{"id":2607313,"date":"2026-05-27T09:42:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-california-health-charities-funnel-money-to-karen-bass-and-other-democrats\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:49:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:49:41","slug":"how-california-health-charities-funnel-money-to-karen-bass-and-other-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-california-health-charities-funnel-money-to-karen-bass-and-other-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"How California &#8216;Health Charities&#8217; Funnel Money To Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-california-health-charities-funnel-money-to-karen-bass-and-other-democrats%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2607313&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The passage argues that major California health-focused nonprofit foundations-created in the 1990s when nonprofit health plans converted into for-profit entities-have drifted from their original purposes of funding direct health services and access to underserved communities.It claims that billions in assets (with roughly $400 million in annual grants) are used less for clinics and care delivery and more to bankroll a long-term left-leaning political and organizing \u201cinfrastructure\u201d under broad labels like \u201csocial determinants of health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It further describes how,in the mid-2000s,the author found grants that appeared ideological rather than health-related,including payments from one foundation to then-politician Karen Bass and related employee contributions. the piece contends these actions raise compliance concerns for nonprofits barred from directly supporting political campaigns,while still influencing elections through indirect civic activity and leadership pipelines.<\/p>\n<p>the author calls for greater oversight and a return to core health-care missions, arguing that without reform these foundations will continue shaping California politics \u201cquietly\u201d instead of improving patient care.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/r-emmett-tyrrell-the-party-of-joe-biden\/\" title=\"R. Emmett Tyrrell: The Party of Joe Biden\">left-wing dominance<\/a> of the Golden State is sustained by a giant pile of cash, much of it out of sight. Billions of dollars extracted from the for-profit conversions of health insurers \u2014 assets meant for broad public benefit \u2014 bankroll an infrastructure of organizing, media, policy shops, and leadership development that locks in progressive governance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.irs.gov\/pub\/epostcard\/cor\/954523232_202403_990PF_2025022423117144.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The California Endowment<\/a> (TCE), the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.irs.gov\/pub\/epostcard\/cor\/954292101_202312_990PF_2025010222972342.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">California Wellness Foundation<\/a> (Cal Wellness), and the <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/nonprofits\/organizations\/954523231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">California Health Care Foundation<\/a> (CHCF) have combined assets of $6.3 billion while underwriting annual grants of about $400 million. They were created in the 1990s as the result of the conversion of two nonprofit health plans to for-profit corporations, Blue Cross of California and Health Net.<\/p>\n<p>The foundations were born from conversions meant to ensure continuity of charity care, expanded access, and direct health services. Regulators and the public expected tangible benefits, in the form of clinics, coverage enrollment, and medical care for the underserved.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, they have suffered from mission drift over 30 years.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the entities embrace \u201csocial determinants of health.\u201d This broad catchall covers everything from racial equity and climate justice to community organizing and power-building. Grants flow to groups such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice for advocacy and legal work and to the Asian Pacific Environmental Network for environmental organizing framed as \u201chealth.\u201d Cal Wellness just comes out and boldly proclaims on its homepage that their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calwellness.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cstrategic framework puts race, money, and power at the center<\/a> of making health possible for all Californians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Direct service delivery in a clinic takes a backseat to advocacy aligned with far left-wing priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Putting things into perspective, as these behemoth California nonprofit organizations have drifted into politics, it doesn\u2019t take much of a share of $400 million to make an impact \u2014  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/projects\/2022-california-election-governor-money-tracker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gov. Gavin Newsom spent $25 million to get reelected in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A History of Political Involvement<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In 2005, as a freshman member of the California State Assembly, I sat on the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation. The Democrats had a bill to tax Catholic hospitals. The tax was a thinly disguised penalty to force these faith-based institutions to unionize or lose their ability to subsidize care for low-income communities.<\/p>\n<p>I asked one of the witnesses in favor of the Catholic hospital tax about who was funding his advocacy. He responded with an acronym I\u2019d never heard: it was one of the big, then fairly new, health-care nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Perturbed, I stayed up until 3 a.m. that night poring over IRS Form 990 filings for a trio of California nonprofits. What I discovered was astounding.<\/p>\n<p>These foundations, created to preserve charitable assets for health-care access, managed billions of dollars even then. In the mid-2000s, they were distributing around $250 million annually in grants. But I quickly found several grants that were ideological, not <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pentagon-to-pay-service-members-travel-costs-for-abortions\/\" title=\"Pentagon To Pay Service Members\u2019 Travel Costs for Abortions\">supporting health care<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Among those grants were two $12,500 checks from Cal Wellness to Karen Bass in 2003. Bass had been running for a Los Angeles City Council seat but dropped out and refiled soon after to run for an assembly seat. Bass\u2019s legislative campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/cal-access.sos.ca.gov\/PDFGen\/pdfgen.prg?filingid=963842&#038;amendid=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recorded its first contribution on Sept. 3, 2003<\/a>. Almost four weeks later, the first <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/nonprofits\/display_990\/954292101\/2004_08_PF%2F95-4292101_990PF_200312\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$12,500 check<\/a> from the nonprofit was recorded on Sept. 30, 2003.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/nonprofits\/display_990\/954292101\/2004_08_PF%2F95-4292101_990PF_200312\"><\/a><br \/>The California Endowment and Cal Wellness are 501(c)(3) nonprofits and are prohibited by federal law from making any material contribution to political campaigns. The same day Bass received the windfall from Cal Wellness, she cut her campaign a personal check for $3,400. Then, at the end of the year, she loaned her campaign $34,000. There\u2019s no doubt that the $25,000 from Cal Wellness gave her first successful campaign for public office a major boost. This financial injection helped her project strength against her better-known Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden.<\/p>\n<p>Two employees responsible for grantmaking at Cal Wellness also made personal contributions to Bass, one on the very same day as the nonprofit\u2019s first check \u2014 raising serious questions about compliance with rules barring nonprofit involvement in candidate campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>Bass was elected to the State Assembly the same year I was \u2014 2004 \u2014 and later became speaker of the assembly, a member of Congress, rumored to be on the shortlist for vice president on Joe Biden\u2019s 2020 ticket, and now mayor of Los Angeles and running for reelection.<\/p>\n<p>I wrote about it at the time and Bass was none too happy with me, confronting me on the assembly floor, claiming that the money she loaned her campaign was from an inheritance. I responded that cash is fungible \u2014 and further, imagine the outrage if the NRA named me a \u201cHero of the Second Amendment\u201d and sent me a personal $25,000 check after I declared I was running for office.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Not Neutral Philanthropy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>These <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >massive nonprofit foundations fund advocacy groups<\/a> that shape policy debates in Sacramento and throughout California. They influence elections indirectly through civic engagement and \u201cnonpartisan\u201d mobilization and build pipelines for aligned leaders.<\/p>\n<p>The foundations operate with minimal oversight, interpreting their charters expansively while ordinary Californians struggle with housing costs, crime, and a health-care system shaped, above all, by ideology not delivery.<\/p>\n<p>Taxpayers and even energetic and knowledgeable federal prosecutors such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-cdca\/meet-first-assistant-us-attorney\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli<\/a>, a former California Assembly member, should force accountability: a return to core missions of actual health-care services rather than subsidizing the advocacy machine that contributes to keeping California locked in one-party rule and policy insanity.<\/p>\n<p>Without reform, these entities will continue quietly shaping the state\u2019s future \u2014 deep in the political trenches, instead of at the bedside or in a clinic.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>      Chuck DeVore is chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a former California legislator, and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. He&#8217;s the author of <a href=\"\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0BGNKPTLR\">\u201cThe Crisis of the House Never United\u2014A Novel of Early America.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Golden State left-wing control is backed by hidden billions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":563,"featured_media":2607314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3595131661_c35dca46ce_k-e1779497811809.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[4045,33926,3685,80331,38930],"class_list":["post-2607313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-california","tag-campaign-finance","tag-democrats","tag-health-charities","tag-political-donations"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3595131661_c35dca46ce_k-e1779497811809.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2607313"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2607318,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607313\/revisions\/2607318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2607314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2607313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2607313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2607313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}