PROMISES, BROKEN An accountability file · CA-12
Exhibit A Rep. Lateefah Simon (D) · Oakland, CA-12

The pledge she ran on

She swore off corporate PAC money. Then she took it.

She raised $140,000 in 24 hours on that promise — then took the corporate checks once her seat was safe.

“Lateefah does not accept corporate PAC money.”

lateefahsimon.com /press
Campaign press release stating Lateefah Simon does not accept corporate PAC money
Exhibit A · lateefahsimon.com, 2023
Who she is now Rep. Lateefah Simon
Establishment
business as usual
Rep. Lateefah Simon
D · California's 12th District
The corporate PACs she took — after the promise

Refusing corporate PAC money is the rare thing a real fighter actually does.

She made the promise her whole brand and raised a war chest on it — then took the corporate checks the moment her seat was safe.

Sorted by who they are

Every check she promised
to send back.

Most of her money is still small-dollar and labor — she didn't need a dime of this. The corporate and industry PACs she took anyway, by who they actually are:

↗ Hover any logo for the donor & amount — or tap through to the FEC record.

Big Pharmawhile she runs on Medicare for All
Jazz Pharmaceuticals Bayer Gilead Genentech AbbVie
Banks & Wall Streetthe lenders, in a working-class district
Wells Fargo American Bankers Association America's Credit Unions
Health insurersthe middlemen Medicare for All would end
Blue Cross Blue Shield Elevance / Anthem
Landlords & real estatein a renter's district
National Association of Realtors Apartment Lobby Property Managers
Big Sugar7 PACs — not one from California
American Crystal Sugar + 6 more sugar PACs
Big business & media
Comcast / NBCUniversal United Airlines Walgreens
And then this one.She even banked a check from End Citizens United — the group whose whole mission is getting corporate money out of politics — in the same cycle she banked Big Pharma's and Big Sugar's. A fighter who meant it wouldn't need the irony explained.

Roughly $70,000 in corporate and industry checks, inside $210,000 of PAC money — just 17% of what she raised. Eighty percent is small-dollar; she didn't need a corporate dime. The point isn't the size — it's that she promised to send these back. Logos identify her donors and belong to their owners. Full FEC record →

The downtown Oakland skyline across Lake Merritt

California's 12th District

Oakland, Berkeley, and the East Bay — home of the Black Panthers, the Free Speech Movement, and Barbara Lee's lone vote against the Iraq war. A district that knows what a real fighter looks like.

Oakland skyline · photo by Daniel Ramirez, CC BY 2.0

01 / Follow the money

She runs on Medicare for All.
She banks Big Pharma's checks.

She took $15,500 from drug-company PACs — Jazz, Bayer, Gilead, Genentech, AbbVie — three times what she took from the Medicare for All PAC itself ($5,000). Same pattern across her $210,000 in PAC money:

~$15.5KBig PharmaJazz, Bayer, Gilead, Genentech, AbbVie — 3× the Medicare for All PAC.
~$19KBig Sugar7 PACs, not one from California. Led by American Crystal Sugar ($10K).
~$13KHealth insurersBlue Cross Blue Shield, the hospital lobby, Elevance — the middlemen Medicare for All would end.
~$8.5KLandlords & real estateRealtor and apartment lobbies, property managers — to a "housing justice" champion in a renter's district.

And she didn't need a dollar of it. Eighty percent of her money is small-dollar, and she won her primary 84–16 against a challenger who raised $14,000. Nobody made her take these checks. FEC records →

02 / The Anointment

She didn't beat the machine. The machine picked her.

For somebody who calls herself an outsider, an awful lot of insiders lined up behind her early — before anyone had cast a single vote. This isn't about her votes; those really are progressive. It's about how she got the job. A real outsider has to fight the party to win. Simon was the party's pick from day one, and they fast-tracked her into the leadership in her very first term.

03 / The company she keeps

She fights mass incarceration. She endorsed the billionaire whose old fund bet on private prisons.

Simon built her whole name fighting mass incarceration. So look at who she lifts up: in the 2026 governor's race she gave Tom Steyer a featured endorsement — she's the face of one of his campaign videos — even as her own fellow Democrats were hammering him over it. Rep. Eric Swalwell has gone after Steyer in this very race for "profiting off the misery of immigrants, including children." Simon endorsed him anyway.

The baggage Swalwell is pointing at: the hedge fund Steyer ran, Farallon, once held about $90 million in CCA — now CoreCivic, the private-prison company that today runs what the Fresno Bee calls California's largest immigration detention center. Steyer sold the stock in 2006 and calls it "a mistake" — but the seat that fought the prison machine chose to stand with the establishment's billionaire anyway. Fresno Bee

The claim

"I have secured over $524 million for organizations and institutions in our district."

— Rep. Lateefah Simon, on her official website and across her press releases

Our ratingMisleading
What's trueAbout $11.2M of it is money she personally wrote into law — her 15 earmarks. The money is real and it helps the East Bay.
What's misleadingThe other ~98% she says she "secured" was won by Berkeley's scientists in national contests, mailed here by a formula no matter who holds the seat, or moved by California's senators. She announced that money. She didn't get it.

Of every dollar she takes credit for, about 2 cents is money she wrote into law — she over-claims by roughly 47×. The receipt: her own website banner reads "$524M+ announced" — the honest verb. In the press releases, "announced" quietly becomes "secured" and "brought home."

04 / The same tell

What she announced vs. what she authored

It’s the same tell, in her own words: she “secured” corporate checks she swore off — the same way she “secured” $524 million she mostly didn’t write. The verb does the work her record won’t. There’s a difference between announcing a check and writing one: the amber line is what her office announced; the pale line is what she actually wrote into law — flat until January 2026, then one step to $11.2M. Everything in the gap was already coming to the East Bay.

What she announcedWhat she wrote herself

Her claims: simon.house.gov press releases. The record: P.L. 119-74 & 119-75; House Appropriations FY2026 Community Project Funding tables; USASpending.gov.

The same gap, as one bar

$11.2M she wrote herself — 2 cents of every dollar she claims$524M she claims credit for

The evidence

The claims that don’t hold up

Her five most-overstated funding claims — her exact words, what the money really was, and who controlled it. Tap any row for the receipts; use the filters to see all 16, including the earmarks we rate accurate.

05 / The Record vs. the Brand

The promise was the product

She built a brand on one promise — no corporate PAC money — and raised $140,000 in 24 hours on it. Then, once her seat was safe, she cashed the checks anyway: Big Pharma while she runs on Medicare for All; banks and realtors; even a check from End Citizens United, the group fighting to get corporate money out of politics. Her floor votes are genuinely progressive — that was never the question. The independence was the costume.

Method & fair reading

What this does — and does not — claim

What this shows. Sixteen dated statements in which Simon's office attached a dollar figure to federal funding for CA-12. The "delivered" line counts only Community Project Funding earmarks she personally requested and that were enacted in P.L. 119-74 and 119-75. Current to June 2026.

What it does not claim. Publicizing federal awards is legitimate, and the money is real. The criticism is narrow: the credit words — "secured," "delivered," "brought home" — sit on lump-sum totals she mostly didn't write. Roughly 98% reached the district because its institutions won it in national contests, because a formula mails it here regardless of the seat, or because California's senators moved it.

How to check it. Every figure traces to a primary source — her own releases for the claims; the enacted law, the Appropriations tables, and the federal award systems for the record.

Sources

Where the information comes from

The earmarks she authored

House Appropriations FY2026 Community Project Funding tables + enacted P.L. 119-74 / 119-75, which name the requesting member. appropriations.house.gov

The competitive grants

USASpending.gov (filter CA-12), NSF Award Search, NIH RePORTER, SBIR.gov, NEA, HHS TAGGS — each shows the award is agency-selected, not member-directed. usaspending.gov

The formula money

HUD FY2026 CPD formula allocations (CDBG/HOME/ESG/HOPWA), FAA Airport Improvement Program records, and the FTA World Cup apportionment table. hud.gov

The elections & the money behind her

Alameda County Registrar of Voters (certified returns) and the Federal Election Commission (campaign & committee filings). fec.gov

The bigger picture

Oakland's radicalism didn't die. It got domesticated.

This is the seat of the Black Panthers, the Free Speech Movement, and Barbara Lee's lone vote against endless war. The establishment could never beat that legacy — so it learned to wear it. Find a candidate with real movement credentials. Let her say fight the machine — let her even pledge, on her own website, to refuse corporate PAC money. Then, once she's safely in, hand her the machine's checks, the machine's relationships — $5,000 from a leadership PAC named, with a straight face, "Building Relationships" — and a leadership title in her first term. The radicalism becomes a brand, and the brand becomes a leash.

This isn't an accident; it's the strategy. And it's how the left actually dies — not beaten from the right, but hollowed from within until "fighter" is just a word on a banner and no one believes it anymore. She took a check from End Citizens United — the group fighting to get corporate money out of politics — the same cycle she took Big Pharma's and Big Sugar's. That money machine didn't just gut her party. It paved the road to Trump — and the people who run this play have learned nothing from it.

The answer to a fake radical is not a moderate. It's radical integrity — a politics that means exactly what it says, and sends back the checks that would buy the words back. The next Democratic Party — the one that can actually beat the right — will not be built on borrowed radicalism and corporate money.

She made the promise in writing. Oakland, of all places, should hold her to it — and refuse the costume.

Spread the receipt

Screenshot the promise. Then the checks.

Her own campaign site: “Lateefah does not accept corporate PAC money.” Then a safe seat — and the corporate checks: Big Pharma, banks, realtors. Oakland deserves radical integrity. This isn’t it.

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