Two frontrunners in yesterday’s special election to fill San Jose’s District 3 City Council seat—Matthew Quevedo and Gabby Chavez-Lopez—raised nearly $424,000 for their brief campaigns, according to the latest reports filed with the San Jose City Clerk.
But that’s only part of the picture, in which campaign statements show nearly $1.5 million in campaign activity.
Political action committees—whose contributors are not bound by the $700 limit on direct individual contributions—that collected and spent money on behalf of these two candidates spent another $831,583. Nearly two-thirds of this PAC money—more than $535,000—was spent on behalf of Chavez-Lopez.
A third spendy candidate, city Planning Commission Chair Anthony Tordillos, chose a different source, putting up $130,000 of his own money for his $154,000 campaign.
Quevedo, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Matt Mahan, is the favorite of moderate, pro-business donors, and Chavez-Lopez as the beneficiary of organized labor contributions—with a few surprises. Since Tordillo’s campaign was basically self-funded, he emerged as an independent in the officially nonpartisan council campaign.
Labor Goes All In
The elephant in the room in this abbreviated council campaign has been organized labor. The powerful South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council allocated $431,912 of the money donated to its PAC by dozens of local labor unions to fund campaign activities for Chavez-Lopez.
In addition to the South Bay labor windfall, Chavez-Lopez, executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, attracted $104,000 in spending from two corporate PACs that support Latino political candidates across California.
The Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy PAC’s major contributors over the past eight years include PG&E, Chevron, AT&T, WalMart and Anheuser-Busch, as well as In-N-Out Burger and the California Association of Highwayway Patrolmen.
The LCCC Bi-Partisan Coalition of Municipal, County, Latino Appointed and Elected Leaders PAC bills itself as “a bi-partisan coalition of Latino leaders,” but it is actually funded by major employees in healthcare, retail and energy, as well as some law enforcement and other labor unions, including the American Beverage Association, PepsiCo, McDonald’s and Philip Morris as well as the California Correctional Peace Officers, California Police Chiefs and United Nurses associations.
The Sacramento-based LCCC PAC spent $74,000 and the Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy PAC, also in Sacramento, spent $30,000 on Chavez-Lopez campaign efforts.
These PACs funneled their support to a single PAC, Working Families in Support of Gabby Chavez-Lopez for City Council 2025, which decided how the money would be spent.
Jay Paul’s PAC Boost
As for Chavez-Lopez’s opponent, reports filed with the San Jose City Clerk also showed that a PAC that has supported the successful campaigns by Mahan and Rep. Sam Liccardo—Common Good Silicon Valley, Sponsored by Solutions Silicon Valley—predictably reported spending $75,485 on Quevedo’s campaign in just four months.
Common Good Silicon Valley PAC’s coffers got a boost early this year when the real estate development firm owned by billionaire Jay Paul—the primary developer of the CityView project in downtown San Jose—donated $50,000.
The total fundraising and PAC spending by Quevedo and Chavez-Lopez dwarfed the combined total of the five other candidates for the coveted downtown council seat left vacant when Omar Torres resigned last November after his arrest on sexual assault charges, to which he pled no contest this week. Retired downtown clean energy exec Carl Salas is representing the 3rd District on a temporary appointment.
Officials Donate
Nineteen local labor unions each gave the maximum $700 donation to the Chavez-Lopez campaign, in addition to their payment to the South Bay Labor Council PAC.
Local elected officials featured prominently among the Chavez-Lopez list of individual donors, including Councilmembers Pamela Campos and Domingo Candelas, county Supervisors Otto Lee and Susan Ellenberg, California Sen. Dave Cortese, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Assemblymember Gail Pellerin.
Former supervisor and two-time unsuccessful mayoral candidate Cindy Chavez, former Councilmember Raul Peralez and former mayor Ron Gonzales also weighed in with $700 donations.
Financial analyst Irene Smith and retired sheriff’s lieutenant Adam Duran are using loans to boost campaign funds. Smith reported collecting $9,355 in donations, while obtaining a $10,000 personal loan. Duran loaned his campaign $30,000 and has reported $9,348 in donations.
Candidates Philip Dolan and Tyrone Wade reported no contributions or campaign donations.
