California Assemblywoman Mia Bonta collected a six-figure 501(c)3 nonprofit salary while her husband Attorney General Rob Bonta steered more than half a million dollars to the groups that employed her. She allegedly used these funds to purchase multiple Gucci bags.
That is not a rumor from a random account. CalMatters documented it years ago. While Rob Bonta sat in the Assembly, he solicited $517,500 in behested payments for nonprofits that paid his wife. The bulk was a $500,000 Google grant to Bring Me a Book, where she was a top executive. He also sent $21,000 in campaign cash to Literacy Lab while she was CEO there, then more money to Oakland Promise after she took that CEO job. They got letters saying the funds would not go to her salary. That is how you know the conflict was obvious.
Bob Stern, who helped write California’s Political Reform Act, said the law should be changed so politicians cannot do this. The law was not changed. Rob became Attorney General. Mia took Rob’s Assembly seat. She later chaired the budget subcommittee that oversees his Department of Justice.
Then she wrote AB 2624, the bill nicknamed the Stop Nick Shirley Act, after reporters started digging into the same family money trail.
He asks donors with business before the state to fund her nonprofits. She draws the paycheck. He becomes the state’s top cop. She writes a law that makes it harder to put cameras on the network.
That is not public service. That is a corrupt family business.