CA Assemblyman Carl DeMaio Exposes $25M ‘Covid-19 Workplace Outreach Program’ Funding Left-Wing Political Groups

California Assemblyman Carl DeMaio just provided a DOGE CA UPDATE on X, and it’s a blockbuster.

“We just exposed Gavin Newsom is laundering $25M of your state tax dollars through a laughable “Covid-19 Workplace Outreach Program” to fund far-Left political groups! We are now pulling ALL the contracts for referral to federal investigators!” DeMaio said.

“I though the staff were playing a joke on me this morning when the they said ‘you’re going to have the Covid-19 workplace outreach project come before your committee and ask for $25 million of funding, that’s going to go all the way through 2029” he said on video in the Assembly Budget Subcommittee #5.

As the Globe responded to DeMaio’s revelations, “This is the actual job of a legislator – a guardian of taxpayer funds – and should be required in every California Civics class. There will be a quiz.”

The Covid-19 Workplace Outreach Program is buried within the Department of Industrial Relations, created in 2020 “to address COVID-19-related workplace concerns.” It should have been disbanded when Newsom lifted his covid lockdown Executive Order February 2023, three years after his 2020 order locking down the entire state.

“I asked what’s next… are we going to get a black and white tube tv regulatory program come before us?” DeMaio joked. “I can’t believe in 2025, with a multi-billion dollar state deficit, where you’re raising taxes and cutting citizen services, that anyone would have the audacity to come before us and ask for $25 million for funding until 2029 for a Covid-19 outreach project.”

DeMaio told the representatives from the California Workforce Development Agency as he looked at their glossy annual report and read, “during the last 12 months, funds were allocated to 76 community based organizations to reach communities disproportionately impacted by Covid-19. The fact that we have a Covid-19 outreach program surviving past 2021 is a problem.”

“Most Californians would look at this saying, ‘Covid-19, that’s like so yesterday.'”

“Thank goodness it’s so yesterday,” DeMaio said, “but not up here in Sacramento where we’re pumping limited taxpayer money into this program.”

DeMaio and his staff looked at each of the 76 organizations and pulled their IRS filings and examined their websites. Shockingly (or not), DeMaio found that “most of the organizations did not have the qualifications or performance criteria for labor relations or workplace safety or workplace outreach.”

“Many of them are unions,” he said. “…a special interest organization getting funding from taxpayers.”

“How can taxpayers conclude anything other than this is a slush fund to fund left wing organizations?”

Assemblyman DeMaio read aloud the organizations getting millions of taxpayer money:

• Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement – “which is engaged in ballot harvesting during elections. Why are we funding that organization in the name of Covid-19 workplace safety? Is the funding going to politics?
• Ring to Democracy – “empowering youth through civic engagement, have a whole program that they fund on voter engagement and empowerment campaigns. They’re not Covid-19 or healthcare experts. They’re not workforce safety experts. They are a political organization,” DeMaio said.

DeMaio noted that “there is nothing wrong with being a political organization, but with their own money – not taxpayer money.”

• Alianza Coachella Valley – “which holds political candidate forums,” DeMaio said. “They lobby on legislation.
• ACCE – Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment – “a rent control group.”
• Center for Community Advocacy – “they do community organizing and political forums.
• CRLA Foundation
• Mixteco/Indegina Community Organizing Project

DeMaio said both of those organizations “fund illegal immigrants to fight the federal government to stay in this country.”

“We just gave them a pot of money a few weeks ago. And now they are getting more money in the name of ‘workplace safety’ and Covid-19.”

• United Respect Education Fund – “which organizes protests in front of Amazon and Walmart,” DeMaio said.

“Again, the fact that this was a Covid-19 program should have been the warning sign,” Assemblyman DeMaio said. “But when we dug deep to the people you’re giving the money to, to the organizations, these 76 ‘community based organizations’ that you say are expert in reaching out to workers and understanding workplace safety and workplace regulations, they’re political groups.”

DeMaio said it isn’t appropriate, in this tight budget environment, to allocate $25 million for a political slush fund to fund groups that have nothing to do with the stated purpose of the program.

He then told the representatives from the California Workforce Development agency requesting the $25 million to provide his office with all 76 organizations, and the actual funding from the State of California provided the 76 organizations.

The two representatives said that they already provided all 76 organizations in the report. DeMaio said he wants to know what each of them got since the inception of the program – “how many millions of dollars, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars for these 76 programs through state-funded budget accounts.”

That was one hearing on Friday. Imagine how many more taxpayer-funded slush funds and programs the state has buried in myriad state agencies, funding shady and subversive activities.

Notably, Assemblyman DeMaio was removed from the budget committee Friday at 5:00pm by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas because he exposed too much in his first hearing.

He’s clearly over the target.

DeMaio followed up the hearing with a broadcast where he exposed in more detail “Left-wing groups in CA, funded with YOUR tax dollars, are planning to thwart the Trump Admin by undermining ICE and Border Patrol as they try to enforce federal law. Learn whether they might get charged with federal crimes.”

Watch here: