Munger’s wealth is a GOP lifeline
He’s writing big checks to recast the party, but it’s brought scorn even from Republicans.
A month after Charles Munger Jr. wrote his first $100,000 check to a political campaign, he got a taste of the chronic rejection familiar to California’s big Republican donors: The 2005 ballot measure he backed lost by a landslide.
Yet Munger, the son of a billionaire, went on to spend almost $78 million on scores of other campaigns.
The spending by the Palo Alto physicist has thrust him into an unlikely role for a man whose occupation is to research the fine points of protons and electrons: He is a central force in the Republican Party’s attempted comeback from its two-decade slide in California.
“If it weren’t for Charles Munger, the California Republican Party would have been driven into the sea at this point,” said Kevin Spillane, a GOP strategist.
A courtly academic who fancies bow ties and suspenders, Munger, 58, spent more than $11 million last year to help put Republicans in Congress and the Legislature, making him by far the state party’s biggest benefactor. His funding of Latino, female and moderate candidates has been crucial to the party’s effort to shed its image as a league of conserva-
tive white men.
Munger’s spending on ballot measures illuminates other priorities. He has tried to block tax increases, diminish the power of labor unions and stop lawmakers from drafting election maps to their liking.
The scale of Munger’s spending has drawn scorn from adversaries. The state Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating Democrats’ allegations that Munger skirted donation limits last year by funneling money through the state party to favored candidates.
“There’s a lot of smoke there,” said Lance Olson, a Democratic Party lawyer.
Munger declined to be interviewed. “My actions speak louder than any words I could give you,” he said in an email.
Labor leaders fault Munger not just for backing ballot measures that would have hindered unions’ spending on politics, but also for fighting Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2012 measure to raise taxes and avert cuts in, among other things, public schools. Munger, who served four years on a state curriculum panel, has lamented the quality of public education in California.
“You can’t profess to care about the education of children, and then spend millions of dollars to ensure that the funding for those children is never realized,” said Willie Pelote Sr., who oversees California political affairs for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Munger, a former Santa Clara County Republican Party chairman, has made enemies within his own party too, in part by bankrolling moderates in primaries against conservatives.
He infuriated Orange County party leaders by spending more than $580,000 to try to bounce Republican Allan Mansoor from the state Assembly in 2012. The moderate Republican backed by Munger finished a distant third.
Months later, his clash with conservatives spawned “The Munger Games,” a blog devoted to bashing what it calls a “one-man maelstrom of money intent on remaking California Republicanism in his bow-tied image.”
Munger ally Harmeet Dhillon, state party vice chairman, scoffed at his critics, saying that he deserves credit for trying to rescue the party.
“Charles Munger made the cardinal sin of backing someone for Assembly who was not anointed by the Orange County machine as golden boy or girl,” she said.
Former state Republican Chairman Mike Schroeder, one of Munger’s Orange County antagonists, said Munger was on “a fool’s errand” to mute the party’s large conservative faction. “Any time you try to purge one of the wings, you weaken the party,” he said.
At a 2013 conference at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Munger lamented the state party’s failure to extend its reach beyond Republican rural and suburban areas.
“It’s essentially been
Charles Munger Jr. has spent $77.8 million on politics over the last decade. The steep rise in 2012 reflects the $36 million he spent on failed campaigns against Gov. Jerry Brown's tax increase and in favor of curbing unions’ political spending.