Newsom Drops Bill That Would Have Exempted Campaign Donor's Santa Monica Project From Coastal Act

Since California marked the 50th anniversary of its Coastal Act this year, the law that governs beach access and coastal development statewide, the biggest threat to it in recent memory didn't come from Washington. It came from Sacramento.

Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed a bill in the closing days of the 2026 legislative session that would have exempted a specific Santa Monica development from the Coastal Act, according to CalMatters and LA Times columnist Steve Lopez. The project belongs to Jeff Worthe, a developer who, along with his wife Kristin Worthe, donated more than $274,000 to Newsom's campaigns and inaugural fund between 2018 and 2022, according to state campaign finance records cited by CalMatters.

Coastal protection advocates tracked the bill through the final hours of the session, which closed late Friday, Aug. 28. Newsom ultimately backed off the push before lawmakers adjourned, according to Lopez's column, avoiding a vote on language that critics said would have shredded a specific provision of a law built to keep California's coastline from being carved up for private benefit.

What the bill would have done

The Coastal Act, passed after a 1970s citizen ballot initiative fight over runaway coastal development, requires most projects along California's shoreline to go through the California Coastal Commission's review process. That review is exactly what critics say the Worthe carve-out would have sidestepped for one project, in one city, benefiting one donor family.

No state ethics investigation or campaign finance complaint has been announced over the donations or the bill. Nothing in the available reporting establishes a formal quid pro quo, and Newsom's office has not, per CalMatters' account, offered a public explanation for why this particular project needed a standalone exemption rather than going through the commission like every other coastal applicant.

That absence of an explanation matters. Site-specific legislative carve-outs aren't unheard of in Sacramento, and lawmakers sometimes argue they're needed to resolve narrow permitting conflicts that get stuck in bureaucratic limbo. But when the sole named beneficiary of a carve-out has personally written six-figure checks to the official pushing it, the burden falls on that official to say clearly why the exemption exists, and Newsom hasn't done that.

The bigger squeeze on the coast

This isn't the only pressure campaign hitting the Coastal Act this year. The Trump administration has separately ordered a review of California's coastal management program as it seeks expanded offshore oil access, according to prior LA Times reporting cited by Lopez. That's a federal deregulatory push aimed at drilling.

What happened with the Worthe bill was different: a Democratic governor, in the state's own Capitol, trying to punch a donor-shaped hole in the same law from the inside. Lopez, who has covered coastal access fights for years, framed it as proof that Peter Douglas, the late Coastal Commission executive director who coined the phrase "the coast is never saved, it's always being saved," was right that vigilance has to be permanent and bipartisan.

What's unresolved

The bill is dead for this session, according to Lopez's column, but nothing prevents a similar carve-out from resurfacing in a future session, potentially with different sponsors or different framing. CalMatters' reporting on the Worthe donations is now part of the public record, but no regulator has weighed in on whether the donations and the legislative push were connected beyond timing.

Newsom's office has not, in the available reporting, said whether the governor will pursue any version of the exemption again or whether he'll return the Worthe family's political contributions. Coastal advocates including Susan Jordan, cited in Lopez's column, are treating the episode as a warning rather than a resolved fight. The Coastal Commission's next scheduled hearings will show whether Worthe's Santa Monica project now goes through the standard review process the bill was designed to avoid.