In an unusually detailed filing, the California Association of Highway Patrolmen's political action committee has reported some $405,000 in expenses for this year, much of it on political fundraising events such golf outings and dinners.
Two of the union's three biggest political expenses went to fundraisers: $50,000 for Darrell Steinberg's Pro Tem's Cup in March and another $50,000 for Assemblyman John A. Pérez's Speaker's Cup in May.
CAHP also gave a total $50,000 to successful efforts to defeat Propostion 32 and $10,000 to support Gov. Jerry Brown's successful tax measure, Proposition 30.
Many of the remaining 140 or so entries in the CAHP report read like a roster of Sacramento's social and dining hotspots for political grip-and-grin fundraisers:
• $5,000 at Mulvaney's (Attorney General Kamala Harris)
• $5,000 at the Sterling Hotel (Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsome)
• $2,500 at the Citizen Hotel (Treasurer Bill Lockyer)
• $2.000 for a Kings game (Sen. Bob Huff)
• $1,500 at Mikuni (Assemblywoman Beth Gaines)
There's no doubt that other state employee unions spend similarly, but none detail their expenses to the degree CAHP does.
As you look through the tables below, tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheets open worksheets with more detailed information.
Remember that expenditures show everything a union PAC spent on political activities, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations given to political campaigns and causes. Late contributions are money that came in after the regular filing deadline.
For groups that are not independently organized, such as SEIU, AFSCME, IUOE and others, the data don't reflect contributions from their umbrella organizations.
This is the part of a series detailing the 2012 political spending by California state workers' unions. The records are downloaded from the California Secretary of State's office and reflect activity filed as of Nov. 21, 2012.
To get a sense of similar spending in California by other interest groups, check out the National Institute on Money in State Politics. The California data on that site run through September 2012.
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