Read Part 1 here.
It may not be a coincidence that California Assemblywoman Mialisa (Mia) Bonta wants to stop journalists from investigating nonprofits. Along with ties to the Oakland corruption scandal, the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta has had some nonprofit issues of her own. Of course, her husband has plenty of culpability, too.
Mia Bonta replaced her husband in the assembly when Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed him attorney general, but while he warmed his wife’s seat, Bonta directed campaign funds, foundation money, and fundraising solicitations to nonprofits led by his wife. This included Oakland Promise after she became CEO (she was also president of the Alameda school board at that time).
While Rob Bonta was in his third term in the Legislature, Mia Bonta was leading nonprofits to promote children’s literacy. In 2017, Rob Bonta created a foundation to support community programs and offer scholarships to disadvantaged kids called The Bonta California Progress Foundation. In 2018, the foundation donated $25,000 to Literacy Lab, a nonprofit where Mia Bonta earned six figures as CEO. While the donation was technically legal, critics at the time said it revealed a regulatory breach that encouraged conflicts of interest. Bob Stern, the co-author of California’s 1974 Political Reform Act (the state’s tool for preventing corruption created under Gov. Jerry Brown) opined that the law should be changed to prevent what Bonta did. “You can’t anticipate that he would take advantage of the law the way he is,” Stern said at the time.
Once his foundation launched, Bonta solicited donations from organizations that lobbied him in Sacramento, including PG&E, the teacher’s union, and Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser Beer, which in turn put $75,000 into the foundation. An Oakland metal arts studio received a paltry $2,500, while $25,000 went to his wife’s organization.
It turns out, this wasn’t Bonta’s first incident of spousal support. In 2013, he donated $2,000 from his campaign funds to Bring Me a Book, where his wife was executive director. Between 2015 and 2019, his campaign account directed $21,000 to his CEO wife’s Literacy Lab. And then there’s the $4,500 Rob sent to Oakland Promise after Mia Bonta joined as CEO in 2019. To make it seem less unethical, Rob Bonta got letters from both nonprofits stating that his contributions “wouldn’t be spent on his wife’s salary or benefits.” (State law prohibits politicians from using campaign funds for personal benefit, including using them toward a spouse’s salary.)
Alongside his own charitable giving, Bonta asked his donors and those who lobbied him at his day job to help fund or raise money for Mia Bonta’s nonprofits, soliciting over half a million dollars from Google, PG&E, and the owner of an Oakland cannabis store to support his wife’s nonprofits. In 2020, he helped raise an additional $20,000 for Oakland Promise. Again, he obtained letters saying none of the money would go to Mia Bonta’s salary or benefits.
Promises, promises
Oakland Promise was formed in 2014 as a partnership between the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and the East Bay College Fund (EBCF) to improve educational and career prospects for Oakland youth and families. In 2015, the mayor’s office joined OUSD and EBCF and assumed a leadership role in collaborating with these organizations, including the Oakland Public Education Fund. The mayor’s office, then under Libby Schaaf, publicly launched the Oakland Promise multiagency partnership in January 2016.
In August 2019, Oakland’s City Council requested the Office of the City Auditor to provide data about the allocation of city funds and city facilities to Oakland Promise alleged by whistleblowers. Among its findings, the report concluded that the city had allowed Oakland Promise employees to work out of City Hall since 2016 without any formal lease agreement. Schaaf also directed the city administrator’s office to provide workspace for two years for Oakland Promise’s nonprofit partner organization the East Bay College Fund inside City Hall. The auditor also found that Oakland Promise used more than $700,000 of city funds to pay the salary and benefits of David Silver, the mayor’s director of education, as an “in-kind contribution,” when he was actually working for Oakland Promise.
Oakland Promise continued receiving City of Oakland funds while Mia Bonta served as CEO, including a $1.5 million grant for which she signed. She left the role in 2021 after winning her husband’s California State Assembly seat for the 18th district, but she has continued her public involvement with the organization. Oakland Promise remains a major recipient of Measure AA funds, the 30-year, $198 parcel tax passed by voters in November 2019 to help partially fund it. As the designation implementation partner for the college-access portion, Oakland Promise is the beneficiary of multiyear agreements worth millions of dollars.
