Requiring voter ID. Cutting healthcare for immigrants. Ending early-release for prisoners with good behavior and setting up a DOGE-like entity to drive waste, fraud and abuse out of California government.
Months into his freshman term, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is shaking the trees across the state Legislature, introducing a flurry of bills that appear unlikely ever to be signed into law.
He’s also raising money hand over fist while his campaign spending is under investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
And separately, records show a charity run by his husband and his consultant paid DeMaio more than $200,000 between 2022 and 2023.
After winning his Assembly seat, DeMaio stepped away from the Transparency Foundation, which does not disclose its donors.
Critics say DeMaio is doing in Sacramento what he has done in San Diego for years: throwing bombs into the political discourse to boost his profile and generate political contributions rather than trying to actually legislate.
The 75th Assembly District representative counters that he and his Reform California organization are tapping into issues that matter to constituents and forcing conversations that other elected officials — including fellow Republicans — refuse to address.
DeMaio has introduced dozens of bills in the four months he has served in the statehouse, many of them based on issues that have long divided Democrats and Republicans. None has yet advanced beyond committee.
DeMaio built a fortune promoting government efficiency before winning a term on the San Diego City Council in 2008. He lost three campaigns for higher office over the following years before being elected last fall to the Assembly.
“I’m not surprised that politicians and special interests that benefit from California’s broken political system are manufacturing baseless complaints to try and stop my fight to reform California,” DeMaio said in a statement.
“But I’m not backing down from fighting every day to solve problems from inside the state Legislature and also from the outside through citizen ballot initiatives,” he said.
DeMaio did not run for re-election to his District 5 council seat in 2012, choosing instead to gamble his political future on the San Diego Mayor’s Office. He claimed the most votes in the primary but lost the general election to then-Rep. Bob Filner.
After his defeat, he pivoted to talk radio. DeMaio built a broad following by raising questions about government practices — usually poking Democrats who have been in the majority in San Diego and California for years.
His on-air popularity did not soon help him return to public office.
DeMaio lost successive runs for Congress, first against Rep. Scott Peters in 2014 and then against then-Rep. Duncan Hunter, who at the time was fending off criminal charges that he misspent hundreds of thousands in political donations. Hunter later pleaded guilty but was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
But DeMaio nonetheless built a fundraising juggernaut.
The political committees he now controls — Reform California with Carl DeMaio, Reform California Voter Guide and Carl DeMaio for State Assembly — raised almost $5 million last year alone.
That’s more than three times the $1.3 million the Republican Party of San Diego County raised in 2024.
Last fall, DeMaio won the state Assembly seat vacated by Marie Waldron, besting Lakeside school board Trustee Andrew Hayes by 14 percentage points. Hayes lost, despite having been endorsed by the San Diego County Republican Party.
Party officials were already sharply divided over DeMaio’s candidacy before they endorsed Hayes over the former San Diego council member.
Today, they remain at odds.
Many prominent Republicans in San Diego County — including a host of current and former officeholders — declined to talk about DeMaio or his work as an elected member of the California Assembly.
But Amy Reichert, the San Diego Republican who lost both a 2022 challenge to then-county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher and a 2023 special election after Fletcher resigned, criticized DeMaio and accused him of prioritizing fundraising over policymaking.
“DeMaio frequently launches high-profile ballot initiatives, which allows him to solicit donations,” she said. “However, much of the money raised goes toward his own political organizations, salaries and consulting fees.”
Reichert said DeMaio too often recycles long-running disputes to drum up donations.
“Some of the initiatives are repackaged versions of previous failed attempts, keeping the fundraising cycle going without delivering actual results,” she said. “Many Republicans appreciate his willingness to fight, but others see his initiatives as a self-serving scheme.”
John Cox, the Rancho Santa Fe businessman and Republican nominee for California governor in 2018, said DeMaio was drawing ire from entrenched politicians who are invested in the status quo.
“Carl is going up against the interest groups that control the state, and they don’t want anything to change,” Cox said. “Carl is shaking things up, kind of like how Trump is doing.”
‘Hard to figure out’
Long before DeMaio ran for state office, he established Reform California, a political action committee he calls a grassroots effort to draw attention to financial mismanagement in state and local government.
The committee has raised millions of dollars in recent years, according to state election filings, and fueled political campaigns for candidates and causes favored by DeMaio, and against those he opposes.
“Reform California seeks to be the counterbalance to extreme and misguided policies that are costing taxpayers and hurting working families in our state,” the entity’s website states.
The committee produces voter guides, hosts town hall events, offers a podcast and solicits donations to support ballot measures and recall campaigns against elected officials. In 2018, it helped lead the successful recall of a Los Angeles-area state senator.
Since 2017, Reform California has raised and spent at least $7 million, according to state election filings.
The political committee also has worked to influence federal campaigns, raising and spending almost $350,000 during the 2023-24 election cycle, federal disclosures show.
Much of that money appears to have been donated by retirees who gave $50 or $100 to support or oppose some of the many issues the committee promotes or opposes in campaign materials, state elections records show.
Last year, when DeMaio announced his run for state Assembly, he merged Reform California with his election campaign. Some of the donate buttons on the organization’s website now take contributors directly to DeMaio’s 2026 reelection campaign.
A significant amount of DeMaio’s political spending in recent years has been paid to Capitol Media, a consulting and communications firm that was founded by former DeMaio spokesperson David McCulloch, election filings show.
McCulloch is a senior adviser at Reform California. He also serves as chair of the Transparency Foundation, a tax-exempt organization he set up with DeMaio’s spouse, Johnathan Hale.
Dylan Martin, DeMaio’s state Assembly spokesperson, also serves as communications director for Reform California and for the Transparency Foundation.
Federal tax filings show the Transparency Foundation paid DeMaio $110,000 in 2023 and $91,000 in 2022, the latest years for spending has been disclosed.
While the foundation says it is committed to making public institutions more transparent and accountable to the people they serve, the organization does not disclose its own sources of revenue.
McCulloch said there is no conflict of interest between his roles at Capitol Media, the Transparency Foundation and Reform California because he excludes himself from foundation board votes related to his former boss and current client.
“To eliminate the appearance of a conflict, I recused myself on any vote relating to Carl DeMaio because his campaign is a client of Capitol Media,” McCulloch said by email. “Our (foundation’s) general counsel said it was not necessary, but I chose to anyways.”
Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna said it is not uncommon for lawmakers to establish political committees to raise and spend campaign donations. But the Reform California organization is less transparent than those created by other lawmakers, he said.
“It’s hard to figure out who its day-to-day director is or what staff it has,” Luna said. “As far as I know, it may consist of Carl DeMaio and an intern.”
The professor said public disclosures including the Transparency Foundation’s tax filings show DeMaio earns income from outside entities whose relationship with Reform California is uncertain. He also noted the ongoing campaign finance probe.
“There are current FPPC investigations into whether or not DeMaio commingled Reform California money with his state Assembly campaign, which is a not insignificant allegation,” Luna said.
Sean McMorris of California Common Cause said moving thousands of dollars in political contributions from one committee to another can raise concerns among voters — and regulators.
“State candidates can have other campaign accounts, like a ballot measure committee — but they have to file appropriate paperwork to form them, and they have to disclose donors to the committee,” he said. “The funds can’t be commingled with their candidate committee funds.”
Campaign violation allegations
Last summer, DeMaio and Reform California were named in a sworn complaint to the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency that enforces campaign finance rules.
The claim filed by Brian Marvel of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, or PORAC, a politically influential trade association that advocates for law enforcement officers across the state, accuses DeMaio of mishandling campaign donations to the political action committee.
“Based on publicly available information, it appears that Mr. DeMaio has misused Reform California funds to benefit his Assembly campaign in direct violation of state law,” the FPPC complaint said.
DeMaio denied the allegations and blamed them on political adversaries trying to influence the November election.
But state regulators opened an investigation into the charges. The probe is ongoing.
According to FPPC enforcement data, DeMaio has been the subject of four prior investigations, two of which resulted in violations and two that were cleared with no adverse findings.
In 2008, months before he was sworn in to his San Diego council seat, the city Ethics Commission fined DeMaio $1,500 for wrongly soliciting donations from city employees. In that case, DeMaio admitted the violation.
Frank Zerunyan is a professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He’s also an elected member of the council in his home city of Rolling Hills Estates.
Zerunyan said there is nothing untoward about an elected official or political candidate soliciting donations at a time when he or she is under investigation for campaign violations.
“Until proven guilty, there is nothing wrong,” he said. “The FPPC can investigate anybody for anything that they deem investigable yet come up with nothing. It happens all the time. This can change if the FPPC finds him in violation.”
The public policy expert said donors need to conduct their own research before deciding whether to contribute to a particular candidate or cause.
“At the end of the day, the decision is on the people who are giving money,” Zerunyan said. “We have seen people who are indicted raising money — whether it’s Republicans or Democrats.”
DeMaio declined to answer specific questions from The San Diego Union-Tribune about how he manages potential conflicts of interest between his Assembly campaign, Reform California and the Transparency Foundation.
He issued a pair of statements assailing his critics and saying that he had run for state Assembly because state government wasn’t getting anything done.
“Because I continue to maintain Reform California as a political movement, if the legislature refuses to act to fix problems, I not only have the legal right but I have the duty to my constituents to use citizen initiatives to get the job done.”
This past week, DeMaio press aide Martin issued a news release announcing his boss had raised more than $1 million in the first quarter of 2025 — more than any other state or local Republican in California — and almost $25 million since Reform California was created in 2017.
Originally Published:
