Policymaker Profile

While individual political candidates typically receive donations from many thousands of supporters, the average donor’s spending represents just a tiny fraction of what most state-level elected officials receive. However, the small number of billionaires, corporations, corporate advocacy groups, and law enforcement groups represented in California’s 99 Problems account for a significant percentage of the funding that candidates rely on to be elected.

In the Policymaker Profile below, explore the level of influence that these oligarchs and their allies exert, or at least try to exert, on California’s state-level elected officials, including both Republicans and Democrats.

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About this project

All people should have the power to shape the policies and systems that intersect with their lives. However, in an oligarchy, that power is enjoyed by only a small number of extremely wealthy individuals. Meanwhile, everyone else is left to try and survive in a system that prioritizes profits for the ultra-rich over their health and well-being.

That is the system in which Americans are currently living. Billionaires and large corporations accumulate extraordinary wealth through the money and labor provided by middle-class, working-class, and low-income families. They then use that wealth to: (a) elect politicians who support their priorities; and (b) dominate the policymaking process with their armies of lobbyists, think tanks, public relations/media firms, and advocacy organizations. This “Oligarch Ecosystem” has been enormously successful in blocking (or rolling back) social and racial justice efforts and advancing policies that reflect their priorities, allowing them to further expand their wealth and perpetuate a vicious cycle of greed, corruption, and exploitation. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of people pay the price as their lives get more and more difficult because of policies that were never designed to benefit them or meet their needs.

To be clear, the problem isn’t that there are rich people. The problem is that there are people who become ultra-rich on the backs of others and then use their wealth to actively make those same people’s lives harder.

At the Social Movement Support Lab, we fight systemic racism and inequality by partnering with the most impacted communities and providing them with the multidisciplinary support they need to create transformative social change. Unfortunately, the many people and organizations working to expand social justice, racial justice, and democracy frequently lack the type of data and research needed to understand the strategy, tactics, and overall agenda of the oligarchs opposing their efforts. That gap severely limits the effectiveness of efforts to create the social change that is so urgently needed.

The California Oligarch Index is designed to fill that gap. By exposing the outsized role that a small number of individuals and organizations play in controlling state and local politics, we can start to level the playing field and enable all people and communities to assert their rightful political power.

Read the summary report

Read the methodology