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Category: Money

  • Aid organization is topic of Soroptimist talk

    (From press release) Koen Van Rompay of Sahaya International will speak at the Wednesday, Dec. 2 meeting of Soroptimist International of Davis. The event is free and guests are welcome.

    Van Rompay is volunteer founder and executive director of the Davis-based nonprofit Sahaya International (www.sahaya.org). The organization does grassroots work in developing countries, including India, Uganda, Kenya and Vietnam. Programs support orphan care, healthcare, education, socio-economic development and conservation. Van Rompay, a native of Belgium, is a UC Davis veterinarian specializing infectious diseases.

    The meeting is from 11:45 to 12:45 at Sacramento City College Davis Center, room DCS 114. Snacks will be provided. Guests are welcome to bring their own lunch.

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  • Mike Thompson will represent our interests

    Eric Jones’s venture capital colleagues at Dragoneer surely know what they would get in him as a member of Congress. Why don’t his would-be constituents?

    By Liz Russell

    When Eric Jones says he needs two to four years to learn the ropes of being a congressman, and to figure out only after he’s elected whom to meet with in the communities he wants to represent, how can voters trust him to serve our interests? Mike Thompson needed no such grace period (or $20mil in campaign funding), because he put in the work from the start. He dropped out of high school, served in the Army in wartime, and came home to earn his GED and become the first in his family to go to college. He worked as a winery mechanic, keeping the presses and bottling lines running, and from there won a seat in the state legislature while raising a family in his hometown of St. Helena. Long before he was a lawmaker, he was one of the working people Eric Jones now claims to speak for.

    Consider today’s letter in the Napa Valley Register from one of Jones’s supporters, Richard Tippitt. He describes Jones as someone who grew up on food stamps, then recounts that when Jones was asked whether he’d still run if he weren’t wealthy, he said no, “at least not yet.” What does that even mean?

    Many of us grew up in households facing similar economic and familial hardships (some even unspeakable), and our response wasn’t to pillage the American economy and rip off Medicare and seniors through venture capital. Nor did we then run for Congress claiming to oppose the very system that made us rich. That is hypocritical at best.

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  • Disappointed with Congressman Ro Khanna’s endorsement of Eric Jones for CD04

    Eric Jones is not the candidate he purports to be.

    By Paul Gepts

    I am particularly disappointed that Congressman Ro Khanna chose to endorse candidate Eric Jones, a Fall 2026 candidate in the California CD04. I am an independent voter and, since April 2026, I have done my homework about the candidates involved, thus covering both the Primary Election (June) and Mid-term Election (November).  I attended the town hall meetings of video calls organized by the main candidates (Eric Jones on 09/19 and 10/26; and Mike Thompson 0n 09/01) and the debate between these candidates organized by the LWV in Woodland on 10/08. I also downloaded the candidates’ financial statements to the Federal Election Commission. I have no connection to either campaign, but as a citizen I believe I should become informed and engaged.

    Eric Jones is not the candidate he purports to be, a Democratic progressive representing the fourth district of this state. His link to this district is tenuous at best: he owns a house in Napa (in addition to a house in San Francisco), but has never been a candidate for any office at any level in this district. Actually, he voted in San Francisco until 2025. According to FEC filings, most of his funding comes from outside the district. The legal representation of his campaign is provided by the Rutan & Tucker law firm with offices in Newport Beach (47th district) and San Francisco (11th district). When I  questioned his link to this district at a town hall meeting, he immediately replied by calling me a “plant”. Let it be very clear that I am not a plant in any way, as mentioned earlier. Instead, Jones’s reaction shows he does not tolerate informed questions and does not have the right temperament to be the representative of a congressional district as diverse as the 4th.

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  • Numerous reasons to vote FOR Mike Thompson

    By Charlotte Tayler

    I was impressed with Roberta Millstein’s recent article on 10 Reasons Not to Vote for Eric Jones and also Sue Greenwald’s incisive and revealing analysis of Eric Jones’ Chilling Foreign Policy Position. I encourage you to read both articles if you have not already

    Hopefully, readers are convinced not to vote for Jones, but why vote for Mike Thompson? Below are numerous reasons why you should vote for Mike Thompson.

    Thompson has experience. In Congress, experience counts. Whether you like it or not, that’s the “real world” of congressional seniority. Mike Thompson’s years of experience have allowed him to climb the ladder so that, when Democrats take control, he is in line to become of the Chair of the Health Subcommittee on the Ways and Means Committee, where, in his own words, he’ll “help lead Democrats’ efforts to ensure every American has access to health care.”

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  • Eric Jones & His Health Care Misrepresentations

    By Melody Fulton

    Congressional candidate Eric Jones and  I share similarities. We are about the same age, we attended college in the northeast and both are in involved in health care-I went into medicine as a primary care physician and Mr. Jones became a venture capitalist doing health care startups. That is where the similarities end.

    While Eric Jones raised hundreds of millions from large financial institutions seeking quick profit from newly formed health care companies, I began work seeing patients daily.

    I have received campaign literature from Mr. Jones describing his “success” at lowering health care costs and expanding access to care through his new companies. I find these claims to be far from the truth.

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  • Eric Jones’ Chilling Foreign Policy Position

    By Sue Greenwald

    “We need to use our strengths. That’s intelligence and that’s projecting kinetic force all across the world to accomplish our military objectives.” — Eric Jones

    “We should be seeking always to mitigate nuclear risk from Iran. But we can do this with tactical strikes every 3 months, every 6 months.” — Eric Jones

    So Eric Jones was supposed to be a progressive, but his website said nothing at all about foreign policy, Gaza or the Iran War, or about universal health care.  This was my first impression of Eric Jones.  After digging a little, I found that Jones was a wealthy venture capitalist with absolutely no political background. No elected office, no appointed position, no activist history – not even a letter to the editor.  He had stepped down from his partnership in Dragoneer Investments only a month before he started to run.  His long-term partners and a spouse at Dragoneer had set up a Super PAC to support Jones’ candidacy five months before Jones left the firm to run for office.  That Super PAC now weighs in at $6 million.  I learned that this firm, Dragoneer Investments, had been a big investor in Israeli tech, and had recently moved heavily into AI, with massive investments in Anthropic and Open AI, and into defense industries with major investments in SpaceX and Helsing.  And Jones had 756 entries on his FEC filings of individual donations of $3,500 or more – mostly from a network of partners and top executives at high tech companies and their venture capital, hedge fund, and private equity financiers from the tech and financial hubs across the country.

    As the weeks and months rolled by, the platform on Eric Jones’ website started to shift, twist, and turn.  He soon became opposed to “unnecessary wars”.  He was in favor of building AI data centers “here and not abroad”, pre-empting states’ rights to regulate AI, and federal subsidies for AI and AI infrastructure.  Then he had “always been against data centers”. 

    I was concerned about Jones’ foreign policy position, given his public reticence and given the interests of his donors, so I looked forward to the first debate between Jones and Mike Thompson.   I wanted to see what Jones would have to say in public, where his donors could hear it.

    Eric Jones has finally come out with a specific foreign policy statement, and it’s chilling.  During the KCRA debate, Eric Jones declared:

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  • Top 10 reasons why it’s bad that Eric Jones is backed by millions of Silicon Valley dollars

    By Roberta Millstein

    Recently, I’ve had people ask me why it’s so bad that the Eric Jones campaign is spending millions of out-of-district dollars.  I was surprised by the question at first, but since a few have asked it, here is my attempt to answer, with links to many of our previous Davisite articles. Please share this article to help get the word out before Nov 3.

    10. It raises the bar for political spending. Jones $15M contributions to his campaign — to buy a seat in the House — are record-setting in CA and make his congressional campaign spending one of the highest in the country. It’s a waste of money that could be used on other things and makes it harder for ordinary citizens to run for office. Someone that wasteful of money and resources would not make a prudent candidate.

    9. It’s carpet bagging. Jones’s direct donations are mostly large, out-of-district voters, many in high tech and finance. There is no reason to think that these donors have District 4 interests at heart.

    8. Jones is supported by a Super PAC, New Leadership Now, of associates from his former firm, Dragoneer, where he was a venture capitalist (not a “businessman” as he likes to call himself) for 12 years, 8 as partner. Jones misrepresented this from the very beginning, claiming not to take corporate PAC money, but to date NLN has spent more than $5 M on Jones’s campaign. Super PACs, which are not supposed to coordinate with campaigns, are typically shady — this one, which has supported only Jones, was formed even before he declared his candidacy and while Jones was still an active partner at Dragoneer.

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  • PoliSci 101A:  Following the Money — Who’s Behind All the Slick Campaign Ads

    Updates to Chapters One and Two—

    BREAKING NEWS!

    Eric Jones Has Now Donated More Than $15 MILLION to his Campaign!

    By F.E.C. Nerd

    Late yesterday (Friday, 10/23/26) Eric Jones’ campaign filed yet another report disclosing even more donations.  This was on top of new reporting the prior day (10/22/26) when Eric Jones’ campaign committee filed its required “Pre-General” report.  That is the final “full” report prior to the election. It covers the period from the last “full” report (which was 7/1/26 to 9/30/26) through 10/14/2026.  In addition, certain special types of reports are required within 24 hours of triggering activities — such as the one filed yesterday.  What do all these reports reveal? 

    Eric Jones’ campaign contributions (boosted by his own $15+ Millions) have now surpassed even Hakeem Jeffries among House candidates nationwide!

    And that doesn’t even include last night’s filing.  Follow along to see the money trail.  Looking at Eric Jones’ campaign filings since the last big report (through 9/30/26 — filed on 10/15/26) there are three.  The two main ones will be reviewed below; those are the two most recent.

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  • PoliSci 101A:  Following the Money — Who’s Behind All the Slick Campaign Ads

    Chapter Four:  Slate Mailers

    By F.E.C. Nerd

    I hadn’t intended to write about this topic since Slate Mailers have become rare in this day of social media campaigning.  But a friend from Woodland sent me two examples and asked:  “What gives?”  So, in case you have been getting multi-candidate-multi-proposition mailers, here’s how to figure out what is behind them. 

    History of Slate Mailers:  Decades ago, slate mailers became quite prominent in California political campaigns.  So prominent that the State ultimately passed legislation to regulate them. Why?  Because many commercial slate mailers “impersonated” political party endorsements and led to great voter confusion.  Commercial slate mailer operators would use the words “Democrat” or “Republican” in their names and/or display a Donkey or Elephant logo on the mailer.  There were repeated instances where a commercial slate mailer would use a Party’s name or logo, and include multiple candidates or ballot measures that Party did endorse, but then for some local races the mailer would feature a candidate of the Opposing Party or a ballot measure position the Party did not endorse.  So, a law was passed to prohibit commercial slate mailers from using a Political Party’s name or imitation of its logo.

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  • BREAKING: Jones total contributions to his campaign are now just shy of $15 million

    By Roberta Millstein

    Less than a week ago, I wrote an article here about the $10 million dollars that Eric Jones, congressional candidate in CA’s District 04, had dumped into his own campaign. That contribution made headlines across the district as the largest contribution ever made in a CA congressional campaign, an amount that, together with large-donor out-of-district donations to Jones campaign, put him at #10 in spending across the entire country (remembering that there are 435 seats open and an unknown number of candidates running for those seats).

    But little did any of us know about another contribution, just surfaced on the FEC site, from Jones: $4,800,000.00 on October 1, for a grand total of $14,864,133.10 — yes, almost $15 million dollars. There is no other way to see this but as this recently-resigned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, former partner at Dragoneer Investment Group, trying to buy a congressional seat.

    $10 million was eye-popping. At $15 million, your jaw should be on the ground and your head should should be swiveling on its neck (and don’t ask me what comes after that).

    Fellow citizens of District 4: Californians have a proud history of rejecting multi-millionaires and billionaires trying to buy their way into positions of power, knowing that these people do not have the interests of ordinary citizens in mind.

    Vote for Mike Thompson, born and raised in our district, who is hardworking, honorable, and trustworthy.

    Here is the screenshot from the FEC showing the Oct 1 donation and his year-to-date total:

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