What’s the meaning of the term “personal trip”?
For Gov. Gavin Newsom, it depends on when you ask.
Start in March 2023. The governor was taking heat from conservative media for leaving California just after declaring a snowstorm-related state of emergency. He was on a “personal trip” in Baja California, Mexico, Newsom’s staff told inquiring reporters. And that was that. Newsom’s four-day jaunt was quickly forgotten.
Fast-forward 17 months, and Newsom’s office says that “personal trip” wasn’t a vacation. Rather, it was “personal time” that he chose to use on a job-related “educational” excursion with members of his administration and an undisclosed number of whales.
Confused? We are too.
The retroactive reclassification appears to have something to do with Newsom’s disclosure of a $3,595 whale-watching trip gifted to him by an obscure environmental nonprofit. The gift was among those listed on his most recent Form 700, a financial disclosure required for elected officials and government employees.
When asked Wednesday about the purpose of the voyage, a spokesperson for the governor’s office no longer described it as a “personal trip” in sunny Baja.
“The Governor participated in this educational trip on his personal time, accompanied by key members of his administration working on environmental protection and conservation,” spokesperson Izzy Gardon wrote in a statement. “The trip was focused on conservation and understanding the challenges facing marine ecosystems — which are crucial to California’s environment and economy.”
The reported source of the gift changed after The Standard inquired about the trip.
The nonprofit originally listed on Newsom’s Form 700 was One Earth Philanthropy, a little-known, Los Angeles-based group with political ties to the governor. Gardon said this was a “clerical error,” and the gift actually came from Re-Earth Initiative, a New York-based organization and a major recipient of One Earth Philanthropy funding.
Gardon said the trip was disclosed in “complete compliance” with all legal, ethical, and reporting requirements. He said Lauren Sanchez, the governor’s senior climate advisor, traveled with Newsom, along with “one or two” other staff members and “other folks in the environmental protection space.” He did not share names. (Sanchez’s Form 700 also lists the trip as a gift, with the same dollar amount.)
Gardon did not answer additional questions about the trip, including which company was in charge of the tour. And, perhaps most important, Gardon did not answer whether Newsom and his staff saw any whales.
Sean McMorris, a government ethics expert, said he doesn’t think the governor broke ethics rules. But the trip, he said, reveals a truth about today’s politics.
“Personal time or educational trip, the point is that a $3k+ gift was given to the governor from an entity that would like to influence him,” McMorris wrote in an email. “I don’t think anything illegal happened. We have a system that allows for this type of political gift-giving, which can buy access and influence. Your readers get to decide if that is good or bad.”
The Baja California jaunt was one of five trips reported on Newsom’s 2023 Form 700. The other four — New York, Israel, China, and San Francisco — were reported as either official travel or attendance at a summit or conference and were widely publicized. Those trips were paid for by the California State Protocol Foundation, a pool of money supported by donors that prevents taxpayers from paying for the governor’s travel costs.
On four of the five 2023 trips, Newsom either made a speech or participated in a panel, the Form 700 states. The exception is Baja California, where the relevant part of the form was left blank.
The law allows politicians to get sponsored trips from a nonprofit organization over the $590 gift limit — but it must be related to their job. Furthermore, the nature of the gift must fall within the realm of “travel payments, advances, or reimbursements for actual transportation costs (such as airfare, car rental), related lodging, and meals/subsistence,” the law states.
So what’s behind the nonprofit that gave Newsom this gift?
The Re-Earth Initiative launched in 2020 and funds like-minded organizations while creating “story-telling” content to help spread messaging about climate change initiatives, according to its website.
A group of teenagers and 20-year-olds runs the organization, led by Xiye Bastida, a Mexican activist in the climate change movement. Bastida, who has 85,000 followers on Instagram, has spoken at the World Economic Forum’s conference in Davos, Switzerland, and is seen in social media posts beside celebrity scientist Bill Nye and singer Billie Eilish.
Bastida’s organization did not advertise the whale-watching tour with Newsom on its social media or in press materials; neither did the governor. In fact, there appears to be no public record of the trip outside of the report of it as a gift on his Form 700.
The Re-Earth Initiative does have a whale connection: Bastida is featured in a glossy documentary which describes a spot in Baja California as the “last pristine birthing site left for Pacific gray whales.” The documentary focuses on the animals’ migration patterns from Mexico to the Arctic and the human impact on them, according to a trailer, and features shots of Bastida staring inquisitively into the ocean.
In a statement, Re-Earth Initiative said they “extended a kind invitation to government representatives to participate ‘off-camera’ in an educational exchange at the film shoot” in Baja California.
“The purpose of the tour was to facilitate a dialogue between Mr Newsom, local communities, and scientists to better understand the current status of gray whales,” a statement reads. “However, the list of attendees is private, and we are not authorized by the film production company to disclose further details. We have chosen not to share extensive details about the film and its production on social media due to the distinct privacy protocols in the film industry, which are beyond our control.”
Re-Earth says it has not provided any other gifts to Newsom and “has never lobbied for any of Mr. Newsom’s legislation and has no plans to do so in the foreseeable future.”
However, Bastida’s organization has links to Newsom. One Earth Philanthropy, the nonprofit originally listed on Newsom’s Form 700, gave the Re-Earth Initiative at least $950,000 for the documentary and for “building up the youth climate” movement.
Jena King, a founding board member at One Earth Philanthropy, donated $30,000 to Newsom for his 2018 gubernatorial race, records show. King — who founded the Jena & Michael King Foundation with her late husband in 1999 — has also given large donations to other Democratic politicians and climate causes. Her husband, who helped launch “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and sold his company to CBS for $2.5 billion, died in 2015.
One Earth Philanthropy was founded by a group of former employees of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, established decades ago by the Hollywood star.
Additionally, Newsom has ties to the head of an organization called Grounded, described on its website as one of three supporters of One Earth Philanthropy. Julia Jackson, who founded Grounded after the 2017 Tubbs fire and is proprietor of Santa Rosa’s Jackson Family Wines, was appointed by Newsom in 2022 to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. The nature of the relationship between Grounded and One Earth Philanthropy was not immediately clear.
Re-Earth Initiative has also received $1 million from billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs’ Waverley Street Foundation.
One Earth Philanthropy, King, and Jackson did not respond to requests for comment.
Brandon R. Reynolds contributed reporting for this article.