California's public sector unions collect $921 million a year in dues and are auditioning Democratic governor candidates — Porter, Swalwell, and Steyer — to protect $240 billion in annual spending. Matt Mahan is running against the machine on a fix-the-waste-first platform, while Steyer's own hedge fund receipts (private prisons, coal mines, scab labor) expose his pro-labor posture as performance art funded by the wealth he claims to despise.
Read Top Post →Steyer stood in a $1,000-a-night SF hotel and called Prop 13 the ‘Trump Tax Loophole.’ Problem: it passed in 1978 under Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown when Trump was 32 and building condos. Steyer claims $20B is trapped; the state’s own analyst estimated $8-12.5B. Voters already rejected this exact proposal 52-48 in 2020. Three days after his union endorsement tracker showed him courting CSEA and CNA, he’s rebranding a 47-year-old Democratic law as a Trump scam.
Feb 25, 2026 · 5 min
California spends $150 billion more per year than it did six years ago with nothing to show for it. Spending jumped 72% under Newsom while revenues grew 60%. The state workforce ballooned 28% to 481,850 employees. Newsom’s $97.5B ‘surplus’ was an illusion — his administration overestimated revenues by $165B over four years. Mahan is running on fixing the waste before raising taxes. Steyer has spent $27M on attack ads — twice what everyone else combined.
Feb 20, 2026 · 4 min
Steyer’s hedge fund Farallon held 5.5% of Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in the U.S., notorious for low-wage non-union staff. Opposition was so fierce that activists launched UnFarallon.info in 2004. Yale labor unions used Farallon investments as leverage during a brutal dispute. Stanford students confronted Steyer about worker treatment at mining facilities. Now he posts photos with striking teachers and calls Mahan’s supporters ‘anti-union.’
Feb 10, 2026 · 4 min
California’s public sector unions collected $921 million in dues in a single year — not campaign contributions, annual revenue. The California Teachers Association alone has 325,000 members and $356M in revenue. Unlike private sector unions negotiating with shareholder-controlled management, these unions elect the politicians who then sit across the bargaining table. They’re protecting $240 billion in annual public employee compensation, and the Teamsters are coming for tech next.
Feb 06, 2026 · 5 min
