Who sent that political mailer? Here's our guide on following the money

This is an excerpt from Make It Make Sense, our pop-up newsletter on the 2024 election. If you want weekly updates through September on following the money this election season, sign up here.

We’re about eight weeks out from Election Day, which means it’s prime season for political ads in your mailbox. So how do we find out more about who’s paying for them?

In the past month alone, I’ve gotten not one, not two, but three mailers from the same campaign — No on Proposition 33.

It's a statewide ballot measure that would give cities and counties the ability to expand rent control to properties where it’s currently not allowed. And from the looks of it, someone is really, really invested in making sure it doesn’t get passed.

Who exactly is this someone? Well, for starters, some information is printed right on the mailer: “Ad paid for by NO on 33, Californians for Responsible Housing: A Bi-Partisan Coalition of Affordable Housing Advocates, Taxpayers, Veterans, and Small Businesses. Ad committee’s top funder: California Apartment Association”

That’s a lot of words, but they only tell you so much. We know the California Apartment Association helped pay for the ad, but who are the other “affordable housing advocates, taxpayers, veterans and small businesses” that make up this group? (And some of you may be wondering: Is your landlord one of them?)

We’ll help you follow the trail, but first, let’s go over some basics.

Political committees 101

• What’s a political committee? In an election, all political ad spending has to come from a committee. That’s any group of people (it can even be just one individual) who wants to raise or spend money to support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure. 
  
• How they work: Some committees stick around for a long time, putting money behind various measures year after year. One example is the Protect Prop. 13 committee — a project from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-tax group that has been around for decades. For the most part, committees are ephemeral: They come together for one specific purpose in an election, then disappear.
  
• Who's behind it? All committees have to file a form that outlines their purpose, names of officers and some basic contact details. This information alone may not be enough to reveal the source. You can find a fair amount of information about who contributed money to a committee — and that's where you'll find the really juicy details.

Where to find campaign spending information

For state ballot measures, all the campaign finance information you want to dig through can be found on the California secretary of state’s website. It's campaign finance database is called Cal-Access.

If you’re following the money trail in county or city elections, you’ll have to get that info from the county or city department that tracks campaign finance information (usually the county registrar or city clerk).

Once you get to the secretary of state’s website, you can look up any committee’s name to find out what they’re all about — who’s listed on file as treasurer, previous names the committee has used, who’s contributed money to them and where they’ve spent that money.

What we found on the NO on 33 committee

I looked up the NO on 33, Californians for Responsible Housing committee, and here’s what came up:

• Who started the committee: The names of the officers listed (on a filing called Form 410) are Elli Abdoli, Joel S. Aurora and Tom Bannon, and they’re based out of San Rafael and Sacramento. The committee is sponsored by the California Apartment Association.
  
• Previous names they’ve used: This committee has been around for a while under slightly different names, one of which is “No on Prop 21: Californians for Responsible Housing, A Coalition of Seniors, Veterans, Affordable Housing Advocates, Labor & Social Justice Organizations.” (Prop. 21 was a failed rent control measure from 2020 that is essentially the same as Prop. 33, so it makes sense they’d revive that same committee for this year’s election.)
  
• How much money they’ve raised: They’ve reported raising about $5.1 million dollars between January and the end of June this year. (Remember that the propositions weren’t even finalized for the ballot until late June, so expect this number to be much higher by November.) 
  
• How much money they’ve spent: About $1.7 million between January and the end of June this year.
  
• Who contributed money to them: A quick look through “Contributions Received” finds a handful of small donations from individuals, ranging from $100 to $1,000 each. (This is where you can check if your landlord donated, or anyone else you’re curious about!)  The list shows the vast majority of the money — several contributions of $75,000 to $700,000 each — came from the California Apartment Association Issues Committee. 
  
• Another committee! Yep. Committees often contribute money to other committees. You can look up this committee, too — and when you do, you’ll see a much longer list of individual contributors to this fund. If you look at “Contributions Made,” you’ll also see that the California Apartment Association Issues Committee has put in a significant amount of money to support Prop. 34 in this year’s election, a measure that has to do with health care — but we’ll go down that rabbit hole in another post.
  
• What’s the takeaway? Looking at the contributors to both committees, it’s clear that real estate interests — property management companies, developers, brokers and investment agencies from all around California — are putting in the vast majority of money to this committee. That’s probably not surprising, and this isn’t the only group spending money against Prop. 33, but it does give you a better idea of who makes up the “affordable housing advocates, taxpayers, veterans and small businesses” referenced in the mailer.  

At this point you may be wondering why this group is so invested in preventing Prop. 33 from passing. You can read more about the ins and outs of the rent control measure in our voter guide.

I hope this gives you a good starting point for following the money in other campaign ads, whether that’s through TV, text or mail. Let us know what you find.

We’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at blee@scpr.org.