What Do Supervisors Get from the Cannabis Industry?

The legalization of marijuana has created a tidal wave of controversy about the ordinance Santa Barbara County has been writing to regulate the industry. Among the complaints about the ordinance — that it is too difficult or too lenient, depending on who is complaining — has come a scrutiny of campaign contributions from the cannabis industry to county supervisors while the ordinance was being written. In particular, critics of the ordinance point to a Los Angeles Times article that identified $16,500 to Supervisor Das Williams from cannabis growers. 

Did no other supervisors receive contributions, and if they did, must they recuse themselves from voting on the ordinance? The Independent reviewed the sitting supervisors’ campaign records, attempting to weed out cannabis proponents and opponents who made contributions of $1,000 or more in 2017-18.

A public record of contributions and distributions is mandatory for political campaigns in California. Santa Barbara County’s records show that the same growers who donated to Williams sent $12,000 to Supervisor Joan Hartmann of the Santa Ynez Valley in 2017 and $16,000 to Supervisor Steve Lavagnino of Santa Maria in 2018. Hartmann and Lavagnino received no such money in other years. The total amount for Williams is closer to $23,000 in 2017-18, and it came from not only cannabis growers and greenhouse owners but also a cannabis lobbyist, investor, hydroponics group, testing lab, and attorneys. It represented about 17 percent of his $127,000 total raised in those two years.