If Gavin Newsom’s 2026-27 budget is enacted as proposed, the state will have spent $370.6 billion on employee salaries and benefits* over his eight years as governor — 63% more, or $143.7 billion above, what Jerry Brown spent over his own eight-year tenure.
The recipients of that largesse are members of California’s fierce public employee unions, which governors fear more than any other political special interest in the state. Their ability to disrupt government services and end careers makes them uniquely dangerous to politicians with statewide ambitions. Newsom isn’t the first California governor to court them or accept their money — but he has been the most accommodating. On his watch, public employees gained more jobs, higher pay, new collective bargaining rights, and the longest school closures of any state in the country.
This dynamic — outsized political rewards flowing back to public employee unions for their political power — has defined California governance since lawmakers granted them extraordinary powers in 1968, 1975, 1977, and 2023. The result is what they have become today: multi-billion-dollar enterprises with government as their sole customer.
With his time in Sacramento winding down, Newsom no longer depends on public employee union support the way he once did. Expect him to adopt a harder line — a repositioning aimed at national audiences rather than Sacramento stakeholders. The unions, for their part, are already looking ahead. Their focus has shifted to the two candidates competing to succeed him: Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton. Controlling who sits in the governor’s chair isn’t optional for organizations whose business model depends on it.
Neither is it optional for California taxpayers. Until a governor and legislature emerge who are willing to roll back the laws that turned public employee organizations into political powerhouses, the only recourse for taxpayers is to fight for leaders who put the public interest ahead of their own.
*Salaries and benefits for Executive Branch employees, supplemental pension contributions, and state-paid partial subsidies for retirement benefits provided to non-Executive Branch employees.
