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Who really runs California — and how unions seized power

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Who really runs California?

Most people would answer the same way. Voters elect a governor, legislators, county supervisors, city council members and school boards, and those officials debate policy, pass laws, negotiate budgets and make the decisions that shape life across the state.

But anyone who has spent years watching politics in Sacramento and city halls across California knows there is another layer of influence, one that rarely gets the attention it deserves.

The state’s public employee unions have become among the most powerful political institutions in California, and their reach extends well beyond negotiating wages, pensions and working conditions.

They help elect the officials with whom they then negotiate. They spend extraordinary sums to influence elections and ballot measures. They lobby legislation and shape regulatory policy.

These unions occupy a position unlike almost any other organized interest in American politics. Businesses negotiate with the government. Environmental organizations lobby it. Taxpayer groups try to influence it.

Public employee unions do something fundamentally different: They negotiate directly with the officials whose campaigns they often helped finance and whose elections they often helped win.

Nothing like that exists in the private sector, where unions know they operate within limits set by the market. Every dollar for wages or benefits comes from a company that must stay profitable to survive. If labor costs become too high, the business will loses customers, relocate or fail.

In the public sector, unions behave as if constraints don’t exist. That’s because when labor costs rise, the government can raise taxes, cut services, borrow or defer the costs.

In the private sector, business executives and union leaders are on opposite, independent sides of the table. The United Auto Workers does not elect the CEO of Ford.

In California, by contrast, public employee unions are often among the most influential forces determining who becomes governor, mayor, county supervisor or school board trustee. They endorse candidates, contribute millions and provide the volunteers and infrastructure many candidates could not easily replace.

By the time contract negotiations begin, the two sides have often worked together for years. That does not mean officials surrender; many negotiate in good faith to protect taxpayers while fairly compensating employees. But the officials who approve compensation packages are frequently backed by the same organizations representing the employees who benefit. The unions are on both sides of the table.

This is not an argument that public employees are the problem. California depends on dedicated teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses and thousands of other public servants, most simply trying to support their families and earn the benefits they were promised.

The focus here is not the individuals. It is the political organizations that represent them — and over the past half-century, those organizations have built one of the most effective and durable political machines in California history.

The question is no longer why public employee unions have influence. It whether California can survive their stranglehold on state politics.

California’s public employee unions did not become powerful overnight. Their influence was built over decades, through legislative decisions, political victories and institutional change.

The modern era began in 1968, when Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, granting collective bargaining rights to local government employees.

Seven years later, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Rodda Act, extending those rights to K-14 public school employees, and later the Dills Act, doing the same for state employees.

Together, these laws transformed public-sector labor relations across California and laid the legal foundation for one of the nation’s most powerful political movements.

None guaranteed dominance; they simply gave organized labor a framework from which to grow. As membership grew, so did dues, and dues paid for political operations that helped elect candidates sympathetic to labor. Those officials negotiated the contracts, passed the laws and wrote the regulations, and each success brought more members, money and influence.

The cycle reinforced itself. Over time, candidates were no longer simply endorsed by public employee unions; many came directly from the labor movement itself.

Another pivotal moment arrived in 1999, when Gray Davis signed Senate Bill 400, expanding state pension benefits — a decision whose consequences, explored later, reflected a governing philosophy that rewarded benefits today while pushing the cost into the future.

By the end of the 20th century, California’s public employee unions had evolved into permanent, and incredibly effective, political institutions. It happened because each victory made the next one easier. That is how institutions accumulate power.

Political influence is measured not by how often you get your way, but by whether government can realistically move forward without you.

By that measure, California’s public employee unions are among the most influential organizations in state politics — and that influence is neither hidden nor speculative. It is documented in campaign finance reports filed with the Fair........

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