The San Francisco Bay Area's 16th Assembly District remained the leader in independentcampaign expenditures reported through Tuesday, but a trio of Democrats in Sacramento-area legislative races are drawing independent support from business groups.Unions, charter schools, and others have poured more than $5.5 million into legislative and statewide contests, according to state filings through Tuesday evening. Almost a fifth of that has come from businessman and 2012 congressional candidate William E. Bloomfield, Jr., who has spent almost $1.1 million, including six-figure expenditures in recent days to help elect state schools superintendent candidate Marshall Tuck ($376,200), secretary of state candidate Dan Schnur ($243,931), who has no party preference, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari ($141,867.)
See a searchable list of all independent expenditures below.
An independent expenditure committee linked to business-friendly Democrats in the Legislature — Californians For Jobs And A Strong Economy — so far has spent $119,000 supporting a trio of Democrats in contested Sacramento-area races: Steve Cohn in the 7th Assembly District ($44,732), Jim Cooperin the 9th Assembly District ($68,932), and Richard Pan in the 6th Senate District ($5,910.)
In the 16th, unions have spent $865,000 to support Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti, a teacher, or oppose his main rival, fellow Democrat Steve Glazer, the Orinda vice mayor who advised Gov. Jerry Brown's 2010 campaign.. Real-estate interests and other groups have spent about $1 million spent to support Glazer or oppose Sbranti, according to state filings.
The charts show the contests with the most independent expenditure activity as of Tuesday evening and the main sources of the money (hover over the charts for more information). At the bottom, there's a searchable list of all independent expenditures in legislative and statewide races.
PHOTO: Secretary of State candidate Dan Schnur in September 2010, when he was chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission. The Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua
