Just hours before California’s 2025 and 2026 legislative session was set to conclude, corporate lobbyists crowded the Capitol rotunda to stop a bill written by Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward of San Diego. Ward recalled that “the entire corporate lobbyist corps was in the rotunda.”

The group included lobbyists from “McDonald’s, Target, Walmart, Amazon—30 to 40 lobbyists causing confusion, planting seeds of doubt.” Their target was Ward’s proposal to curb surveillance pricing, a practice that customizes prices according to an individual consumer’s online interests, records, and spending capacity.

The bill had already cleared both legislative chambers. The Senate passed it earlier that day with amendments, however, which meant the Assembly had to approve it once more before the session ended.

The first time the Assembly considered the measure, 42 of its 80 members supported it, and every one of those supporters was a Democrat. On the final day, Ward needed to retain at least 41 votes.

He did not. Seven Democrats who had originally supported the bill withheld their backing, knowing their hesitation meant the Assembly would not vote before the final gavel ended the session.

The legislation died even though polling showed widespread public dissatisfaction with surveillance pricing. Corporate lobbyists had managed to derail a proposal that had already won approval in both chambers, simply by peeling away enough members of a narrow Democratic majority.

This was hardly a case of Democrats lacking the numbers to govern. They hold 60 Assembly seats and 30 of the state Senate’s 40 seats, giving the party a three quarters supermajority in each chamber.

Democrats have controlled the Assembly since 1971, apart from a brief interruption in 1995 and 1996. They have controlled the Senate continuously since 1975, while Republicans have not possessed enough votes to block veto overrides for roughly the past 20 years.

Yet Ward’s legislation never enjoyed unified Democratic backing. It passed each chamber with only the barest majority, and the seven defections at the crucial moment followed a broader pattern in which some Democrats prove receptive to corporate lobbying.

That pattern has emerged alongside two powerful forces: prolonged rule by one party and the sweeping deregulation of campaign spending by corporations and wealthy donors. When one party controls lawmaking, those interests have every incentive to purchase influence within that party.

California’s 99 largest corporate and conservative campaign contributors have donated $83.9 million to Democrats currently holding state office. Those same contributors gave only $23.1 million to Republican officeholders, reflecting the GOP’s diminished ability to shape legislation.

The figures come from the California Oligarch Index, a database covering campaign and lobbying spending from 2005 through 2024. It tracks the 99 largest corporate and individual conservative donors to state political candidates and causes, whose spending reached $5.8 billion.

That total surpassed contributions from the bottom 99.9% of California residents, a category that includes unions, nonprofit groups, and small businesses. The index organizes donations by industry, including oil and gas, real estate, pharmaceuticals, and insurance, while also identifying the causes each donor supported.

The project also examines local elections and lobbying in California’s 20 largest cities and counties. It documents contributions from the 25 largest corporate and individual donors in each jurisdiction and calculates their share of total donations.

Colorado based civil rights attorney Jim Freeman and his research team created the databases. Freeman has compiled similar indices for other states and shared them with progressive and community organizations, but the California index is the first made public.

Even this extensive collection cannot provide the entire picture. Freeman said there is no reliable way to identify donors behind dark money super PACs, while companies also give through broad business organizations such as state and local chambers of commerce.

The data help explain why some California Democrats operate like the moderate Republicans of an earlier era on less visible economic issues. During the period examined, one Democratic legislator resigned to work for Chevron, while another left office to work for PhRMA.

Chevron was the largest corporate donor during the index’s 20 year period. Although Democrats aligned with corporate interests sometimes face primary challengers supported by unions and progressive groups, enough survive to keep the corporate lobbying operation humming.

With California Republicans largely eclipsed and campaign finance remaining wide open, corporate interests do not need a powerful GOP caucus. They can direct their money toward Democrats and rely on willing legislators to fill the Republican void.