Los Angeles taxpayers are being asked to help fund a political campaign — and the Los Angeles County Republican Party chair says the rest of America needs to understand just how normal that has become in California.
Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Los Angeles County GOP, issued a blunt appeal to Republicans outside the state after a campaign video from Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went viral and left viewers questioning how the city's public financing system works.
"Send help," Hoge told Fox News Digital, warning that Californians are living under a political system that many Americans outside the state would find difficult to believe.
"The rest of the country doesn't understand what we're living under here," she said.
Her comments came after Bass, 72, promoted Los Angeles' public campaign-financing program in a video urging residents to donate to her reelection effort.
The pitch was strikingly simple.
"When you donate to our campaign, the city can match your donation 6 to 1," Bass said. "If you donate $5, the city turns it into $35."
Bass explained that under LA's "super match program," qualified donations from Los Angeles residents are matched six-to-one with public funds.
She then urged supporters to act quickly, saying that after this year's mayoral primary — where Republican candidate Spencer Pratt attracted significant support — "we had to start over from scratch."
"So, we need you to rush in your matching donation right now, to help fuel this campaign," Bass said.
Predictably, the internet had questions.
Conservative activist Billboard Chris asked, "How is it legal to take money from Los Angeles taxpayers to fund your own re-election campaign?"
Commentator Matt Van Swol was similarly stunned, writing, "Can someone please explain to me like I’m 5 years old how this is not COMPLETELY illegal?????"
"This is grotesque," author Michael Shellenberger wrote.
And Los Angeles physician and political commentator Houman David Hemmati went even further, asking why taxpayers who are struggling with basic city services should be financing the mayor's campaign.
"Is this a JOKE?!?" Hemmati wrote. "Why on EARTH are LA City taxpayers, who can’t even afford to clean up their streets or have water in their fire hydrants, forced to match contributions to Bass’ Mayoral reelection campaign 6:1?!? … HUH?! Insanity!"
But there is an important detail that cuts through the outrage: the program is legal.
Hoge herself acknowledged that the matching-funds system Bass described is permitted under Los Angeles law. Voters approved a public campaign-financing system in 1990, and the City Council later expanded it into the six-to-one matching program now in place.
The donations are also subject to contribution limits and eligibility requirements.
And that is exactly what Hoge says Americans outside California need to understand.
California Democrats can point to the rules and say the system is perfectly legal.
But legality does not automatically settle the question of whether something is wise, fair or good for taxpayers.
That is where California's political divide becomes impossible to miss.
In Los Angeles, public financing of campaigns has become part of the machinery of local politics. Outside California, however, the idea of turning a private campaign donation into a seven-dollar political war chest with taxpayer-backed matching money is enough to make plenty of Americans stop and ask what exactly is going on.
And Hoge wants Republicans across the country paying attention.
California has spent years building a political system in which progressive policies are not merely proposed — they are written into the rules governing daily life and elections. To conservatives watching from elsewhere, that can look less like ordinary government and more like a political machine designed to perpetuate itself.
Bass's video didn't create that system.
It simply gave the rest of the country a remarkably clear glimpse of it.
And perhaps that is why the video struck such a nerve: the most revealing part wasn't that the six-to-one match exists. It was how casually it was presented.
For California Republicans, that is the problem they have been trying to warn people about for years.
For the rest of America, Hoge's message is unmistakable: pay attention to California — because what gets normalized there today can become the political blueprint someone wants to export tomorrow.
