Scan the donors of any prominent Democrat, and you’re bound to see the University of California come up repeatedly. This is because professors and other employees of the extremely large, well-endowed public university system are reliable Democratic donors. Highly educated government workers who live in California represent one of the bluest demographics in the country, and naturally, those with money give to Democrats hand over fist.
Though public sector workers aren’t thought to be wielding immense amounts of influence and power—at least not on the scale of the titans of the tech industry—the UC system nonetheless contains some key donors. Here are the most notable:
Erica Lawson
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) pediatric rheumatologist has more money than your average doctor, thanks to her marriage to billionaire Jeff Lawson, an OG Silicon Valley guy who is the founder and CEO of cloud communications company Twillo. Erica has given far more to political causes than her husband, contributing $3 million this cycle to Future Forward, a PAC that has raised a lot of money from the tech world and which bet a lot on the idea that TV ads that air just before the election would convince voters more than earlier ads. She's given a substantial amount to other Democratic-aligned groups and candidates, including $250,000 to the Senate Majority PAC, but her Future Forward gifts alone would make her by far the biggest Democratic donor in the UC system.
Gretchen Sisson
The UCSF sociologist moonlights as an unusually outspoken donor. She has said that progressive women often avoid donating to politicians “because of discomfort with money in politics,” but she clearly has no such discomfort. She is on the board at WDN Action and Emerge America—both organizations that focus on getting women into office—and a member of the steering committee for Electing Women Bay Area. Sisson, who is married to early Facebook employee Andrew McCollum, directs her money primarily to female candidates like Wendy Davis and Amy McGrath (along with less famous names like Washington Congresswoman Kim Schrier); she also gives large gifts to the DNC, DCCC, and the Senate Majority PAC—her donations to those groups totaled over $160,000 during the 2020 cycle. She's much more public than most donors, even publishing a newsletter about where and when to donate.
David Donner
Donner is a molecular cell biologist at the University of California, San Francisco’s Surgical Oncology Research Laboratory, but in his political giving—sorry—the doctor is something less than surgical, giving chunk sums to state Democratic parties, the DNC, the DSCC, and an assortment of Super PACs. Since 2018, gifts to those organizations alone totaled over $180,000, and he’s sprinkled in dozens of maxed-out donations to congressional and Senate candidates all over the country.
Carl Shapiro
The economist is more of a notable name than Donner, as Shapiro has served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, retreating to UC Berkeley during Republican presidencies. As a donor, he’s mostly notable for the $250,000 he has given to the League of Conservation Voters since 2017 and the $50,000 he gave to American Bridge 21st Century, but he routinely peels off $1,000 gifts to Democrats in big-name races, like Beto O’Rourke in 2018 and Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 presidential primary.
Daniel Hirsch
The retired UC Santa Cruz professor is one of the world's most prominent nuclear power experts and serves as the president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, an NGO that has worked for a half-century on reducing the harms resulting from nuclear waste and nuclear arms proliferation. He also moonlights as a Democratic donor, giving $30,000 to the DSCC and $5,000 to the DCCC this year; for the past few cycles, he has regularly given thousands to the Democratic institutions.
Donors affiliated with the UC system are an eclectic bunch. Academics rarely earn the kind of salary needed to become serious political donors, so the UC employees who do donate heavily to Democrats tend to have earned their money at other jobs or have reserves of family money from which to draw. But beyond the names on this list are thousands of small-dollar donors who have given to a wide variety of candidates and causes. Educated Californians are disproportionately Democrats, and these days, they're extremely likely to be politically active, as well. That's a combination that's going to keep paying off for the party.
