Who really runs California –– and how unions

Who really runs California –– and how unions – Latest News

Who really runs California?

Most people would reply the identical approach. Voters elect a governor, legislators, county supervisors, metropolis council members and faculty boards, and these officers debate coverage, move legal guidelines, negotiate budgets and make the selections that form life throughout the state.

But anybody who has spent years watching politics in Sacramento and metropolis halls throughout California is aware of there may be one other layer of affect, one which not often will get the eye it deserves.

The state’s public worker unions have turn into among the many strongest political establishments in California, and their attain extends effectively past negotiating wages, pensions and working situations.

Who really runs California? Anadolu through Getty Images

They help elect the officers with whom they then negotiate. They spend extraordinary sums to affect elections and poll measures. They foyer laws and form regulatory coverage.

These unions occupy a place in contrast to nearly another organized curiosity in American politics. Businesses negotiate with the federal government. Environmental organizations foyer it. Taxpayer teams attempt to affect it.

Public worker unions do one thing essentially completely different: They negotiate immediately with the officers whose campaigns they typically helped finance and whose elections they typically helped win.

Nothing like that exists within the personal sector, the place unions know they operate within limits set by the market. Every greenback for wages or advantages comes from a company that should keep profitable to outlive. If labor prices turn into too high, the business will loses clients, relocate or fail.

In the public sector, unions behave as if constraints don’t exist. That’s as a result of when labor prices rise, the federal government can raise taxes, cut companies, borrow or defer the prices.

In the personal sector, business executives and union leaders are on reverse, unbiased sides of the desk. The United Auto Workers doesn’t elect the CEO of Ford.

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In California, in contrast, public worker unions are sometimes among the many most influential forces figuring out who turns into governor, mayor, county supervisor or faculty board trustee. They endorse candidates, contribute thousands and thousands and present the volunteers and infrastructure many candidates couldn’t simply exchange.

By the time contract negotiations start, the 2 sides have typically labored collectively for years. That doesn’t imply officers give up; many negotiate in good religion to guard taxpayers whereas pretty compensating staff. But the officers who approve compensation packages are often backed by the identical organizations representing the workers who benefit. The unions are on each side of the desk.

This just isn’t an argument that public staff are the issue. California will depend on devoted academics, firefighters, police officers, nurses and hundreds of different public servants, most easily attempting to help their households and earn the advantages they have been promised.

The focus right here just isn’t the people. It is the political organizations that signify them — and over the previous half-century, these organizations have constructed one of the best and sturdy political machines in California historical past.

The query is no longer why public worker unions have affect. It whether or not California can survive their stranglehold on state politics.

Seven years later, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Rodda Act, extending these rights to Ok-14 public faculty staff, and later the Dills Act, doing the identical for state staff. Getty Images for Homeboy Industries

Building the machine

California’s public worker unions didn’t turn into highly effective in a single day. Their affect was constructed over a long time, via legislative selections, political victories and institutional change.

The fashionable period started in 1968, when Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, granting collective bargaining rights to native authorities staff.

Seven years later, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Rodda Act, extending these rights to Ok-14 public faculty staff, and later the Dills Act, doing the identical for state staff.

Together, these legal guidelines remodeled public-sector labor relations throughout California and laid the legal basis for one of the nation’s strongest political actions.

None assured dominance; they merely gave organized labor a framework from which to grow. As membership grew, so did dues, and dues paid for political operations that helped elect candidates sympathetic to labor. Those officers negotiated the contracts, handed the legal guidelines and wrote the laws, and every success introduced more members, money and affect.

The cycle strengthened itself. Over time, candidates have been no longer merely endorsed by public worker unions; many got here immediately from the labor motion itself.

Another pivotal second arrived in 1999, when Gray Davis signed Senate Bill 400, increasing state pension advantages — a resolution whose penalties, explored later, mirrored a governing philosophy that rewarded advantages at the moment whereas pushing the associated fee into the longer term.

By the tip of the twentieth century, California’s public worker unions had advanced into everlasting, and extremely efficient, political establishments. It occurred as a result of every victory made the subsequent one simpler. That is how establishments accumulate energy.

Follow the money

Political affect is measured not by how typically you get your approach, however by whether or not authorities can realistically transfer ahead with out you.

By that measure, California’s public worker unions are among the many most influential organizations in state politics — and that affect is neither hidden nor speculative. It is documented in marketing campaign finance experiences filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

When the FPPC examined a decade of marketing campaign and lobbying experiences, from 2000 via 2009, it discovered that the California Teachers Association alone had spent more than $211 million on California politics — more than any company, commerce affiliation, environmental group or ideological group within the state. No one else got here close. The second-biggest spender of the last decade was one other public worker union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

That money buys far more than promoting. It funds candidate recruitment, unbiased expenditures, poll measure committees, voter outreach, polling and year-round lobbying.

These unions don’t turn into energetic solely a few months earlier than an election; their affect is felt day by day the legislature is in session and each time a faculty board meets. And the CTA is hardly alone. The SEIU, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the California Professional Firefighters and others spend tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} more each cycle.

Money by itself doesn’t guarantee success; California is full of rich pursuits that spend monumental sums solely to lose.

What distinguishes public worker unions is that their spending is just one half of a broader operation. They additionally present precinct walkers, cellphone banks, voter registration drives and coverage experience most candidates might by no means construct on their own, and their relationships with officers start long earlier than an election and proceed long after.

The consequence just isn’t merely affect, but additionally infrastructure — and it extends effectively past Sacramento, into county, metropolis council, mayoral, faculty board and particular district races that draw little consideration but decide who will later negotiate labor agreements, approve pensions and undertake budgets.

Money alone didn’t construct California’s public worker union motion, however it helped construct the machine that sustains it.

Money by itself doesn’t guarantee success; California is full of rich pursuits that spend monumental sums solely to lose. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

How affect turns into coverage

Political energy issues provided that it modifications outcomes. The examples that comply with illustrate how affect turns into coverage — and why so many Californians have come to consider organized pursuits carry more weight than the taxpayers who finance authorities.

When California closed its faculties

Perhaps no latest occasion higher illustrates that affect than the closure — and reopening — of the state’s public faculties during the COVID-19 pandemic. The early weeks have been full of uncertainty, and affordable people can disagree about decisions made with restricted data. But one truth is past dispute: When California’s leaders weighed whether or not to close faculties, the CTA was not merely one other stakeholder. It was one of the few organizations whose place might essentially form the end result.

On March 13, 2020, because the CTA publicly urged closing each public faculty within the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an government order guaranteeing that districts would keep receiving state funding even when lecture rooms closed. As the pandemic wore on, the union stayed deeply concerned within the debate over when and how faculties ought to reopen. California’s lecture rooms stayed closed longer than most of the nation’s, whereas thousands and thousands of mother and father watched from the sidelines.

I didn’t expertise these shutdowns solely as a political skilled. I skilled them as a guardian whose school-aged kids paid the price. I had spent more than three a long time across the CTA’s energy and thought I understood it. That yr taught me I had understated it.

The union’s attain was not confined to pay and advantages. It prolonged as to whether my kids went to high school in any respect — and to the legal guidelines governing their lecture rooms, together with the union’s long, profitable struggle to keep particular person pupil outcomes out of trainer evaluations.

Whether each place it took was proper just isn’t the purpose. The level is that no governor might realistically make selections affecting practically 6 million public faculty college students with out accounting for one of the state’s strongest organizations.

That just isn’t affect over a labor contract. It is affect over statewide coverage affecting just about each California household — and it now reaches far past training.

When authorities can’t afford to say “no”

The identical dynamic performs out removed from Sacramento. In 2026, two of California’s most distinguished city faculty districts — Los Angeles Unified and San Francisco Unified — supplied related case research. Both confronted declining enrollment, warned of long-term fiscal pressure and knew non permanent federal COVID aid was ending. Yet each accredited labor agreements rising long-term obligations.

In Los Angeles, officers priced the union’s proposals at more than $4 billion over three years — at the same time as enrollment fell, federal funding disappeared and the district confronted abuse allegations and expensive judgments. In San Francisco, underneath state fiscal oversight since 2024, leaders argued they may not responsibly afford the will increase demanded, and a four-day academics’ strike adopted.

Again, the purpose just isn’t that academics are overpaid or undeserving of raises. It is whether or not elected officers can realistically refuse calls for they consider exceed what taxpayers can maintain, realizing their reelection rests within the arms of the very unions throughout the desk.

Increasingly, the reply seems to be no. When “yes” is politically simpler than “no,” long-term realities turn into secondary. The prices don’t disappear. They are pushed into the longer term.

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

The governor’s pen

The clearest instance of affect is probably not a law that handed, however one that nearly definitely by no means will. In 2025, Congress created a federal tax-credit scholarship program, efficient in 2027, letting states increase academic choices via privately funded scholarships supported by federally tax-credited donations. The program requires no extra state training funds, and the governor can authorize participation with the stroke of a pen.

Newsom nearly definitely won’t, and the explanation has little to do with administrative complexity. California’s management has long opposed just about each vital school-choice proposal — vouchers, training financial savings accounts, scholarship tax credit — and no group has fought these efforts more persistently than the CTA.

Whether faculty alternative is sweet coverage just isn’t the purpose. What issues is that when a governor has unilateral authority to increase academic alternative with out new state spending, but the proposal stays politically untouchable, it reveals the extraordinary affect one organized curiosity can train over the alternatives obtainable to thousands and thousands of households.

Taken individually, every instance will be debated. Viewed collectively, they reveal a governing system wherein one organized curiosity has turn into deeply embedded within the establishments that make public coverage. And these are simply a handful; there are enough to fill books. The query is no longer whether or not public worker unions have affect. It is whether or not that affect is per democracy and fiscal actuality.

These examples usually are not remoted occasions. Similar outcomes recur — on pensions, labor law, training coverage, staffing, authorities spending — as a result of the system’s incentives all level in the identical direction. Ren?e C. Byer/ZUMA / SplashNews.com

The incentives

This just isn’t a story about villains. Union leaders are anticipated to struggle for higher wages and advantages for his or her members; politicians search reelection and welcome the endorsements, volunteers and money influential organizations present. Each goal is rational on its own. The drawback arises when all these incentives reinforce each other.

No subject illustrates that more clearly than the pension system. Unlike salaries, pension guarantees don’t have to be totally paid for when negotiated: Benefits are earned at the moment, however a lot of the associated fee is deferred for years or a long time. That makes them uniquely engaging politically. Employees obtain enhanced advantages, union leaders declare a victory, and officers have fun a deal — whereas a lot of the burden goes unfelt till long after the negotiations finish.

California’s fashionable pension problem developed over a long time, via selections and financial assumptions that shifted at the moment’s prices into tomorrow’s budgets. Supporters of Gray Davis’s benefit enlargement argued that sturdy investment returns would supply the funding; critics warned that if these assumptions proved too optimistic, taxpayers would bear the distinction. History has largely validated the critics.

I noticed these incentives up close. I spent years handling media relations for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and it by no means stopped astounding me: Able-bodied deputies retiring at 50, as a result of SB 400 and the native enhancements it impressed had made retirement that profitable, then going to work for one more company or a personal security firm as a result of amassing a pension and a paycheck without delay made financial sense. None of them broke any guidelines. They responded to incentives.

The numbers inform the story. When SB 400 handed, the state’s annual cost to CalPERS was about $160 million. Two a long time later, it exceeded $7 billion.

Every greenback dedicated to yesterday’s guarantees is one much less for at the moment’s companies. Stockton discovered that arithmetic the arduous approach, submitting in 2012 for what was then the biggest metropolis chapter in American historical past, having already cut roughly a quarter of its police drive whereas retirement prices climbed. Vallejo and San Bernardino advised related tales.

One of the least understood numbers in California authorities is the assumed fee of investment return utilized by CalPERS. It sounds obscure, however it immediately determines how a lot governments should contribute every year. Higher assumed returns scale back at the moment’s required contributions, liberating money for more union jobs, raises and richer advantages; decrease assumed returns require governments to contribute more instantly.

No one is manipulating the figures — trustees have fiduciary duties and should decide long-term efficiency. But the construction creates unmistakable incentives, as a result of decrease contributions make it simpler to steadiness budgets and keep away from arduous decisions at the moment. If future returns disappoint, the added prices don’t disappear. They switch to future officeholders and taxpayers.

The sample extends past pensions. The Supreme Court’s 2018 resolution in Janus v. AFSCME was broadly anticipated to weaken public worker unions by ending the requirement that nonmembers pay company charges.

Yet it didn’t alter California’s panorama. Unions misplaced an estimated $50 million a yr in agency-fee income, however membership largely held, and the legislature made it simpler for unions to succeed in new staff. By the time Janus was determined, they’d already constructed one thing more sturdy than a dues-collection system: Campaign organizations, lobbying operations, long-standing relationships, and networks developed over a long time. Losing one legal benefit didn’t erase that infrastructure.

Even when reform passes, the system absorbs it. Gov. Brown signed a statewide pension overhaul in 2012, however it utilized primarily to newly employed staff, and left the underlying bargaining construction untouched.

Wisconsin reveals what occurs when the construction itself modifications: After that state restricted collective bargaining for many public staff in 2011, public-sector union membership fell by more than half within a few years, and a lot of the unions’ political affect went with it.

California’s machine is constructed on California’s guidelines.

That helps clarify why significant reform has confirmed so arduous. Every participant pursues rational targets, however collectively they level the identical approach: more authorities employment, better compensation, bigger obligations, more affect.

The loop reinforces itself. Reform just isn’t unimaginable, however it’s terribly tough, as a result of it asks elected officers to problem organizations that helped elect them. The quick prices are apparent; the advantages, if they arrive, are realized years later by another person.

This requires no perception in conspiracy theories — solely recognizing that establishments reply to incentives.

This requires no perception in conspiracy theories — solely recognizing that establishments reply to incentives. Ren?e C. Byer/ZUMA / SplashNews.com

A warning ignored

In August 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt — architect of the New Deal and the best buddy organized labor ever had within the White House — wrote to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.

“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” he warned. It has, he continued, “distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.” The cause was easy: In authorities, the employer is the entire people.

Roosevelt noticed the issue earlier than California signed its first public worker contract. The union model was constructed for a contest between labor and capital, with the market as referee. Transplant it into authorities and there may be no referee. There are solely politicians — elected, as typically as not, with the help of the organizations sitting throughout the desk.

California set that warning apart in 1968, and this essay has traced what adopted. None of it was improper. The unions organized. They raised money. They recruited candidates. They gained elections. It was the predictable consequence of disciplined political engagement sustained over a long time — and it produced precisely the system Roosevelt predicted.

So I’ll finish with a conclusion I as soon as would have thought-about unthinkable: The public good could also be higher served by repealing the legal guidelines that enable authorities staff to unionize in any respect.

I do know how that sounds. But it was the mainstream American view for many of the twentieth century, and it was Roosevelt’s. The different is on show throughout us. Left unchecked, these unions will keep doing what they do — growing their measurement, their scope and their declare on the public treasury past something affordable. Nothing inside the system has any cause to stop.

Public staff deserve truthful remedy. Taxpayers deserve a authorities that solutions first to them. Yet taxpayers usually are not a everlasting political group. They accumulate no dues, preserve no year-round marketing campaign and station no lobbyist at each listening to in Sacramento.

Repeal might show politically unimaginable; Wisconsin confirmed that even a partial rollback takes a political battle. But whether or not the reply is repeal, reform, or easy restraint, step one won’t come from within. Closed loops don’t open themselves.

If the steadiness is ever restored, the stress must come from the one members outdoors the loop: the voters who select the federal government initially of the chain and pay its payments on the finish.

Nearly 90 years in the past, Franklin Roosevelt advised us this system couldn’t work. California has spent the final half-century proving him proper.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.

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