Race for Assembly seat heats up
Barbs between Democrat candidates about fossil fuel industry connections are changing the climate of the District 2 state Assembly race.
Rusty Hicks now, on the front page of his website directly under his name, has a tab reading “Who's behind the smear campaign against Rusty?” leading to a website accusing Ariel Kelley — a Healdsburg councilmember and one of his opponents — of being the oil industry's preferred candidate. This stemmed from an attack ad against Hicks by a political action committee supporting Kelley.
“Who was behind the ad is the most important piece of this, so who is behind the ad? Why are they attacking Rusty Hicks and why are they supporting Ariel Kelly? What do they stand to gain with Ariel Kelly's candidacy? Because clearly, big oil wants Ariel Kelly as their candidate,” Robin Swanson, a spokesperson with the Hicks campaign said.
Kelley previously told the Times-Standard that she has no fossil fuel investments, which while true, is not the complete picture. Kelley's most recent Fair Political Practice Commission form 700 submission, which details her financial investments in 2023, lists income to her trusts from Brookfield Corporation and KKR Infrastructure, two firms with fossil fuel investments. The form lists a range of income the companies contribute to the trust, anywhere from $100,001 to $1 million for both companies.
In short, Kelley doesn't have fossil fuel investments, she has investments in companies that invest in fossil fuels.
Hicks' page, which uses data from the FPPC form 700 Kelley submitted in December for her Assembly run, lists two additional companies absent from the most recent form: Pioneer Natural Resources Company and EOG Resources. The form lists their contributions to Kelley's trust as $10,001 to $100,000 each.
Kelley said that when her father passed away last year, he left her a trust with investments in oil and gas — Pioneer and EOG — which she divested from.
“As mayor of Healdsburg, while I was doing work on the ground in this district leading the adoption of our first-ever Climate Mobilization Strategy, cutting the ribbon (on) the largest floating solar array in the nation, or advancing rural clean air policies as the chair of our rural air district, my opponent was living (in) LA and taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry,” Kelley said via email. “It's a double standard.”
Kelley was referring to an incident when Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party who moved to Arcata from Los Angeles in 2021, accepted money — several donations eventually totaling $490,000 — for the party from Sempra Energy, parent company of Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Power and Electric. During his campaign for the chair seat, Hicks promised not to take funds from fossil fuel companies.
Both Hicks and Kelley made campaign promises to address climate change and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
“Rusty refuses to accept oil or gas contributions in his campaign and he helped ban them in the California Democratic Party too. Rusty has the backing of EnviroVoters and environmentalists like former Sen. Wesley Chesbro,” Hicks' website about Kelley said.
Kelley said she does not take campaign donations from oil or gas companies. A political action committee backed by wealth management company professionals — both with fossil fuel investments — is supporting her by running attack ads against Hicks: ads he claims are defamatory, sending cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running them.
As of Feb. 15, Chris Hansen, founder of Valiant Capital Management — a hedge fund with significant investments in Schlumberger, an offshore drilling company — has donated $60,000 to the PAC. Sloane Payne, COO of WCM Investment Management has given the PAC $10,000, and his company invests in Canadian Natural Resources, an oil company.
Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams, another candidate in the race, jumped into the Hicks-Kelley row via email unprompted by the Times-Standard.
“It's ironic, because as I follow the facts, she's (Kelley has) divested fossil fuel interests of a family trust. As a candidate, I can't hold this against her, but rather, appreciate her actions to align with the values of the north coast,” Williams said. “Hicks on the other hand, took the fossil fuel pledges and seems confused about the categorization of natural gas?”
Williams, like Kelley, referred to the controversy stemming from the Sempra Energy donations to the California Democratic Party under Hicks' leadership.
Chris Rogers, a Santa Rosa councilmember who is also running for the seat, was more conciliatory. On Friday, he issued a news release calling for the candidates to “stop the mud-slinging.”
“Unfortunately, you have likely witnessed a back-andforth between other candidates — a fight over whose connections to big oil and outside money are worse … which dark money PAC is darker,” the release said. “The answer, of course, is that big spending on negative advertising isn't in the best interest of our community, and it has no place here on the North Coast. If that money was spent fixing just one issue in our cities and towns, instead of paying for negative mailers and TV ads, we'd all be better for it.”
The remaining candidates are Frankie Myers, vice chair of the Yurok Tribe and Mike Greer, a Del Norte County school board member and the race's sole Republican.