In the Shadows: SCRB, the Firm Behind Kamala Harris and Other Prominent Politicians

Kamala Harris’ rise to power has been a polarizing one to say the least. Since 2010, when she was elected California Attorney General, she has remained in the spotlight — for good and for bad. One could make a decent argument that no politician has been more rhetorically eyebrow-raising over the last decade (current President excluded). Her persona almost demands attention; a Democrat version of a “Law and Order” candidate with an undeniable appeal to the Obama/Clinton wing of the party that she hopes to represent in the 2020 general election for the presidency.

In fact, several of Hillary Clinton’s ex-campaign staff have migrated to Harris. In a way, the transition makes total sense. The two women share many similarities , the most prominent of them being their consistently close proximity to scandal (and all the attention that comes with it). Politics is cutthroat, especially in California, and for this reason Kamala Harris wields one of the biggest blades money can buy: SCRB Strategies.

SCRB, in its current form, is all-in on the Harris 2020 campaign for president — and to downplay their significance would be to ignore their impact on the way the California Senator is perceived, and how she rose to prominence so quickly while simultaneously coming through some politically and ethically sticky situations relatively unscathed. The firm behind Harris are no amateurs . In fact, they’re some of the best and most experienced political operatives and spin doctors in the game. They don’t play to lose; but the real question is: What rules do they play by?

SCRB Strategies is the current iteration of SCN Strategies, a political and financial sector consulting agency formed from Averell “Ace” Smith, Sean Clegg, and Dan Newman. By the time he went into practice with Clegg and Newman in 1996, Averell Smith had done opposition research for Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign and was on his way to helping former San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein become a Senator.

Smith, who goes by the nickname “Ace”, was garnering a fierce reputation as a shark; someone who would come to literally strike fear in the hearts of his political opponents. Nobody could get out in front of a crisis quite like this guy. With the formation of SCN Strategies, he and his new partners were primed to dominate the California political landscape — and that’s exactly what they did.

For years, the partners of SCN managed a stable of A-List or soon-to-be establishment fixtures. In 2008, Smith was also state director for the CA, TX, and NC branches of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign (his leadership delivered primary victories in the first two). While Clinton’s bid wound up being unsuccessful, SCN returned to local politics (their bread and butter) with another feather in their cap. With Senator Barbara Boxer gearing up for re-election, the agency hit the ground running with newfound purpose, riding high on their elevated status among the political elite. In two years’ time, SCN would have their hands on every major political seat in California. Things were about to take off.

In 2010, then California Attorney General Jerry Brown, a client of SCN, announced he would be running for Governor. To fill the AG void, a young San Francisco District Attorney named Kamala Harris would run as his replacement. She would go on to win, of course; and SCN was along for the ride, and arguably in the driver’s seat. Not only was SCN instrumental in her win, but Jerry Brown also won the Governorship, and another SCN client, Gavin Newsom (now the current governor), would become his Lt. Governor.

It was a resounding victory for the firm. They were anointed “king-makers”. Their secretive nature, hardball approach, and media-focused messaging garnered them a reputation for being the go-to consulting agency in their field. They employed these tactics not just on candidates and state ballot measures (of which there were many), but also for massive corporations — some of which have been optically problematic and suspicion-raising, like their dealings with long-time California utility giant, Pacific Gas & Electric.

Here’s the thing: they’ve been doing it for a long time — right in front of us.

The history of SCRB/SCN is a complicated one, but it’s also a simple case study of the ethical dangers inherent in a system that allows private-sector consulting firms to simultaneously work for or represent elected officials AS WELL AS the corporations that would benefit the most from access to those officials.

In 2010, at the height of their influence and power, Pacific Gas & Electric executives donated $4,600 to Kamala Harris campaign for California Attorney General. At the time, PG&E was the largest power company in any state in the country. One can only assume, like every other conglomerate, they threw their money behind the candidate they believed would be least likely to disrupt their business interests.

Speaking of influence, there’s also the case of controversial former San Fransisco Mayor Willie Brown. Brown, a polarizing figure in his own right, recently penned an Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing a brief romantic relationship he claims he shared with Kamala Harris in the early 2000s.

In the piece, Brown claims he kickstarted her political career and increased her visibility by selecting her to serve on key committees and, among other things, generally boosting her profile in the circles that mattered. While most of the focus surrounding the story amounted to some version of Harris “sleeping her way to the top” (a lazy and disgusting take, in my opinion), that theory actually has little relevance when compared with the implications of Willie Brown’s other job . He lobbies for PG&E.

From the very beginning, PG&E seemed to have just as big an affinity for Kamala Harris as they did for Dianne Feinstein, the undisputed queen of California corporate political cash, and one of PG&E’s largest political beneficiaries (as she remains to this very day). Little did they know, they were going to need all the help — or as little resistance — as they could get.

On September 9, 2010, in San Bruno, CA, PG&E natural gas pipeline 132 exploded, sending a wall of fire reaching to the sky, killing 8 people and wounding more. It was a tragedy of negligence as the slow-churning investigations would reveal; corruption and greed had seemingly overrun the energy conglomerate at its highest levels. Civil inquiries and a joint State/Federal criminal investigation were opened, the litigation of which took more than 5 years.

While California AG Kamala Harris’ office did participate in the subsequent legal quagmire, she seemingly kept a very deliberate public distance from the situation. Then, in 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle uncovered emails showing PG&E’s vice president of regulatory relations, Brian Cherry, communicating to a top aide of the president of the California Public Utilities Commission Michael Keevey, that one prospective judge was a “major problem” and objected to another judge who had presided over a case in which PG&E had allegedly “gotten screwed”.

This became known as the “Judge Shopping” scandal, and while most involved were eventually fired and PG&E hit with a light $1 million dollar fine, calls were made from the mayor of San Bruno, Jerry Ruane, and even a state senator, for Harris’ office to open a criminal investigation into the whole situation.

Harris slow-walked the PG&E investigation

In response to their requests, Harris’ office “blew them off” as Ruane would later put it. Governor Jerry Brown was also pressured into taking sweeping action to punish the company. When asked, Harris’ team says she did open some kind of investigation — which is supposedly still being conducted all these years later — but seeing that she is now a U.S. Senator, that matter is more or less out of sight, out of mind. However, in the background of the craziness that was ensuing regarding the fallout from the PG&E explosion, a slightly different game was taking place.

For over a decade, PG&E has employed the lobbyist firm Sloat, Higgins, Jensen, and Associates to be their primary voice in the California legislature. In 2013, founding partner and political heavyweight Kevin Sloat was named in a wrongful termination lawsuit by an ex-employee. In the suit, the employee, Rhonda Smira, alleged Sloat had been hosting private fundraisers at his home or his firms’ property, where he would make countless illegal non-monetary donations to several elected officials and representatives that were directly involved in legislation that affected their clients.

Sloat’s firm would import cigars, wines and liquors, pass out baseball tickets and free golf outings at a casino owned by one of their clients. Smira, who was instructed to not record or submit any of these donations to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPCC) or the CA Secretary of State, states that a typical event would net up to $50,000 for the candidate or cause it was held for.

In the end, Sloat would be hit with a $133,000 fine — the largest ever for lobbying infractions — and the FPPC sent warning letters out to 37 officials who had benefited from Sloat’s illegalities. At the top of the list was Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom —arguably  SCN’s biggest clients at the time. In fact, the following year, during the inquiry into the San Bruno PG&E explosion, more communications were uncovered between a Brown appointee at the Public Utilities Commission and a PG&E executive inferring that Dana Williamson— one of Brown’s advisors who previously worked for PG&E — would be contacting a party close to the situation and they should be “warned”.

On its face, the emails showed an unnerving coziness between the company and the authorities meant to be overseeing and regulating them. After this discovery, SCN’s Dan Newman, Brown’s long time advisor, got out in front as only he could — by announcing the return of over $9,000 in donations from PG&E executives. Time heals all wounds, apparently, because in 2018 it was reported that SCN Strategies was somehow involved in litigation proceedings for PG&E, though Newman declined to elaborate on the specifics of their involvement. By the end of last year, PG&E had paid SCN approximately $1.1 million for their services.