Who pays to lobby the state government.
Registered lobbyists, their clients and what the clients reported, from California’s lobbying records.
registered lobbyists
Distinct lobbyists who filed a Form 604 lobbyist certification for the 2025-26 session (latest amendment of each filing). Includes lobbyists who later terminated; it is not the number registered today.
clients (lobbyist employers)
Distinct lobbyist employers and lobbying coalitions named in a 2025-26 Form 602 (a firm's authorization to lobby for a client) or Form 603 (employer or coalition registration). 32 of them are coalitions.
| CHEVRON U.S.A, INC. AND AFFILIATES | $19,279,518.27 |
| WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION | $19,031,326.51 |
| CALIFORNIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE | $17,294,320.42 |
| PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY | $9,361,728.81 |
| AT&T Services Inc. and its Affiliates | $7,537,119.22 |
| California State Council of Service Employees | $6,144,620.16 |
| Meta Platforms, Inc. | $5,626,111.82 |
| CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION/CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF HOSPITALS & HEALTH SYSTEMS | $4,954,306.45 |
| ENERGY ACTION FUND | $4,749,313.86 |
| StubHub | $4,391,814.55 |
| U.S. ENERGY FOUNDATION | $4,354,177.77 |
| Google LLC and its Affiliates, Including Google Client Services LLC | $4,332,974.46 |
| HOWARD JARVIS TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION | $4,228,169.32 |
| CALIFORNIA APARTMENT ASSOCIATION | $3,893,636.34 |
| CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION | $3,890,201.21 |
| CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE AUTHORITY | $3,674,970.00 |
| KERN COUNTY WATER AGENCY | $3,630,070.39 |
| California Medical Association and Affiliates | $3,451,556.74 |
| Sempra and its Affiliates: San Diego Gas & Electric Company and Southern California Gas Company | $3,293,905.32 |
| EDISON INTERNATIONAL AND AFFILIATES, INCLUDING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON | $3,210,952.21 |
| AMERICAN PROPERTY CASUALTY INSURANCE ASSOCIATION | $3,204,929.00 |
| Clean and Healthy California, Sponsored by Environmental Organizations (formerly Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California) | $3,164,569.94 |
| LOS ANGELES; COUNTY OF | $3,076,288.38 |
| CALIFORNIA BUILDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION | $3,038,936.41 |
| SAN JOAQUIN, COUNTY OF | $3,024,958.72 |
Sources: California Secretary of State, Cal-Access raw data export (dbwebexport.zip), last modified Oct. 17, 2026; California Secretary of State, Cal-Access lobbying activity search; FPPC Form 635, Report of Lobbyist Employer or Lobbying Coalition (copy inside the export, CalAccess/Forms/635.pdf).
What is not here yet
- Totals were not cross-checked against the Cal-Access website's employer pages: the workspace's request to cal-access.sos.ca.gov was not approved in time (curl returned a 212-byte block page). Recomputed from the bulk export only.
- Third-quarter 2026 (July-Sept.) reports are due Oct. 31, 2026; only about 300 had been filed in the Oct. 17 export, so the period stops at June 30, 2026.
- Lobbying coalitions file Form 635 too and are ranked alongside employers; a coalition's payments can be funded by members that also report their own payments, so amounts across employers are not added together here.
- Some reports carry mistyped period dates (for example AT&T's first-quarter 2025 report is dated Jan. 1, 2025 - Dec. 31, 2026, and a few show years such as 3035); each report is assigned to the quarter its start date falls in. Six employer-quarters have two separate original reports for the same period; both are counted as filed.
- Form 645 (persons spending $5,000 or more to influence legislative or administrative action, who are not lobbyist employers) is in the extract but not ranked.
- Bills or agencies lobbied and payments to individual firms (LPAY table) were not extracted; only report summaries.
- Employer names are as filed on the latest report in the period; one employer may file under more than one ID (for example a city and its departments), and IDs are not merged.
- Verification, Oct. 18, 2026: amounts use each report's filed grand-total line (ABCD). For the California Chamber of Commerce (rank 3), the filed totals add to $380.45 less than the sum of its own lines A, B, C and D over the six quarters ($17,294,700.87); the filed total is shown. The other 24 ranked employers' filed totals equal their line sums.
Gaps in the lobbying records as of the date checked.