The California Fair Elections Act, a new ballot proposition, allows governments to fund campaigns for public office. If passed, the bill would repeal a 1988 ban on public funding of campaigns.
Charter cities — like Berkeley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco — are currently already allowed to provide public financing in elections. All five cities have already implemented this process, meaning they can fund a campaign.
If passed, the proposed act would allow the state, counties and general law cities to participate as well. The effort has been supported by advocacy organizations such as the League of Women Voters of California and the California Clean Money Action Fund.
In interviews with Annenberg Media, both organizations cite the outsized influence of corporations and Political Action Committees (PACs) in recent statewide elections as the motivation for the bill.
PACs are organizations that fundraise to influence an election in favor of specific candidates, parties or policies.
Trent Lange, the president and executive director of the California Clean Money Action Fund, said that if passed, the act would allow politicians to focus on connecting with voters, rather than raising funds.
“It gives qualified candidates the resources to be able to run full campaigns, not spend all their time dialing for dollars or fundraising,” Lange said, pointing to the success of candidates like Mayor Karen Bass or Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who won their respective elections against PAC and billionaire-funded candidates through public finance systems.
CalMatters reported that almost $100 million was spent in the 2024 legislative races. Among the biggest contributors to campaigns were Uber, the Coalition to Restore California’s Middle Class and the Opportunity PAC, according to the report.
Jenny Farrel, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, said the bill would strengthen California’s democracy. With races determined less by money and more by politics, she said, taxpayers could start seeing candidates who reflect the state’s diversity.
“When voters see candidates who look like them, share their life experiences and speak to their concerns, those voters are more likely to believe that their vote matters and more likely to turn out in elections,” Farrel said. “Public financing helps engage underrepresented communities in our democracy.”
However, the act’s detractors, such as the California Taxpayers Association (CTPA), have said it would allow public money to be filtered into areas where the group contends taxpayers don’t want it.
David Kline, spokesperson for the CTPA, said when he speaks with taxpayers, he finds that most want their money used for public services, not political campaigns.
“They want their tax dollars going to fix potholes in the streets, to keep the libraries open, keep the parks clean, keep the police force and fire department open,” Kline said. “We have not once heard any of them say they want their tax dollars to be used to fund more political hit pieces and junk mail.”
Lange said the proposal would cost about $1 per taxpayer, emphasizing that public financing for campaigns would not be expensive for the individual.
That analysis lines up with other states where public financing for campaigns has been implemented. In New York, $35 million in taxpayer money was spent on campaigns in 2024 — equivalent to around 0.028% of the $125.2 billion state budget in taxpayer money was spent on campaigns in 2024.
Kline also criticized the act for the lack of control taxpayers have after the fact, saying it could allow states and cities to fund candidates voters disagree with.
“A city like Berkeley might end up having to give tax dollars to a candidate who is a far right-winger, whom most of the residents of Berkeley would disagree with pretty strenuously,” Kline said.
Lange said the measure explicitly disallows political party or preference from being a factor in who receives public funding. He also noted that candidates must receive a large number of small donations to reflect widespread public support, with most contributions ranging from $5 to $10.
Farrel also said the act was likely to increase voter representation rather than diminish it. She said it would allow for more women, candidates of color and working-class candidates to participate in elections.
“Public financing will open the door to more diverse voices to consider running for office, and not self-select themselves out right from the beginning because they don’t have access to a billionaire to fund their campaign,” Farrel said.
Lange said the act is intended to provide long-term support for grassroots candidates to retain political power. This was done to reduce the threat of candidates being replaced by a PAC immediately after winning an election.
“We need public financing campaigns so that candidates know that they can run without having to take money from super PACs and win without having to spend all their time fundraising,” Lange said. “Instead, they get to spend their time talking to voters and doing the job that we want them to do.”