State lawmakers on Thursday prodded Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $20M taxpayer-funded plan to polish California’s tarnished national image — questioning its real impact.
The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, or GO-Biz, recently awarded public relations powerhouse Edelman a contract worth most of that $20 million to burnish the Golden State’s reputation.
Edelman — which also does work on behalf of mega-companies like Dove, Starbucks, eBay and Heineken — is tasked with combating “negative narratives amplified online and in partisan media” about California while promoting the state’s economy and tourism.
The money’s original intent in last year’s passed budget was for an initiative to promote California to visitors and businesses, budget analysts said. But it was later repurposed for the branding campaign when it “became clear that the…exclusive focus on promoting travel and tourism was too narrow for the broader scope of promotional activity” the Newsom administration envisioned.
The campaign will be nationally focused and is still being built, GO-Biz Director Dee Dee Myers told lawmakers Thursday. She said she won’t rule out advertising in other states telling people to relocate to California.
The Newsom administration has insisted the campaign isn’t about lifting Newsom up amid speculations that he will run for president in 2028.
“The campaign will tell the California story, not the Gavin Newsom story,” GO-Biz has said. “The effort is about California’s success, not about politics.”
A Newsom spokesperson previously told the Los Angeles Times that California’s business climate has been “falsely and maliciously maligned for years,” and that the “state has a right to tell the true story.”
“There’s been a little misinformation out there, in our view, and this is a chance to tell the real California story, and we’re excited to take that on,” Myers said Thursday, pointing to exaggerated claims of people and businesses leaving California.
Many Democratic lawmakers on the budget committee wanted to ensure the campaign would highlight certain areas for tourism or promoting potentially forgotten parts of California, such as the wine industry.
But Republican state Sen. Roger Niello accused the PR campaign effort as something that could hurt California in the long term. He insisted that the fact people are leaving California is not disinformation but a fact.
“To attempt through a PR campaign to cut off any debate, and therefore ignore the possibility that we have regulatory burdens here that make it difficult sometimes to do business…this PR campaign is going to cut off any debate of that sort,” Niello said.
“If you don’t recognize the things that might hamper businesses being successful here, you’ll never be able to cure that problem,” he added.
One can dismiss exaggerated claims against California, but the truth, Niello said, is “California around the country is not rated as exactly the best place to do business.”
Even the Democratic chair of the budget subcommittee, Sen. Melissa Hurtado, agreed.
“I don’t necessarily disagree with you that there is a need to improve the image of California,” Hurtado told Myers. “I also don’t disagree with with my colleague, with our vice chair, in terms of, you know, what else we need to do to improve the business environment for businesses to stay.”
Myers agreed that there were some challenges and offered to talk more with Niello about it.
“But the benefits are real and they’re large, and it’s important that we protect that,” Myers said.
