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In the first half of 2024, Edison International donated around a million dollars to political candidates, PACs and organizations. Much of that money went to Democrats.

Now the powerful energy giant is facing accusations that it’s responsible for the LA fires.

The New York Times and Los Angeles Times both reported on growing suspicions that the Eaton fire broke out around its power lines and two lawsuits have already been filed, one for wrongful death, and a judge has ordered the company to preserve evidence.

Edison’s contributions were directed to leading California politicians including Gov. Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and State Sen. Susan Rubio, a formerly deported state politician who is under suspicion of soliciting a quarter million dollar bribe in another case, and who despite that heads the state senate’s insurance committee, who were at the center of the current wildfire disaster.

The energy company was listed among Newsom’s top 20 donors in the 2018 cycle with over $70,000 in contributions, just ahead of the California Democratic Party. A year later its financial disclosures showed that it “spent more than $95,000 on food and other expenses for lawmakers, staff of lawmakers and the governor.” By 2023, Edison was spending a massive $3 million on lobbying California politicians.

But Edison’s connections to California politicians could be more subtle than that. For example, Newsom’s wife, titled ‘First Partner’ Jennifer Siebel Newsom, created the California Partners Project (CPP), and Newsom’s office put out a press release celebrating that Edison became one of the eight companies to sign on to it. CPP operates as a 501(c)(4) that takes in money from companies that do business with the state including the failed Silicon Valley Bank.

Attorney General Rob Bonta, the politician being groomed by Newsom as his replacement, received $72,500 from lawyers at a firm representing SoCal Edison, including lawyers working on a case involving the company’s responsibility for causing a 2018 fire, in the days before he announced he wouldn’t put forward criminal charges. After media scrutiny, Bonta offered to return some of the money. The rest may be used for his future gubernatorial campaign.

During that fire, it was found that California assembly members were in Maui, being hosted by lobbyists, including for SoCal Edison, asking them for a bailout. The attendees included Ian Calderon, the nephew of ex-State Senator Ron Calderon, the former head of the senate’s insurance commission, before being ousted and arrested for the “largest insurance fraud case” in the history of the California Department of Insurance, Senator Tom Calderon, his brother, indicted for money laundering, who has since been replaced by his stepmother, Assemblywoman Lisa Calderon. Also in attendance was the half of yet another California dynasty, Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, whose sister Senator Susan Rubio, is reportedly under FBI investigation, and multiple other Democrat elected officials most of whom have left office.

But usually not without finding lucrative forms of employment in the ‘private sector’.

Edison wields influence in a variety of ways. Beyond donating to Mayor Karen Bass when she was still a member of Congress, her mayoral office is staffed with Edison vets. Chris Thompson, the Chief of Staff for Bass, was the Vice President of Local Public Affairs for SoCal Edison, essentially the chief lobbyist, and her Director of Energy and Water, Luis Gutierrez, used to be a policy guy at SoCal Edison. When Edison held its Black History Month event, multiple politicians showed up, including Karen Bass and Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

The company also donated to multiple members of the Senate’s Energy and Utilities Committee, including its leadership, and Edison money also went into the campaigns of both Los Angeles city officials, and of key figures in the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors.

In the pursuit of ‘green energy’, leftist Democrat politicians promoted a ‘Clean Power Alliance’ which promised to bring ‘green energy’ to local areas. The highly dubious arrangement was inflicted on Southern California Edison customers which promised to deliver ‘green energy’ at higher prices over SCE’s power lines. And Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the most radical member, had served on the Clean Power Alliance and ran for office on her ‘green’ work of coordinating the green energy boondoggle that ripped off customers with SoCal Edison.

Horvath also served as the president of the California Contract Cities Association whose ‘platinum’ members included Edison. Open the Books listed Edison as the second largest utility company to hand out and receive sizable amounts of cash in California politics, receiving over $100 million in state payments.

Edison effectively used the practice of ‘behested payments’, charitable contributions solicited by politicians from donors for their causes, providing $100,000 to the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles for former Mayor Eric Garcetti, $30,000 for former Council president  Nury Martinez before being ousted over racist remarks, and $30,000 for current president Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

There was hardly a significant Democrat politician in California who did not benefit from Edison money in one form or another. For example, CEO Steven Powell of SoCal Edison made his own private donations to Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. Alex Padilla.

While California Democrats blame the state’s problems on global warming, the state’s corruption problem cannot be detached from its various crises. Over the last decade, a record 576 California officials were convicted on federal corruption charges and the number continues to rise.

Beyond actual criminal acts of bribery, money laundering and corruption, special interests and a one-party system have made California the most corrupt state in the country, outdoing even former mob capitals like New York, Illinois and New Jersey. The morass of regulations has made regulatory capture routine with networks of connections between politicians and virtual monopolies that are the only ones still able to do business in an increasingly corrupt California.

That is why Freedom Center Investigates is continuing to dig into these abuses with our series, Corrupt California. Because California is not only corrupt, it’s more corrupt than you can believe.

The real issue in the fires is not California’s climate, it’s the state’s climate of corruption.

Previous articles in the series:

[1] California Dems Fight Trump While State Burns: CLICK HERE.

[2] Ex-Illegal Alien Senator Suspected of Bribery Leads California’s Insurance CLICK HERE