Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass collected more than $22 million in donations from corporations with active city lobbying operations, routing the money through nonprofits tied to her office while her own 2023 ethics rules were supposed to prevent exactly that.
An investigation by The Center Square found that Bass solicited more than 300 so-called behested payments, donations made at a public official's request, to the Mayor's Fund Los Angeles and the Getty House Foundation starting in December 2022. The donors included Charter Communications, PepsiCo, AT&T, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, all of which employ city lobbyists and hold or seek city contracts. California law requires officials to disclose any such payment above $5,000.
Bass announced the restrictions in 2023 as part of a Mayor's Office Ethics Pledge that she called "the most strict ethics reforms ever implemented by either organization." The pledge barred lobbyist donations to both nonprofits. But the corporate money kept flowing, not from the lobbyists themselves, but from the companies that pay them.
The distinction matters. Bass's 2023 rules blocked donations from registered lobbyists. They did not block donations from the corporations those lobbyists represent. The Center Square's review of behested payment records shows that companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on city lobbying continued writing checks to the mayor's affiliated nonprofits throughout her tenure.
Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that pushes for transparency reforms, put it bluntly after reviewing the findings:
"How is that less bad?"
McMorris added that the arrangement looks like what most people would call influence-buying. "It doesn't look good," he said. "It is perceived to many of us as pay to play."
When Bass unveiled the ethics pledge, she framed it as a clean break from the scandals that dogged her predecessor, former Mayor Eric Garcetti. "We must move to restore trust and faith in City Hall," she said at the time. She thanked the leadership of both nonprofits for "taking this important action" and added, "That's what the people of Los Angeles deserve."
What the people of Los Angeles got instead was a loophole wide enough to drive $22 million through.
The timeline around Charter Communications is especially difficult to explain away. On October 28, 2025, the city's Information Technology Agency sent Bass a proposed contract extension "for your review and approval." The deal would extend Charter's citywide cable and internet contract by three years and raise its spending limit by $2.75 million.
Approximately ten days later, Charter made a $10,000 payment to the Getty House Foundation at Bass's request. Bass did not disclose any city business with Charter on the behested payment paperwork filed for that donation. The Los Angeles City Council approved the contract extension in February 2026. Charter has spent $318,750 on city lobbying since the fourth quarter of 2022 and made four payments totaling $35,000 to the Getty House Foundation at Bass's behest.
Bass disclosed Charter's city contracts for the first time only after the company's next behested payment in August 2026, months after the council had already approved the deal. Charter did not respond to a request for comment.
The accountability questions surrounding Bass extend well beyond lobbying disclosures. She has also refused to face Congress over a separate $1 billion homelessness funding controversy involving the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
PepsiCo gave a combined $140,000 to the Getty House Foundation at Bass's request between 2023 and 2026. The company spent $15,000 lobbying the Mayor's Office on "general business issues" during that period. Bass failed to disclose a PepsiCo proposal for exclusive Pepsi pouring rights at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center that was submitted approximately ten days before one of the behested payments.
PepsiCo's vice president of government affairs, Lupe De La Cruz, simultaneously sat on the Getty House Foundation's board. PepsiCo did not respond to a request for comment.
AT&T followed the same pattern. The company spent roughly $175,000 lobbying the city since the fourth quarter of 2022 and made multiple behested payments to the Getty House Foundation. Its largest known city contract carries a maximum draw of $60 million and was approved just 22 days after AT&T's July 2024 behested payment. The president of the Getty House Foundation board, Lupita Sanchez-Cornejo, was simultaneously AT&T California's regional vice president. She did not respond to a request for comment.
The Los Angeles Dodgers spent $226,010 lobbying the city over the same period, including on a proposed gondola project at Dodger Stadium. A Dodgers vice president, Kristin McCown, served on the Getty House Foundation board "on behalf of the Dodgers." Bass disclosed the team's city contracts after behested payments in 2023 and 2026 but failed to do so in 2024 or 2025. The Dodgers declined to comment.
A House panel has already summoned Bass to testify over alleged misuse of federal homeless funds, a separate matter, but one that adds to the growing picture of an administration resistant to outside scrutiny.
The two nonprofits at the center of the behested payment pipeline, the Mayor's Fund Los Angeles and the Getty House Foundation, are closely linked to Bass's administration but operate outside the reach of the California Public Records Act. McMorris noted the structural advantage that arrangement provides.
"Nonprofits are exempt from having to reveal who their donors are."
Bass holds the title of "advisor" to the Mayor's Fund board. State regulations require elected officials to disclose an honorary or advisory nonprofit board position when filing behested payment paperwork. Records reviewed by The Center Square show Bass has not listed her advisor title on those filings. The Mayor's Fund has not answered what powers come with the title.
The Getty House Foundation operates out of the city-owned mansion where Bass lives and advertises programs that "reflect the goals of the Bass administration." Bass does not sit on that board, but three of its members, De La Cruz, Sanchez-Cornejo, and McCown, are executives at companies that made behested payments. The foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
Tax filings reviewed by The Center Square do not show Bass receiving a salary from either nonprofit. But the money she directed their way came from donors with billions of dollars in city business on the line, and it flowed through organizations whose spending records the public cannot inspect.
McMorris called the system self-reinforcing. "It's very telling about the way this whole system works," he said. Regarding Charter's payments specifically, he added: "I would recommend they consider changing their policy."
The Mayor's Fund and Getty House Foundation were not the only recipients. The California Community Foundation received more than $4.2 million from donors at Bass's request and donated nearly $1.5 million. The foundation partners with the mayor's office on affordable-housing initiatives. Community Partners, an independent nonprofit, received more than $2.8 million; much of that money supported the establishment of an Office of Strategic Partnerships inside the Mayor's Office itself.
Bass's personal connections to some recipient organizations go back decades. She founded Community Coalition in 1990 and received $70,500 in consulting compensation connected to the group in 2010. The organization received $14,243 from two donors at her behest. She disclosed her founder status for both payments.
The National Foster Youth Institute, which lists Bass as its founder and a board member, received three donations totaling $200,000 at her request. Bass disclosed her founder status for each payment. Coro Southern California received $68,300 at Bass's behest while two of her own staffers, Deputy Chief of Staff Jenny Delwood and intergovernmental affairs deputy Nicolas Zevallos, sat on Coro's board. Bass disclosed those board positions for all payments. Neither staffer responded to a request for comment.
Bass now faces a growing political challenge from the left, with City Councilwoman Nithya Raman leading in recent mayoral polling, a sign that even Bass's own political base may be running out of patience.
Bob Stern, the principal co-author of California's Political Reform Act and now a member of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, raised concerns about the behested payment system when Bass first announced her ethics pledge. In a 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Stern called the reforms "good steps, but not enough."
He explained the incentive plainly:
"When people or groups give and they have business pending before the city? Well, that's why they give."
Stern told The Center Square he could not comment on current matters because of his role on the Ethics Commission. The commission has not announced any investigation. The California Fair Political Practices Commission, which regulates behested payment disclosures statewide, has not responded to a request for comment.
Bass herself did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Center Square. Melanie Mendoza, a spokeswoman for the Mayor's Fund, spoke briefly by telephone but stopped responding after the outlet asked about its findings.
Meanwhile, Bass exited the embattled Los Angeles homeless authority as congressional investigators demanded answers on a separate billion-dollar funding question, yet another front where her administration has chosen silence over transparency.
When a mayor writes her own ethics rules, leaves a gap wide enough for $22 million in corporate donations, and then refuses to answer questions about it, the word for that is not reform. It is the appearance of accountability without the substance, and taxpayers deserve better.
