Newsom signs his last budget on the way out the door — and the LA Times finds an influencer who can't even pronounce 'Steyer' boosting Steyer. Two stories, one race. This is the California Governor's Race. Today: a budget propped up on AI revenue projections, and the first documented look at who's been manufacturing the chatter online. From CalMatters:
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers reached a final budget deal last week that largely relies on AI revenue projections and new taxes to delay social service cuts and shrink future deficits. Following weeks of negotiations, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders on Monday approved a$352 billion budget for next year that raises some taxes, sets aside $6.4 billion for the year after and softens or delays billions of dollars in planned social service cuts.
$352 billion, balanced two years running — and the way they got there is AI revenue projections. That's a phantom number propping up a real political promise. It's Newsom's last budget, and the video he dropped — quote, 'we can have it all' — plays like a presidential stump speech with a balance sheet stapled to it. And here's what nobody's saying out loud: whoever wins in November inherits this. If those AI projections miss, Becerra or Hilton owns the downside in year one — Newsom's in Iowa by then. The new taxes are the part neither candidate's had to publicly own. Becerra's business backers — CalChamber — they hate this. His base wants the social services protected. The budget just made that an actual law, not a hypothetical. Right — the fracture's baked into the fiscal year now. New taxes his institutional money hates, service protections his voters demand. He can't split that down the middle in a campaign. Bessette Pitney, with Ben Wieder:
What they do not include is a disclosure that their creators were paid by the Steyer campaign to produce the videos, according to a complaint filed this week with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a Times review of the posts.The complaint alleges that the Steyer campaign failed to notify the influencers it hired of their obligation to inform their audience when their posts have been sponsored by the campaign.
So this is the documented part — and credit Ben Wieder at the LA Times here, this is his reporting. There's a complaint filed this week with the Fair Political Practices Commission alleging the Steyer campaign hired influencers and didn’t tell them to disclose they were paid. And the tell is right there in the piece — one of these influencers mispronounces Steyer's own last name. Hard to call that a groundswell when it sounds like payroll. Okay, but let's keep the scale honest. Wieder says this paid-influencer spend is a fraction of a $180 million war chest. I’m less interested in the disclosure violation than in where this machine goes now that Steyer finished third and he's out. California passed that disclosure law in 2023 — one of the only states with one. So the FPPC complaint actually has teeth here, and that makes this more than a gotcha clip. Sure, but a fraction of $180 million is still real money and real infrastructure. Does Becerra absorb that network, or does it just dissipate? That's the math I want. If you’re tracking California politics, you might also like San Francisco Politics and Urbanism Daily — covering City Hall, Muni, housing abundance, public safety, schools, and small-business permitting. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
We’ve got links to every story from today’s briefing in the show notes, so if one story caught your ear, you can dig into the source material there. That’s the California Governor’s Race for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.