Overview
- Steve Hilton, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, said Wednesday that his CAL DOGE team uncovered a taxpayer-funded pathway at CHIRLA that feeds into campaign outreach for Xavier Becerra.
- Hilton points to a CHIRLA document that describes a pipeline starting with immigration legal help like DACA renewals and naturalization and moving people into voter registration and mobilization.
- The cited materials describe canvassers making repeated voter contacts and note immigration statuses ranging from undocumented to lawful permanent resident, and Hilton alleges some workers without authorization were paid for campaign activity.
- CHIRLA says public money it receives is used only for legal and social services and not for partisan work, and Becerra’s campaign has not issued a direct response to the specific allegations reported so far.
- CHIRLA’s political arm, the CHIRLA Action Fund, endorsed Becerra on April 13, while CHIRLA itself receives substantial government grants for services and is legally separate from the Action Fund under rules that bar using public funds for campaigning.