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In the first half of 2024, Edison International donated around a million dollars to political candidates, PACs and organizations. Much of that money went to Democrats.
Now the powerful energy giant is facing accusations that it’s responsible for the LA fires.
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times both reported on growing suspicions that the Eaton fire broke out around its power lines and two lawsuits have already been filed, one for wrongful death, and a judge has ordered the company to preserve evidence.
Edison’s contributions were directed to leading California politicians including Gov. Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and State Sen. Susan Rubio, a formerly deported state politician who is under suspicion of soliciting a quarter million dollar bribe in another case, and who despite that heads the state senate’s insurance committee, who were at the center of the current wildfire disaster.
The energy company was listed among Newsom’s top 20 donors in the 2018 cycle with over $70,000 in contributions, just ahead of the California Democratic Party. A year later its financial disclosures showed that it “spent more than $95,000 on food and other expenses for lawmakers, staff of lawmakers and the governor.” By 2023, Edison was spending a massive $3 million on lobbying California politicians.
But Edison’s connections to California politicians could be more subtle than that. For example, Newsom’s wife, titled ‘First Partner’ Jennifer Siebel Newsom, created the California Partners Project (CPP), and Newsom’s office put out a press release celebrating that Edison became one of the eight companies to sign on to it. CPP operates as a 501(c)(4) that takes in money from companies that do business with the state including the failed Silicon Valley Bank.
Attorney General Rob Bonta, the politician being groomed by Newsom as his replacement, received $72,500 from lawyers at a firm representing SoCal Edison, including lawyers working on a case involving the company’s responsibility for causing a 2018 fire, in the days before he announced he wouldn’t put forward criminal charges. After media scrutiny, Bonta offered to return some of the money. The rest may be used for his future gubernatorial campaign.
During that fire, it was found that California assembly members were in Maui, being hosted by lobbyists, including for SoCal Edison, asking them for a bailout. The attendees included Ian Calderon, the nephew of ex-State Senator Ron Calderon, the former head of the senate’s insurance commission, before being ousted and arrested for the “largest insurance fraud case” in the history of the California Department of Insurance, Senator Tom Calderon, his brother, indicted for money laundering, who has since been replaced by his stepmother, Assemblywoman Lisa Calderon. Also in attendance was the half of yet another California dynasty, Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, whose sister Senator Susan Rubio, is reportedly under FBI investigation, and multiple other Democrat elected officials most of whom have left office.
But usually not without finding lucrative forms of employment in the ‘private sector’.
Edison wields influence in a variety of ways. Beyond donating to Mayor Karen Bass when she was still a member of Congress, her mayoral office is staffed with Edison vets. Chris Thompson, the Chief of Staff for Bass, was the Vice President of Local Public Affairs for SoCal Edison, essentially the chief lobbyist, and her Director of Energy and Water, Luis Gutierrez, used to be a policy guy at SoCal Edison. When Edison held its Black History Month event, multiple politicians showed up, including Karen Bass and Supervisor Holly Mitchell.
The company also donated to multiple members of the Senate’s Energy and Utilities Committee, including its leadership, and Edison money also went into the campaigns of both Los Angeles city officials, and of key figures in the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors.
In the pursuit of ‘green energy’, leftist Democrat politicians promoted a ‘Clean Power Alliance’ which promised to bring ‘green energy’ to local areas. The highly dubious arrangement was inflicted on Southern California Edison customers which promised to deliver ‘green energy’ at higher prices over SCE’s power lines. And Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the most radical member, had served on the Clean Power Alliance and ran for office on her ‘green’ work of coordinating the green energy boondoggle that ripped off customers with SoCal Edison.
Horvath also served as the president of the California Contract Cities Association whose ‘platinum’ members included Edison. Open the Books listed Edison as the second largest utility company to hand out and receive sizable amounts of cash in California politics, receiving over $100 million in state payments.
Edison effectively used the practice of ‘behested payments’, charitable contributions solicited by politicians from donors for their causes, providing $100,000 to the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles for former Mayor Eric Garcetti, $30,000 for former Council president Nury Martinez before being ousted over racist remarks, and $30,000 for current president Marqueece Harris-Dawson.
There was hardly a significant Democrat politician in California who did not benefit from Edison money in one form or another. For example, CEO Steven Powell of SoCal Edison made his own private donations to Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. Alex Padilla.
While California Democrats blame the state’s problems on global warming, the state’s corruption problem cannot be detached from its various crises. Over the last decade, a record 576 California officials were convicted on federal corruption charges and the number continues to rise.
Beyond actual criminal acts of bribery, money laundering and corruption, special interests and a one-party system have made California the most corrupt state in the country, outdoing even former mob capitals like New York, Illinois and New Jersey. The morass of regulations has made regulatory capture routine with networks of connections between politicians and virtual monopolies that are the only ones still able to do business in an increasingly corrupt California.
That is why Freedom Center Investigates is continuing to dig into these abuses with our series, Corrupt California. Because California is not only corrupt, it’s more corrupt than you can believe.
The real issue in the fires is not California’s climate, it’s the state’s climate of corruption.
Previous articles in the series:
[1] California Dems Fight Trump While State Burns: CLICK HERE.
[2] Ex-Illegal Alien Senator Suspected of Bribery Leads California’s Insurance CLICK HERE
These Trump Backstabbers are now begging for $$$ to bail them out of a mess they created, and when Trump helps “the people of Los Angeles”, he’ll walk away and they’ll quickly Stab him in the back and then they’ll use the cash to continue their Leftist causes including for reparations… LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK!
Dan, thanks for the great article, you now may need Secret Service protection, while not as bad as the Piglosi Mafia, from Baltimore these are just as Evil pukes and since most have left Pubic Office with their stolen loot they may very well come after you. Still thank you. Will you write a preface to the Voter’s Guide?
Then that will be the fault of (1) Trump for not telling them to piss up a rope and (2) the “suburban moderates” who think Trump would be wrong to tell them to piss up a rope.
These scumbags voted for this corruption. Let them stew in their own juices.
No, we didn’t vote for this corruption. The voter districts are all gerrymandered and vote fraud is rampant. God only knows how many millions of illegal aliens vote in the elections. The state government allows and urges them to do it.
Good point about gerrymandering. I’ve been watching it for so long that I forget to include it in my list of ways of cheating at election time. My own districts in the SF Bay Area were gerrymandered countless times, the Democrats have it down to a science.
Great article as usual Daniel. You do the most sufficient research that the legacy media don’t do.
I grew up in Illinois and now live in Colorado, but the Left agendas are parallel to each other.
Democrat politicians are just the the Biden crime family. Democrats enrich their families and friends with any fraudulent scam they can come with.
Rinos politicians are also very much the same, fleecing the taxpayers to enrich their families and friends.
Did President Trump help get Congress to send money to the CA crooks in government? Did he use emergency relief funds he has access to? Please tell me no.
The State Assembly here and Governor Grease head Newscum never get tired of bragging about how wealthy CA supposedly is, so let the state pay its own bills. The vast majority of Californians are anything but wealthy. Politicians and the moneyed interests they collude with are rich. Hollywood elites are rich. Only a small proportion of Californians are rich and only a fraction of those elitists earned their money legitimately.
The D-Bags have thoroughly ruined this once great state with their rampant corruption. Most people in other states think all us Californians are deranged freaks but we’re not. The government and it’s “woke” base are but not the majority of us.
So the Firebugs donating to the Demo-Rats?! Governor Nuisance and Loud Mouth Bass and Schiff the Shifty
Hilarious, but true.
Shifty Adam Quiff. No way was that balloon headed pencil neck elected. Most of us Californians hate his sleazy, lying guts. Think of a Philadelphia level of vote fraud and cheating but on a statewide scale.
Energy companies in California are forced to pay protection money to the politicians who regulate, tax and demand bird cuisinarts and animal killing solar farms or face bankruptcy.. Money for power line clearing is redirected to self preservation. Environmentalists are destroying that state.
Mark, you are 100 percent right!
Self preservation? PG & E and Con Ed are rolling in enough money to buy a small country and completely in bed with the politicians who protect them for payoffs. Didn’t you read this article?
Profound corruption in California government. I’ve been watching it since the 1950s, but my grandfather ran into it in the 1930s. Probably goes back to the Gold Rush in the 1850s.
Corruption in CA government is nothing new. The major conflagration that was the “Fire of ’06” turned out to be influenced in a big way by City Hall corruption in San Francisco. We have had water project disasters, trains to nowhere, elections without voter I.D. required, so at the end of the day, none of this is a surprise. Just pray that Newsome never becomes president.
It does go back to the Gold Rush. Many small claims were stolen by companies like Wells Fargo and the authorities allowed it to happen. Charles Boles became the stagecoach bandit, “Black Bart,” because Wells Fargo ripped off his claim. (He never killed anybody and wasn’t even armed in his robberies. He just pretended to be by pulling lines to multiple bushes to shake them and make it look like there were gunmen behind them.)
The Spanish – NOT Mexican – Dons were very corrupt, too. Even though Mexico claimed “Alto California” after it won its war with Spain, all the Dons were Spaniards. The Mexican Americans and Mexicans who claim California used to belong to their ancestors are full of shit.
I didn’t know the Bay Area was corrupt back in the 50s but I believe you. I know LA was incredibly corrupt, including the police department. It was like that in the 30s and 40s, too. Hell, it was incredibly corrupt in the 80s and 90s, too. I remember that. In 92′ Chief Darrell Gates let the usual suspects burn, loot and murder their way across the city while he was accepting an award as a “super cop.” He wanted people to “know” they needed him and “teach them a lesson.”
At least Ronny was Governor from ’67 to ’75 and CA had a high standard of living up until the eighties when outsourcing became the norm. Now it’s a hopeless case.
Excellent point about Spanish corruption. They are/were orders of magnitude more corrupt.
They took in a massive amount of gold and silver from their New World colonies, and squandered it all, so they had to take out massive loans to finance their wars. By the time of the Spanish-American War they were a pushover.
This type of corruption is fine with leftist elites who simply blame it on capitalism anyway.
And as with everything else bad for America, they blame all corruption in the country on Trump. They’re currently blaming Trump for the weirdly high egg prices.
Yeah, I noticed that too. They are already back into their old game of blame everything on Trump.
FPM is the only publication writing about this obscene, unbelievable corruption. All these people are beyond shame. And Bonta is going to be the next AG of CA??? Bonta, himself is the chief lawBREAKER.
Bonta is a total scumbag. I voted against him but my vote doesn’t matter in CA. In fact, I don’t even know if it was actually counted. I voted against Shifty Adam Quiff and Sam Licardo too. Licardo was the last Mayor here in San Jose and was crooked as a corkscrew.
So glad I got out of there 10 years ago. Fires, earthquakes and beyond corrupt incompetent government and utilities
Yes, the natural disasters in parts of CA are a very real threat. Most of the far North (except the coast maybe because the San Andreas Fault is offshore,) Central Valley, the base, foothills and lower slopes of the Sierras, and parts of the Mojave (except for the heat, some people can’t hack it) are safe. I assume much of the south eastern part of the state like Brawley and Calipatria is safe too but I don’t know for sure.
Every big city and concentration of coastal populations from San Diego to Frisco and even past it a ways are waiting for the big one though, and as long as the D-Bags and greens are in charge of our Southern wilderness areas and cities, wildfires and firestorms will continue to wreak havok.
You were right to leave. I’m stuck here for now. If the big one hits the South Bay area, I’m done for. I live on the fifth floor of a six story building in San Jose. I would end up as sandwich meat if it goes down.
Dan, thanks for the great article, you now may need Secret Service protection, while not as bad as the Piglosi Mafia, from Baltimore these are just as Evil pukes and since most have left Pubic Office with their stolen loot they may very well come after you. Still thank you. Will you write a preface to the Voter’s Guide?
I’m so thankful I left California , when I was moving Gavin Newsom sent me a tax bill for leaving California! $500 my lawyer said you are moving to a state that does not enforce this! Trash it!
where did you move to?
I heard about that sort of thing. I heard Newscum tried to tax Californians who went to other states long term to help disaster victims but I don’t know if it’s true. That piece of trash, Kathy Ho-chul, tried the same thing on New Yorkers, if I remember correctly.
Newscum is probably the only worse Governor than Ho-chul, Wretched Whitmer and Krusty Hobbs. I don’t know about the Ho of New York, but Newscum and Slobbs got into office through vote fraud and cheating. No way did Newscum actually beat the recall vote and no way did Slobbs beat Kari Lake. The vote count in Maricopa County was obviously fake, just like it has been for a long time. I lived in AZ for years and Arizonans hate scum like Slobbs, even most of the Californicator carpet baggers who infest Maricopa County.
Why are regulated monopolies allowed to make *any* political contributions?
I’m forced to give my money to these cretins, and here they are giving some of that money to politicians that I oppose.
Let me see if I have this straight…
The Dems have Edison
The GOP has Tesla
JUSTICE AT LAST !
The D-Bags also have Amazon, Google, Facebook and every other “tech” company in Santa Clara Valley. Microsoft, too.
I was referring to the century old injustice who gets historical claim to the fire in the wire which runs the entire modern world.
-Edison got the credit.
-Tesla (and Westinghouse) deserved it
-J.P. Morgan bet on Edison, but saw he was going to lose, so he plunked down a HUGE % of his money to take majority positions in BOTH systems, and then mashed them together and under the “General Electric” moniker. This left all but the investing class of the time confused about who deserved credit, and history passed down the myth of Edison to the generations.
Elon Musk has been trying to correct this…..and he will succeed.
Why does this not surprise me?
If Edison is responsible for the fire, which seems likely. it’ll never pay any price for it. Not with the connections you described. In fact, the government is already doing its best to cover up any questions of Edison’s guilt.
As if global climate warming change is real and CA wildfires start in Winter. And Con Edison has lousy service and bloated prices which keep increasing, just like Pacific Gas and Electric here in the Bay Area. I used to live down South in Lake Forest so I know. The water company down there was a ripoff too, and would try to stop people from watering their lawns in the Summer because of fake draughts.
Many reasons for the devastation.
Were there available water and no woke policies, you would not have written this article.
Hmm, maybe Trump could send these thieving California mafiosi to the new gitmo on the Caribbean, in Nayib Bukele’s cECOT prison complex… Along with Milley, Brennan, Piglosi, Clapper, Andrew Weismann etc etc…
Just why are the power lines still above ground? They have had at least 100 years to fix.
Must be that the squirrels still demand that they be on poles.