Congress. Sometimes having a different last name helps.

No amount of scandals or sleaze stops California’s political clans. They may skip a generation, but they always rebound because their power comes from powerful families, not the people.

What does California’s future hold? Almost certainly more incestuous political oligarchy.

And the ultimate pureblooded dynastic heir of California oligarchy may be California Speaker Pro Tempore Josh Lowenthal. Josh’s father, Alan Lowenthal was the former assembly member, state senator and Congressman Alan Lowenthal, while his mother was Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal. With that kind of pedigree, whoever his children are, they will inherit California.

Unless a Newsom or a Pelosi gets in there first. 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading.

 

Fight Oligarchy by Funding Bernie’s Private Jet

By Daniel Greenfield, @ Sultan Knish Blog

For only $27, you can buy a ‘Tax the Rich’ t-shirt and help an elderly progressive millionaire fly around the country to campaign against the oligarchy from the luxury of a private jet.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has been touring the country on his ‘Fighting Oligarchy Tour’ in which the elderly senator and assorted socialist sidekicks like AOC hold rallies in liberal areas to denounce big business…while doing some pretty big business.

Earlier this year, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is 83 years old, filed to run for reelection in 2030 to be able to take office at the age of 89, and hold it until he is well in his mid 90s. Aspiring to spend nearly half a century in the halls of Congress would seem like evidence of oligarchy.

But despite having a campaign date in 2030, Bernie quickly shot to the no. 2 spot in current year campaign spending. Over $1 million went to Aisle 518 Strategies, a ‘progressive’ campaign operation created by Tim Tagaris, Bernie’s former senior advisor and digital fundraising director, for digital advertising, but as capitalists would say, you have to spend money to make money.

Over $220,000 went to private jet firms including $102K to Cirrus Aviation, which claims to have a “fleet of 30 luxury jets”, $80K to Ventura Jets, which describes itself as “New York’s Premier Luxury Jet Charter Service”, and $38K to N-Jet which pitches potential customers on “a flying experience that’s all about you in your luxury aircraft.” The social media accounts for the private jet charter firms show very wealthy people like Bernie enjoying a luxurious lifestyle.

A video clip appears to show AOC and Bernie dismounting from a Challenger 604 jet. This $5 million jet is usually used for international flights, rather than local travel the way that the two socialist politicians were using it, and offers “the ultimate experience in luxury air travel” allowing passengers to enjoy “the same comforts that one would expect at home or at a Five-Star hotel.”

Does Bernie Sanders really hate billionaires or does he just want to be one? With three houses and a net worth of over $2 million, Bernie has amassed enough to make him greedy for more.

But the most troubling thing about Bernie may be his own private little oligarchy.

The Sanders Institute was co-founded by Bernie’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, previously under FBI investigation over the collapse of Burlington College over allegations of bank fraud along with a sweetheart deal for her daughter, Carina Driscoll, a perennial political candidate.

The other co-founder and CEO of the Sanders Institute is David Driscoll, Bernie’s stepson and Jane’s son, who has been paid an estimated $800,000 for his services after previously working for Burton Snowboards: a snowboarding company owned by a Bernie supporter. Its only other officially listed employee is Shana Frahm, Jane’s press secretary, who had also worked for Burton Snowboards. Jane serves as a ‘fellow’ but her compensation has not been disclosed.

The Sanders Institute is officially a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but its funding comes from the Bernie Sanders campaign which kicked it off with a $350,000 donation in 2020, since then $755,000 has been moved from the Sanders campaign into the Sanders Institute.

Between 2023-2024, the Sanders Institute was the second largest recipient of cash from ‘Friends of Bernie Sanders’ after his actual 2020 campaign. And this campaign cash also made up a sizable share and occasionally the majority of the money funding the Sanders Institute.

These payments to an organization founded by Bernie Sanders family members, which employs his family members, and exists to promote him were described by the campaign as a “charitable donation” even though they were obviously providing a sizable benefit to the Sanders family.

That’s part of a long history of Bernie figuring out ways to move campaign funds to his family, including creating a department run by his wife, when he served as mayor of Burlington. When he ran for Congress, she took a sizable cut of his donations by acting as his media buyer, and put her daughter on his staff.

Things escalated when Sanders backed a proposal to move nuclear waste from Vermont to a small town in Texas and to add insult to injury, Jane, despite no apparent qualification, was appointed to a paying position as an alternate commissioner for the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission.

There is an inescapable pattern with Bernie’s campaigns going back decades. Between 2003 and 2004, Leadership Strategies, a consulting firm where Jane served as CEO, was the second largest recipient of Bernie’s campaign spending. The tenth was his stepdaughter. In 2016, when Sen. Bernie Sanders suddenly became a national figure, $82 million poured into a mysterious company for media buys linked to Jane’s associates. Nearly every listed job for Bernie’s wife involved benefits from his offices as mayor, congressman, senator and political candidate.

How much of that money did Bernie benefit from? He hasn’t been transparent about it.

But why does an 83-year-old man file in 2025 to run for office in 2030? Why does he go on a tour around the country? One answer is that the Sanders Institute isn’t going to fund itself.

The ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour claims that it’s “scaring the hell out of Elon Musk”. But mostly it’s raising money.

The front page has two seperate donate links at the top and a store where students struggling with debt can buy a “Cancel All Student Debt” sweatshirt for only $45. A ‘Tax the Rich’ t-shirt goes for $27 whose proceeds can be used to help fund Bernie’s next ride in a private jet.

Under the slogan “Not Me, Us”, the Fighting Oligarchy Tour is raising money for ‘me’ which then goes to pay for Bernie’s private jets and to subsidize members of his family.

The Bernie and AOC tour isn’t actually fighting oligarchy. It’s funding oligarchy.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading.