Munger, C jr

dad is buffet pal

NO MERRI

DAD BUFFET PARTNER Charlie_Munger

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funding ca gerry BS

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As of late September 2025, the primary funders of the "No on Proposition 50" campaign in California are physicist and political donor Charles T. Munger Jr., and software entrepreneur Thomas M. Siebel.

Charles T. Munger Jr.

• Total Contributions: Munger is the largest donor by a wide margin, contributing more than $30 million to defeat Proposition 50.
• Political Context: He is a prominent Republican donor who previously championed California's independent redistricting commission, which Proposition 50 would temporarily override. His funding is driven by his opposition to gerrymandering, regardless of which party initiates it.
• Campaign Vehicle: Munger has funneled his donations through the "Protect Voters First" campaign, which targets moderate and unaffiliated voters.

Thomas M. Siebel

• Total Contributions: Siebel, the founder and chairman of the software company C3.ai, Inc., contributed $1 million to the opposition campaign.
• Political Context: He is part of a separate "No on 50" committee, "Stop Sacramento's Power Grab," which is also backed by other Republican figures, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Other significant "No on 50" funders

• Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF): This Republican super PAC has contributed $5 million to the campaign opposing Proposition 50.
• Kevin McCarthy for Congress PAC: The former Speaker of the U.S. House contributed $1 million through his political action committe

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48 Hills

https://48hills.org › 2025 › 08 › the-big-gop-money-attacking-newsoms-redistricting-plan

The big (GOP) money attacking Newsom's redistricting plan

6 days agoThe work of Charles Munger, Jr., who is a big GOP donor Here's the interesting thing: The mailers appear to be funded by Charles Munger Jr, the son of a billionaire investor who portrays himself as a supporter of fair elections.

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Deep-pocketed Republican donor launches 'misleading' mailers into Calif.

A quote plastered on the front of an anti-redistricting flyer prompted a clarifying statement from the organization

By Anabel Sosa,

Senior California Politics Reporter

Aug 27, 2025

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bills related to redrawing the state’s congressional maps on Aug. 21, 2025, in Sacramento, Calif.

Last week, scores of California households received a stark 8-by-11-inch flyer in the mail that declared, “We cannot save democracy by burning it down.” The mailer was sent out after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that his proposal to redistrict California along partisan lines is headed to voters this November. But while the mailers, bankrolled by a major Bay Area donor to the Republic Party, were supposed to dissuade voters from approving the new congressional map, they included some misquotes that only led to more confusion.

The mailers were paid for by Protect Voters First, a campaign committee funded by Charles Munger Jr., a physicist who lives in Palo Alto and is the son of Warren Buffett’s late business partner. They urged voters to vote “no” on Proposition 50, the ballot measure for Newsom’s redistricting plan. The four-page mailer also had a quote from Gloria Chun Hoo, the president of the League of Women Voters of California, plastered on the front page: “Let’s protect the integrity of our democratic process and reject the dangerous idea of mid-cycle redistricting.”

The League of Women Voters, a leading good government group, immediately denied any involvement with Munger’s campaign.

A mailer from Protect Voters First in San Francisco. (Address details removed for privacy concerns.)

“You may have received a mailer from ‘Protect Voters First’ about the redistricting ballot initiative this November. By naming our organization and quoting Gloria Chun Hoo, the mailer wrongly implies that the League of Women Voters of California is part of their coalition and endorses the information contained in the flyer,” the organization said in a statement on Aug. 21. “This implication is not correct—we are not part of that coalition. The League of Women Voters of California did not authorize this action.”

A small attribution under the Hoo quote on the Protect Voters First flyer noted it had come from the Sacramento Bee. Hoo penned an op-ed for the paper that was published July 30, but it did not mention the Protect Voters First coalition.

Darius Kemp, the executive director of Common Cause, another good government group, said he was also quoted out of context. The flyer quoted him as saying “Point blank, this is a dangerous move” and defending independent redistricting as a system that works better. When reached for comment by SFGATE, Kemp referred to a news release issued by Common Cause on Aug. 22 that said, “Our position on mid-cycle redistricting is clear — we will not oppose mid-cycle redistricting efforts in states that meet our fairness criteria.”

Common Cause was initially critical of Newsom’s gerrymandering idea but later clarified its position before the mailers were sent out, saying in an Aug. 12 statement that the organization recognizes California’s effort as a “counterbalancing” measure in response to moves by Republicans in Texas. The organization has since said that the proposed new map for California meets its “fairness criteria.”

Charles Munger Jr., chairman of the Santa Clara County Republican Party, center, talks with Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, right, at the California Republican Party convention in Sacramento, Calif., Sunday, March 3, 2013.

:

While it’s still early days, it will be a two-month sprint for the “yes” and “no” campaigns to bring in millions of dollars — much of which will fund television ads and mailers like these that are targeted to sway undecided voters.

The national opposition campaign is led by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is recruiting national donors to contribute to the Stop Sacramento’s Power Grab committee, according to Politico. He is reportedly aiming to bring in upward of $100 million. Protect Voters First has already dumped $10 million toward the “no” effort. Meanwhile, Newsom’s campaign committee, called the Election Rigging Response Act, has already brought in over $11 million to support the redrawing of California’s map.

So far, it’s not clear what impact Protect Voters First’s flyers will have. What is clear is that they’ve confused voters. Even with the clarifying statements from Hoo and Kemp, some people online raised questions about whether those clarifications would reach enough voters. Right after the flyers went out, Reddit sleuths were seeking answers about who was behind the effort. One poster called the flyer “misleading s—t,” while another dug deeper: “went to the website listed at the bottom. in small letters at the bottom of the webpage is the name of the sponsor of this whole thing: Charles Munger Jr. So googled him: He donates millions to Republican CA candidates. SO, you guys in CA need to be fighting that. This Munger guy has very deep pockets and is obviously trying to get people to oppose the CA redistricting.”

A mailer from Protect Voters First in San Francisco.

Amy Thoma Tan, a spokesperson for Protect Voters First, maintained that those quotes were taken directly from newspaper op-eds but did not directly respond to claims that they mislead voters into thinking these organizations support Munger’s coalition specifically. She also did not specify how many households were targeted.

“The mailers were sent to Californians, therefore focused on fighting the gerrymandering happening here. Our coalition opposes gerrymandering in all states,” Tan told SFGATE.

More Politics

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— A California city tried to triple in size. Then came the rebellion.

— One of Calif.'s most watched House races is about to get more interesting

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Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com › california › story › 2025-08-22 › millions-of-dollars-flow-into-redistricting-battle-on-the-november-ballot-munger

Millions of dollars flow into redistricting battle on November ballot ...

Aug 23, 2025Charles Munger Jr., who backed the creation of an independent redistricting commission, donated $10 million to oppose California Democrats' effort to redraw congressional districts.

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POLITICO

https://www.politico.com › newsletters › california-playbook-pm › 2025 › 07 › 28 › the-republican-donor-ready-to-fight-newsom-on-redistricting-00480697

The Republican donor ready to fight Newsom on redistricting

Jul 28, 2025THE MUNGER GAMES TRILOGY — Charles Munger Jr. was one of California's best-resourced political hobbyists, a Palo Alto physicist who tapped a family fortune to sell voters on a series of good ...

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SFGATE

https://www.sfgate.com › politics › article › mailers-wealthy-bay-area-donor-redistricting-21018120.php

Deep-pocketed GOP donor launches 'misleading' mailers into Calif. - SFGATE

4 days agoFlyers backed by wealthy Republican donor Charles Munger Jr. urged California voters to oppose Prop. 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom's redistricting effort.

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Joe.My.God

https://www.joemygod.com › 2025 › 08 › gop-activist-donates-10m-to-fight-ca-redistricting

GOP Activist Donates $10M To Fight CA Redistricting

Aug 23, 2025The $10 million donation from Charles Munger, Jr., an architect of California's independent redistricting commission, underscores how a high-stakes special election to boost House Democrats could become one of the most expensive contests in California history.

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OB Rag

https://obrag.org › 2025 › 08 › heres-the-right-wing-extremist-charles-munger-jr-whos-sending-you-mailers-trying-to-block-redrawing-california-districts

Here's the Right-Wing Extremist, Charles Munger, Jr., Who's Sending You ...

Aug 22, 2025By Dustin Gardiner and Blake Jones / Politico / August 18, 2025 MUNGER GAMES — Charles Munger Jr., the megadonor backing Republicans' effort to block Democrats from redrawing California's congressional map, has primarily been known to the public as the bow-tie-wearing champion of good-government causes like independent redistricting and legislative transparency. But there's a lesser ...

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PressReader.com

https://www.pressreader.com › usa › los-angeles-times › 20250825 › 281835764807542

Millions donated for special election - PressReader

6 days agoThe move is an effort by California Democrats to counter Texas Republican­s' and President Trump's efforts to boost the number of GOP members. Munger, a GOP donor and the son of a billionair­e who was Warren Buffett's right-hand man, bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure that created independen­t redistrict­ing in California.

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Yahoo

https://www.yahoo.com › news › articles › schwarzenegger-steps-back-political-arena-160000201.html

Schwarzenegger steps back into political arena in redistricting crusade

TodayUrging Californians to "terminate gerrymandering," the former governor and Hollywood icon has joined the likes of former GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), investor Charlie Munger and ...

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factually.co

https://factually.co › fact-checks › politics › republicans-against-anti-gerrymandering-reform-4d19b6

Fact Check: did republicans vote against stopping gerrymandering

This coalition included former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charles Munger Jr., Representative Kevin Kiley, and various state and federal California Republicans [3] [4]. 2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints The original question lacks crucial context about the strategic nature of redistricting battles.

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Ventura County Star

https://www.vcstar.com › story › opinion › 2025 › 08 › 12 › walters-newsoms-redistricting-drive-in-california-faces-many-hurdles › 85624545007

Walters: Newsom's redistricting drive in California faces many hurdles

Aug 12, 2025Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of an independent redistricting commission, says he'll oppose Newsom's plan and Charles Munger Jr., a wealthy scientist who ...

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OB RAG

*Dustin Gardiner and Blake Jones / Politico / August 18, 2025

MUNGER GAMES — Charles Munger Jr., the megadonor backing Republicans’ effort to block Democrats from redrawing California’s congressional map, has primarily been known to the public as the bow-tie-wearing champion of good-government causes like independent redistricting and legislative transparency.

But there’s a lesser-known aspect of Munger’s financial giving that Democrats are preparing to torch him on.

Munger, a Palo Alto physicist, has contributed more than $158,000 to socially conservative causes over the last 25 years, according to federal tax filings — including to organizations that oppose abortion rights and promote so-called crisis pregnancy centers, and to Christian groups whose leaders have opposed LGBTQ+ rights.

Munger’s spending, via his charitable nonprofit, is providing fodder to abortion-rights advocates and LGBTQ+ leaders in their effort to build support for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to gerrymander California’s congressional districts in favor of Democrats — a gambit that Newsom says will neutralize President Donald Trump’s effort to nab five new Republican House seats in Texas.

“These are pretty terrible donations. He has given to organizations that have tried to strip away rights and demonize members of our community,” said Tom Temprano, managing director of Equality California, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

Amy Thoma Tan, a spokesperson for Munger and the campaign opposed to the redistricting effort, said Munger’s charitable foundation “supports a wide variety of causes, particularly those who serve children and families who need extra support.”

She added, “But this campaign is about defending the rights of the voters of California to choose their politicians, not the other way around — anything else is a distraction.”

Democratic forces want to make Munger — the wealthy son of Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner — a central foil, along with Trump, as they try to convince Democratic voters to turn out for a Nov. 4 special election. Early polling suggests the proposal could be an uphill fight for the party.

Munger’s advisers say he has vowed to spend heavily to defend the state’s independent redistricting commission, a system that he spent $12 million to expand through a successful 2010 ballot measure that gave it the authority to draw congressional boundaries.

Good-government reforms have dominated much of Munger’s civic spending. But IRS filings for his CNC Foundation, which he’s funded with Berkshire Hathaway stock, outline a host of conservative causes. He gave:

• $70,000 to First Resort (later renamed Third Box), which operated crisis pregnancy centers in San Francisco and the Bay Area. City leaders accused the centers of masquerading as women’s health clinics while promoting an anti-abortion agenda. San Francisco later passed an ordinance to prohibit such centers from engaging in misleading advertising.
• $3,400 to the Christian Legal Society, an association of lawyers who promote a host of conservative legal causes, including celebrating the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
• Nearly $83,000 to Campus Crusade for Christ, which promotes religious ministries on college and middle school and high school campuses. The organization teaches that same-sex attraction is “contrary to God’s design for human sexuality” and has promoted conversion therapy.

Jodi Hicks, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, is among those highlighting Munger’s support of conservative causes. She has been at the forefront of Democrats’ redistricting push and spoke at a news conference alongside Newsom last week.

“His contributions to those organizations speak to his values and the agenda he supports — an extreme agenda that hurts LGBTQ people, women and people of color,” Hicks said in a statement.

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Charles Munger, Jr. - Ballotpedia

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Charles Munger Jr. earned a Ph.D. in atomic physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987. He was an experimental physicist and worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.^[1][2] In 2003, Munger joined the Curriculum Development and Materials Commission for the California State Board of Education. He served in that position until 2007.^[1]

He was a board member of The Lincoln Club of Northern California and a member of the board of overseers at the Hoover Institution, a think tank at Stanford University.^[1][3]

Active in local Republican politics, Munger has served as chair of the Santa Clara County Republican Party. As of July 2025, he was the chair of Spirit of Democracy, a political action committee that supports candidates around California. According to the organization's website, Munger "is responsible for selecting candidates and approving every independent expenditure done on their behalf, including television, radio, and direct mail."^[1][4]

Work and activities

2016 Carly Fiorina campaign

See also: Carly Fiorina presidential campaign, 2016

Munger donated $100,000 to Conservative, Authentic, Responsive Leadership for you and for America, a super PAC that supported Carly Fiorina's (R) 2016 presidential campaign.^[5]

2016 California's State Assembly District 66 race

See also: California races we're watching, 2016

On October 26, 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported that Munger contributed $1.4 million to a super PAC called the Spirit of Democracy California, which, in October, spent at least $1.1 million on ads opposing former state Rep. Al Muratsuchi (D) in his California State Assembly District 66 race against incumbent state Rep. David Hadley (R).^[6]

2016 California's State Assembly District 16 race

See also: California races we're watching, 2016

In California's State Assembly District 16, incumbent state Rep. Catharine Baker (R) ran for re-election against Cheryl Cook-Kallio (D) in the 2016 general election. The Los Angeles Times reported on October 28, 2016, that Munger had contributed $965,455 to oppose Cook-Kallio. The contribution was reportedly made through the Spirit of Democracy California.^[7]

Proposition 20 (2010)

See also: Redistricting in California and California Proposition 20, Congressional Redistricting Initiative (2010)

According to The New York Times, Munger's interest in redistricting dated to his experience in 2004 as a campaign volunteer for Steve Poizner's (R) unsuccessful Assembly campaign. Luis Buhler, Poizner's campaign manager, said the loss was a formative experience for Munger: "He saw in that race that the way that district was drawn prevented the election of a man he thought was much better qualified. That was really the first time he realized how it all worked."^[8]

His interest in redistricting led Munger to contribute $12,157,441 to Proposition 20, a 2010 ballot measure that created an independent redistricting commission in the state. Susan Shafer, a spokesperson for the Proposition 20 campaign, said, "He’s a physicist by trade, but he’s extremely interested in this issue."^[9] Of his decision to donate to the measure, Munger told a reporter for The New York Times, "I would’ve been very welcome in Republican circles if I decided to go chuck 10 million in a bunch of races up and down the state to fight for Republican control of Congress. It isn’t a worthy ambition compared to doing this."^[8] Munger told Bloomberg, "I’m doing this to try to ensure voters have fair districts where representatives will compete for offices. Elected politicians are picking the voters, voters aren’t picking their representatives."^[10]

Common Cause gave Munger its National Civic Leadership Award following his efforts supporting California Proposition 20, Congressional Redistricting Initiative (2010).^[1]

Notable endorsements

See also: Ballotpedia: Our approach to covering endorsements

This section displays endorsements this individual made in elections within Ballotpedia's coverage scope.

Notable ballot measure endorsements by Charles Munger, Jr.

See also

• What is an influencer?
• Redistricting in California
• California Proposition 20, Congressional Redistricting Initiative (2010)

External links

• Spirit of Democracy

Charles Munger Jr.: Remaking California in His Own Image

American Prospectis reposted with permission. Although it mostly focuses on Propositions 30 and 38, it also examines the leading financial backer of Proposition 32, which Frying Pan News is following in a special series of investigative pieces.)

America has the Koch brothers, and now California has the Munger kids. Unlike the right-wing Kochs, Molly Munger and her brother Charles Jr. entered politics from opposite directions—she’s a liberal Democrat and a champion of inner-city schools; he’s an economic conservative, a social moderate, and a Republican activist. But thanks to the vicissitudes of California politics and the self-absorption that wealth can bring (their father is Charles Munger, a Pasadena attorney and investor who is the longtime vice-chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment consortium), they’ve come together in the past couple of days to attack the most important measure on the California ballot: Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative to raise taxes on the rich so that the state’s schools and colleges won’t take a massive fiscal hit immediately following the election.

Once widely thought to have the best public education system in the nation, California has seen a steady decline in per-pupil spending and student performance since the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, which cut off the schools’ main source of funding—local property taxes—and made the schools reliant on state government for their funds. But with the collapse in the early ‘90s of the Southern California aerospace industry at the end of the Cold War, the dot-com bust of 2000, and the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008, state government has been an inconstant and inadequate source of school funding for the past 20 years. Faced with chronic budget shortfalls for the past half-decade, K-12 schools have laid off teachers and closed libraries, while state colleges and the University of California have repeatedly raised tuition.

Though Democrats have majorities in both houses of the state legislature, state law requires a two-thirds supermajority to raise any taxes. Republicans, who have just over one-third representation in both the Senate and Assembly, have preferred to see education and other programs decimated rather than provide any votes for tax hikes. So Brown turned to the state’s initiative process to raise the funds to keep schools open. So did the California Federation of Teachers (CFT). And so did Molly Munger, who for years had headed up and funded the Advancement Project, an advocacy group for inner-city schools that waged successful legal battles to ensure those schools received their fair share of state funding.

Munger proposed an initiative that would increase school funding by $10 billion annually by raising income taxes on all but the poorest Californians. The more politically savvy Brown and the CFT believed that confronting voters with an across-the-board tax hike amid an intractable recession (California unemployment still exceeds 10 percent) would be a non-starter. Brown proposed to raise $7 billion yearly through an income-tax hike on the wealthy and a half-cent increase to the sales tax, while the CFT proposed to raise $6 billion entirely through higher taxes on the rich.

What was clear from the start—to all but Munger, anyway—was that if voters were confronted with multiple versions of similar proposals, they were likely to vote them all down. That’s been the pattern in California elections for the past hundred years (the state adopted initiatives and referendums in 1911). In 1996, for instance, two rival unions, the California Nurses Association and the Service Employees International Union, championed separate initiatives to reform HMOs, though the SEIU’s measure was chiefly intended to defeat the CNA’s. Each ran ads attacking the other’s initiative, and though popular support for reining in HMO abuses was high, both measures went down to defeat.

Late last year, likewise, a poll showed two-to-one voter support for a tax hike to fund schools. But Brown knew that the appearance of two, much less three, such measures on the ballot would likely doom them all. He negotiated a deal with the CFT: He’d change his measure so that the rich would pay a greater share of the tax hike (rates will be raised on income over $250,000) and the sales tax increase would go down, from half-a-cent to a quarter-cent, so long as the CFT dropped its plan to go to the ballot. The CFT happily agreed.

Brown also tried on multiple occasions to strike a deal with Munger. She wouldn’t go for it.

Munger won the backing of the state PTA for her proposal, while Brown won the backing of every sentient group that supports public education and is willing to have the rich pay for it. Money being no object for Munger, she spent $26.8 million on her measure in the first nine months of this year, while Brown spent just $3.5 million on his. But voters wouldn’t go for her proposal. Though it had come under no attack, it trailed all year long in the polls, winning just 34 percent support in the September USC/Dornsife Poll and 44 percent in the September Field Poll.

A general rule of California politics is that once a ballot measure falls behind in the polls, it’s cooked. Just dipping beneath 50-percent support, even if it has a plurality in the polls, usually means the measure is doomed. But far from being deterred, Munger has increased her spending, in the best tradition of the state’s mega-rich political novices. In 1998, Al Checci, the former owner of Northwest Airlines, spent more than $100 million in a failed attempt to win the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary. (Gray Davis beat him). In the closing weeks of the campaign—which was Checci’s first—it was clear Checci wasn’t going to win, but his consultants, whom he was paying a small fortune, convinced him he still had a shot. Munger has either fallen prey to similar misleading counsel from self-interested consultants, or has encased herself in a bubble of her own devising. “When you’re in a campaign,” she recently told one reporter, “you’re feeling very buoyed by it all.”

The problem isn’t just that she’s still throwing money at her initiative, Proposition 38—the total has now reached $34 million. It’s that she’s begun to attack Brown’s initiative, which still has a fair-to-middling chance of passing. His measure, Proposition 30, has been leading all summer, but it’s begun falling in the polls in recent weeks as the Munger forces have moved to attack it. One poll has Brown’s initiative at 55 percent, down from 59 percent the month previous; another has it at 51 percent, down from 54 percent one month earlier.

In the past two days, Munger has begun running animated television ads in which a little girl says that Brown’s measure won’t send the money directly to schools but rather—O, the horror—to Sacramento politicians. Which is true: Under Proposition 30, the money goes to the state and then is apportioned chiefly to the schools and to some other strapped programs as well, while under Proposition 38, the money goes directly to the school districts. Indeed, one problem with Munger’s measure is that it gives government no flexibility to use the money for any other emergency purposes. It also kicks in next year, too late to avert the $6 billion cut to K-12 schools and to colleges (which it doesn’t fund at all) this year.

Many education leaders in the state backed both measures. But Munger’s decision to go after Brown’s initiative, which is clearly the only one that stands a chance of passing, has panicked California educators. The non-partisan state Superintendent of Public Instruction asked Munger to withdraw her ads, as did Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. With K-12 district superintendents saying that the failure to pass Proposition 30 will require cutting three weeks from the school year, and with University of California administrators saying its failure would mean a further 20 percent (that’s $2,400) hike in tuition, Munger’s decision to attack Proposition 30 has transformed her from a valued ally to a mortal threat in the eyes of state educators.

And lo and behold, her conservative brother is funding a separate campaign against Brown’s measure.

Charles Munger Jr. is a physicist at Stanford and the largest single Republican donor in the state. Indeed, California Watch calls him the third largest political donor from either party for the decade of 2001-2011. During that time, Munger made contributions totaling $14,093,588 to 20 Republican candidates and 25 ballot measures, as well as to the state GOP. His most favored causes have been campaigns to build the center-right in a state where the Republican Party is dominated by far-right primary voters and where Democrats tend to be liberal. To that end, he was the largest funder of two successful 2010 ballot measures that are changing the state’s politics this year: One created a non-partisan redistricting process, while the other mandated that the two top finishers in primaries, regardless of party affiliation, will be the ones whose names appear on the November ballot. The theory behind these measures that was that non-partisan district carving would create more competitive districts, and November run-offs pitting a moderate Republican against a far-right Republican in a heavily Republican district would advantage the moderate, who could claim the votes of otherwise disfranchised Democrats. This fall, Charles Munger has been funding several moderate Republicans running against right-wingers for legislative seats.

But that’s not all he’s been funding. In the past two weeks, Munger has donated $30 million to a committee created to oppose Brown’s Proposition 30 and to support Proposition 32, an anti-union measure that would greatly diminish labor’s capacity to play a major role in state politics. (This makes him much the largest contributor to both campaigns.) Proposition 32 is the third in a line of basically identical anti-union measures that are put before California voters every six years and then go down to defeat. Like its two predecessors, Proposition 32 would ban unions from using members’ dues to support the unions’ political activities. Unlike its two predecessors, it also claims to restrict corporate funding of politics as well—it bans corporations from collecting funds from employees for political purposes, just as it bans unions. Of course, corporations don’t collect dues from employees at all, so this is the most spurious of symmetries. The measure’s authors have nonetheless been claiming it’s a balanced proposal to loosen the grip of special interests on state government.

But state voters have already figured out that Proposition 32 is no more balanced than Fox News. It trails in the polls by large margins. Voters have been aided in their decision-making process by the state’s unions which, fighting for their lives, have spent more than $40 million to convince Californians that the measure is an anti-labor sham. Indeed, it’s reasonable to infer that one reason the same measure is placed on the California ballot every few years is to keep unions from spending more on other priorities, like the presidential race—or, this year, Brown’s Proposition 30, to which unions are the largest donors, but nowhere as large as if they didn’t have to fight Proposition 32 as well.

Like his sister, Charles Jr. has been undaunted by the fact that his pet initiative is trailing by a wide margin. He has designated roughly $23 million of his $30 million donation to promote 32, leaving just $7 million—for now—targeted to bring Brown’s measure down. His campaign’s ads claim, preposterously, that the money raised by Proposition 30 won’t go to schools at all.

Charles Munger may be late to the game this year, but he is nothing if not strategic. His donations show a man determined to remake California in his own image: economically conservative, socially moderate. He seeks a state that won’t tax the rich or cut deals with unions, but whose Republican Party elects pro-choice candidates like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson, California’s last two Republican governors.

Molly Munger, by contrast, doesn’t seem to have a strategic bone in her body. After a life devoted to helping schools win adequate funding, she has now, however inadvertently, teamed up with her brother to oppose the one ballot measure that could spare the state’s schools from decimation. Her transformation into California education’s Mr. Hyde has been abetted by highly paid political consultants who, like Al Checci’s 14 years ago, are apparently making too much money to tell her that the game is up. Ironically, two of her leading consultants are Dean Tipps and John Hein, who both recently retired as the longtime (and brilliant) political directors of California’s largest unions—respectively, the Service Employees International Union and the California Teachers Association, which are both major funders of Brown’s Proposition 30. One can only hope that Tipps and Hein are being compensated at a level that justifies their betrayal of all they’ve worked for over the past half-century.

Charles Jr. may be focused and Molly feckless, but together, they dominate California politics this year. (Well, they share that distinction with Jerry Brown, but as governor, he should dominate the state’s politics.) The battles over Propositions 30, 32, and 38 are the major contests to be decided in California this November. (The other two significant statewide races—the presidential contest and the race between Feinstein and her utterly obscure Republican opponent—are faits accomplis.) The Mungers’ ability to shape the state’s politics isn’t the result of Citizens United—indeed, it’s more an artifact of Buckley vs. Valeo.Donations to California ballot measures weren’t capped by the state in the pre-Buckleydays, and since then, no cap would ever pass muster with the Supreme Court.

Like the tale of the Brothers Koch, the Munger chronicles is entirely a story of how big money has come to dominate our democracy. Charles the Focused and Molly the Twit come to politics with radically different goals, but blessed with inheritances from the same billion-dollar fortune, they have joined forces in a bid to destroy California’s schools. That would be an ironic and disgraceful legacy for two disparate siblings who share little but a love of learning.

voucher

http://www.calnewsroom.com/2014/05/21/state-assembly-73-charles-munger-pac-spends-more-than-all-candidates-combined/

A political action committee sponsored by moderate GOP super-donor Charles Munger, Jr. has spent more than $300,000 on behalf of an Orange County Republican legislative candidate.

The Spirit of Democracy California, which has received much of its financial support from Munger, has spent $322,713 to support Republican school board member Anna Bryson‘s campaign for the 73rd Assembly District. That’s more than all of the candidates in the race — combined, according to the most recent figures posted at ElectionTrack.com.

The bulk of support for Bryson came on May 19 in the form of a quarter million dollars in television ads, according to state campaign finance filings.

Munger’s Priority: “Pro-family” Orange County Conservative?

Munger’s support for Bryson is a noticeable departure from his past emphasis on electing moderate candidates that will expand the party’s outreach to minority voters. A Capistrano Unified School District Trustee, Bryson is a member of the National Rifle Association and has expressed support for putting guns in classrooms.

An Orange County blog, Dissent the Blog, has dubbed Bryson a “gun nut.” Shortly after the NRA proposed “installing armed guards on every campus,” Bryson told the Orange County Register that it was an idea worth further study.

Anna Bryson, a trustee for Capistrano Unified, the county’s second-largest school district, said she examined the NRA’s stance Friday with great interest. She’s an NRA member and grew up in a household of gun owners.

“We have made schools gun-free zones, weapons-free zones, and all of the people who have evil intent are aware of it,” Bryson said. “I don’t think that people with evil intent should have that comfort level. If they walk through our doors, they should be wondering, ‘Is there someone there who could harm me first?'”

She’s also received strong support from traditional values groups that oppose abortion and gay marriage.

Bryson is one of three GOP candidates for the 73rd Assembly District to be endorsed by the Life Priority Network, according to its June 2014 “Orange County Pro-Family Candidate List.” To be included on the list, candidates must “uphold strong traditional family values and prudent fiscal practice, oppose the killing of preborn children for sex selection, convenience and birth control, and oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia.”

The same group has backed Bryson in her past campaigns for school board and the Orange County Republican Central Committee.

Other IE Support for Bryson

In addition to Munger’s independent expenditure, Bryson has been bolstered by $60,000 in outside support from Ed Voice and the California Charter Schools Association.

Other GOP candidates in the race are Rancho Santa Margarita City Councilman Jesse Petrilla, small business owner Paul Glaab, Dana Point Councilman Bill Brough. The lone Democrat expected to advance past the June primary election is Wendy Gabriella, a teacher and civil attorney.

Campaign Filing: Spirit of Democracy California Independent Expenditure

Independent Expenditures Supporting Anna Bryson

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went after CA supermajority

Even as Irwin highlights her moderate credentials, she has leaned heavily on the party's labor-union base for fundraising and foot soldiers.

A few hours after the parade, she stopped by a backyard barbecue for members of local carpenters, builders and electrical workers unions, who had been knocking on doors in Oxnard on her behalf.

"She's for working-class people," said Jose Lopez, a 33-year-old electrician from Oxnard. "She knows that when more jobs are here locally, the money grows here locally."

The next day, at Godspeak Calvary Church, McCoy was lamenting the federal and state debt and the high rate of long-term unemployment. He urged his congregants to cast off political apathy.

"Do something!" he exhorted.

A local pastor for 14 years, McCoy is a dexterous speaker. At the pulpit and on the stump, he is alternately theatrical and self-effacing, weaving standard Republican slams against government regulation with calls for post-partisan unity.

Linda Gowan, a member of McCoy's church, said she had been politically disengaged until recently but was "moved by Rob's passion and vision for California, and absolutely skewered by his call to action."

Democrats say McCoy is too extreme for the 44^th Assembly District. In television and mail ads, they're highlighting comments he made at a 2011 tea party rally, calling for Social Security to be abolished.

McCoy qualifies that statement now, saying he was recounting a conversation with his father-in-law and that he does not want to end Social Security for current retirees. Rather, he said, he wants to revamp it for younger generations.

Concerns that McCoy may be too conservative were shared by some in the Republican establishment. Groups funded primarily by the California Chamber of Commerce and GOP mega-donor Charles Munger spent more than $700,000 against him in the June primary.

Some contributors have since come around. Munger gave the McCoy campaign the maximum individual donation this month, and the state party has sent in more than a half-million dollars. McCoy has brought in $1.1 million; Irwin has raised nearly $1.5 million.

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Charles T. Munger Jr.

Palo Alto, CA

Physicist at Stanford University

60 donations: 25 to candidates, 25 to ballot measures and 10 to parties

Neel Kashkari is the Republican candidate for governor because of the efforts of a mild mannered, bow-tied Stanford University physicist named Charles Munger Jr.  Munger is also responsible for the defeat and retirement of several powerful California members of Congress, and he is the major funding source keeping the California Republican Party afloat.  Not bad for a guy almost no one has ever heard of.

Munger has become the major funding source for a moribund and nearly broke state GOP, investing some $2 million in favored candidates this spring alone.  The obviously wealthy physicist did not make this money as a Stanford professor, but through the very good luck of the being the son of Charles Munger Sr., senior partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway.  The 90-year-old senior Munger ranks number 1,432 on the Forbes list of world billionaires.

Munger’s entry into state politics came via the arcane issue of redistricting.  In 2004, he was helping a Republican in an Assembly race in the Bay Area when he saw that his candidate had no chance to win because the district had been gerrymandered to elect a Democrat. So Munger became a supporter of redistricting reform, and in 2010 he put $12 million of his money behind a ballot measure to take redistricting of congressional seats out of the hands of the legislature.

He won and in 2011 the Citizens Redistricting Commission redrew the state’s congressional districts in a way not at all helpful to powerful incumbents.  One big loser was Democratic Rep. Howard Berman who had been chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was a key supporter of Israel in Congress.

In prior redistrictings, Berman had always been safe because his brother, Michael Berman, drew the districts for the legislature.  Now Michael was out, and Howard ended up in a district with another incumbent and lost.  His close ally, powerful Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, also got a bad district, and had his first close race in 40 years in 2012.  He is now retiring.

So Munger’s decision to fund a measure taking congressional redistricting away from the legislature has already had a profound effect on the politics and power in the California congressional delegation.

But Munger’s greatest effect has been in internal Republican Party politics.  His first foray into partisan politics was 2012 when he supported several candidates in the primary and general elections, and worked against Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax hike.  Most Munger candidates in 2012 lost and the tax increase passed, but Munger was undeterred and in June this year, he finally made his mark.

A month out from the June primary, Neel Kashkari was running at a dismal two percent in the polls, one poll even had him trailing a convicted sex offender. Republican voices around the country began warning that if Assemblyman Tim Donnelly with his harsh rhetoric on immigrants were the GOP candidate for governor he would drag down the ticket in November.  But what to do?  Most Republican voters knew nothing about Kashkari and Donnelly was leading in the polls.

To the rescue came Charles Munger.  He paid for “An Urgent Warning from Gov. Pete Wilson about Candidate Tim Donnelly,” a tough attack on Donnelly for being on probation and his extreme statements that also boosted Kashkari as “the right choice to take on Jerry Brown.”  The mailer did the trick and Kashkari topped Donnelly in the primary.  Without Munger’s last minute funding of this piece, it is doubtful Kashkari would have won.

This June Munger began what is probably a long process to reshape the state GOP by supporting with major independent expenditures centrist candidates for the legislature in the top two primary.  And Munger had some notable victories, the most important being Bonnie Garcia for the state senate.

Garcia, a former Assemblywoman, was once called as Hot Latina by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  She should now be called a Lucky Latina.  She was up against three other Republicans for the Senate in a newly drawn safe GOP district in Riverside County.  But Garcia and two other candidates were from eastern Riverside; only one candidate was from the vote rich western part of the county.  That candidate, County Supervisor Jeff Stone, was expected to run first in the primary and did so; leaving Garcia and the others to struggle for the second spot.

Garcia was very lucky that in this district with a 33 percent Democratic registration two Democrats ran, splitting that vote.  But that would not have been enough without Munger’s political action committee, Spirit of Democracy California, spending $485,000 independently for Garcia.  She nabbed the second spot by only 449 votes.  Without the Munger spending she would almost certainly not have been in the runoff.

But now Garcia has an excellent chance to win the November contest with Stone as Latinos account for nearly a quarter of registered voters and she should be able to pull cross over votes in November.  And one might anticipate seeing more Munger money in the fall.

Munger also managed to win in the San Bernardino County seat Donnelly abandoned for his unsuccessful governor’s race.  Jay Obernolte, supported by $258,000 in Munger independent expenditures, ran first among eight Republican candidates and is on his way to Sacramento.

Munger was also a major backer of Republican Catharine Baker who is in a runoff in an East Bay suburban district.  Here Munger’s support collided with that of the business community, which spent several million dollars supporting pro-business Democrat Steve Glazer against a former head of the teacher union.  But Baker’s candidacy managed to keep Glazer from getting sufficient Republican cross over votes to make the runoff.

Not all the Munger candidates have the Midas touch.  In a political case of dogs not liking the dog food, $393,000 in Munger money could not keep Orange County GOP Assembly hopeful Anna Bryson from running fifth out of five candidates.

But Munger is now a force that is here to stay, because he is willing to put major dollars behind candidates he favors, and against those he thinks would be bad for the state and for his party.  And he is about the only person doing this. The Donnelly candidacy, where he raised virtually no money, shows that the right wing in California politics no longer has a financial base, and many of the party’s traditional establishment funding sources have given up on it.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and into the vacuum of financing Republican candidates has stepped Mr. Munger.  Given his successes in June 2014, he is now the dominant force reshaping the Republican Party in California.

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alternet

3) Charles Munger Jr. (near-billionaire and son of a billionaire)bankrolled California’s Proposition 20 in 2010 to create a “citizens redistricting committee” that took the process of drawing political districts out of the hands of California’s politicians. Munger and many Republicans believed this would immediately turn the state over to the Republicans because the districts were “gerrymandered [24]”—rigged—to have a majority of “safe” Democratic-voting districts.

Prop. 20 passed, but it didn’t work out the way Munger and Republicans had hoped, not by a long shot. The earlier Democratic gerrymandering process had been “too clever by half.” To make sure Democrats would have a guaranteed majority in the legislature they drew up districts in a way that moved Republican voters into a minority of “safe” Republican districts. The problem with this is that it takes a two-thirds vote in the legislature to pass a budget, and Democrats had rigged the system in a way that left Republicans with just over one-third control. So year after year Republicans blocked everything, demanding big tax breaks for corporations as a ransom for passing anything that helped any actual people. (Why does that sound familiar?)

It turns out that fair redistricting is a gift to citizen control and democracy. After the citizens commission got rid of the gerrymander, voters kicked out enough Republicans to give Democrats two-thirds contro. Prop 30 increased taxes on the wealthy, while also bumping up the sales tax. Now the state has a budget surplus, schools are starting to get re-funded, infrastructure is starting to get repaired and things are getting done again.

Other Munger-financed propositions includeProposition 32, a failed attempt to keep unions from being involved in politicsand Proposition 14, which passed and gave California an “open primary” which keeps political parties from being able to choose their own candidates—instead the top two vote-getters in the primary go into the general election regardless of party.

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http://spreadsheets.latimes.com/charles-munger-campaign-spending/