Behested payments aren’t illegal, but they are a problem

After Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that the U.S. Department of Justice may be investigating his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, media and pundits attacked the millions in charitable donations he claimed for nonprofits he was involved with.

These donations, known as “solicited payments,” are not illegal in California, but long before Newsom began soliciting them, many people found them distasteful, for good reason. After all, an order is by definition an order, or at least a strong suggestion.

Whenever a politician orders money, regardless of his motives, there is at least some appearance of the giver: For example Meta, Google, Blue Shield – can expect something in return.

With Trump selling everything from cryptocurrencies to sneakers from the Oval Office, it may seem absurd that the Trump administration is investigating Newsom for questionable ethics. But the problem Newsom now faces is that the payments ordered are actually insufficient and, legal or not, provide the perfect target to defeat the presidential candidate. Especially since some charities are affiliated with his wife.

“The Newsom case exposed everything, but it had been an issue for years,” Sean McMorris told me. He is the transparency, ethics and accountability program manager for Common Cause, a nonpartisan organization that has been sounding the alarm about solicited payments for more than a decade.

McMorris said that although these payments do not violate any laws, they “are ripe for abuse” because companies and people probably aren’t hoarding cash just to be good citizens. If you or I called PG&E and asked them to give a few million to our favorite cause, I doubt we’d have much luck, even if it involved kittens, puppies, or toddlers in need.

McMorris notes that the whole system “doesn’t really work unless you shake the people that you know are expecting something from you as a politician.”

Jerry Brown used ordered payments to make millions for the charter schools he supported. Lesser figures like mayors (including Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti, and Karen Bass, to name the last three in Los Angeles) have used them for everything from business schedules to repairs to official residences.

And this is far from democratic. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger used them to pay for travel and after-school program expenses. Republican James Gallagher, who recently won a seat in Congress. we used them to fund computers for schools while in the state legislature. Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones raises millions Help raise $800,000 in donations Funding a replica of a historic ship for a maritime museum in the San Diego area.

Trump himself, with his corporate pay-per-view ballroom and birthday party, can be seen as the king of commissioned payouts.

Literally folks, find me a politician with even a little clout and I’ll show you a trail of ordered payments leading back to their pet projects. For that reason alone, California lawmakers are unlikely to take any action to block them, especially when doing so appears to be a criticism of Newsom and Democrats generally.

And to be fair, ordered payments can have many benefits. Newsom increased payments ordered during the pandemic and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for programs to help Californians recover from this social disaster.

For this and other reasons, not all experts find them very disturbing. Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson, who has expertise in election and governance issues, points out that money in politics is nothing new, and that at least ordered payments should be accepted (for the most part). Anything over $5,000 and the politician must report it to the California Fair Political Practices Commission. maintains a public database.

This makes ordered payments much more transparent than, say, dark money donations to a mysterious political action committee. And at least the money goes to a good cause, whether it’s historic ships or computers for kids.

“I actually don’t think these are bad contraptions that other people have made,” Levinson said. “So, my point is, let’s just live it up, right? People are going to want to give as much money to powerful people as possible, or to be as close to them, and I think we have a choice between the money going to independent spending groups or political committees, or it going to nonprofits.”

So the payments ordered may not be much of a headache for Newsom in and of themselves. But some of the payments Newsom requested Siebel went to nonprofits Newsom was involved withand who pays him a salary. This closeness is uncomfortable for most of us. There is no distinction for a bequest given to a charity with a direct connection to the politician, but perhaps there should be.

However, paying wages with ordered payments is also not illegal, and has even been done by Newsom before. Villaraigosa was paid through bequeathed funds in 2022 for his work as the state’s “infrastructure czar.” Bass considered paying former Los Angeles Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff for his work through bequest-funded nonprofits after the recent fires before public scrutiny pushed him to give up the funds.

None of this means the Newsoms have escaped a federal investigation. Newsom’s office said IRS agents along with the FBI have been knocking on doors and asking questions. We’ll all have to wait (probably including the Newsoms) to see if the feds’ fine-toothed combs pick up any dirt.

If there is a lesson to be learned at this point, it is ambition and arrogance. The payments requested are, as always, easy money for California politicians and businesses; everyone does this. But maybe they shouldn’t. It’s not black or white.

Newsom is quickly learning what it means to have a powerful foe like Trump, who has shown that he will use the full power of the American government for his own purposes. Someone who can tip the scales and slide from white to gray, from gray to serious crime.

Federal investigators don’t like to arrive empty-handed, and the winking nature of ordered payments creates the kind of uncertainty that provides plausible cause for investigation — a self-inflicted vulnerability that’s sure to frustrate every California politician.