From Halle Berry To Rachael Ray And Arnold Schwarzenegger: How Celebrity Lobbyists Won And Lost In Sacramento In 2025

SACRAMENTO, California — Halle Berry blistering Gavin Newsom over his lack of support for menopause resources in New York last month served as the punctuation mark on a year of celebrities using their cache to sway California policy.

Berry told onlookers at a New York Times event — where Newsom also later spoke — that the California governor and likely 2028 presidential contender shouldn’t be in the running because he’s “overlooked women … by devaluing us in midlife.” Their spat wound up on TMZ, with Newsom telling the outlet he’d already included menopause funding in his plan for the next budget year.

If the episode marked a tabloid-ification of California politics, it also demonstrated stars’ unique level of engagement in the Golden State, where they frequently lend their Hollywood glitz and glam to policy battles happening just up the road in Sacramento.

Here are how celebrity lobbyists fared in California in 2025:

Halle Berry

Menopause resources

Berry, who runs menopause advocacy company Respin Health, has recently made a name for herself as a national lobbyist on the issue. In California, she worked on a bill to incentivize menopause training for doctors and make it more challenging for insurance companies to deny coverage of treatments.

Berry’s criticism of Newsom came after the governor twice vetoed versions of that legislation. Although Newsom committed to including menopause funding in his spending plan, Berry told POLITICO she has yet to see “anything concrete.”

Jay Leno

Classic car smog test exemptions

Leno testified before a state Senate committee on behalf of legislation that would have made it possible for certain collector vehicles to get around smog checks.

State Sen. Shannon Grove, who authored the bill, told POLITICO that Leno, a car enthusiast, got involved in an “organic” way.

Grove met Leno during a tour of his garage — an outing she bought as a charity donation. A conversation they had about the difficulty of accessing smog checks for collector cars spurred the proposal.

Grove — who previously worked on a “troubled teens” therapy center bill with reality star Paris Hilton — said celebrities’ personal stories tend to move her colleagues more than their star power. When stars are in town, she’ll reserve a conference room so her colleagues can come by and ask questions about their experiences and advocacy.

Unfortunately for Leno, his legislation drew pushback from environmentalists, and lawmakers quietly killed it in a committee.

Kim Kardashian and John Legend

Wage increases for incarcerated firefighters

Kim Kardashian’s more than 350 million Instagram followers are likely looking to her for beauty, fashion and reality TV content, but she’s also used her platform to lobby for criminal justice-related legislation.

In 2019, she met with Newsom around the time he announced a moratorium on the state’s use of the death penalty and publicly supported his decision.

Last year, she shared Instagram story posts supporting a bill to increase wages for incarcerated firefighters.

Singer John Legend also lobbied for the legislation, telling POLITICO he’d personally “seen the bravery of our incarcerated firefighters first hand” while enduring the Los Angeles wildfires.

The bill advanced from the Legislature with bipartisan support, and Newsom later signed it into law.

Rachael Ray

Resisting a ban on nonstick cookware

Celebrity chef Rachael Ray wrote a letter lobbying against a bill that would have banned certain nonstick chemicals in cookware. Ray — who has her own cookware line — argued a prohibition would make it harder to make “nutritious meals without extra oils or fats.”

Ray fought the legislation along with David Chang and Marcus Samuelsson, two other famous chefs who have their own cookware lines or endorse nonstick products.

Although the ban made it through the Capitol, Newsom ultimately sided with the chefs and vetoed it, saying he was “deeply concerned about the impact this bill would have on the availability of affordable options in cooking products.”

Chrissy Teigen

Supporting food stamps programs

Teigen and Legend, her husband, are a regular celebrity lobbying power couple. The model, cookbook author and social media influencer visited Sacramento to push for a program that provides CalFresh recipients with a dollar for every one they spend on fruits and vegetables.

Teigen even joked to POLITICO about “cornering” Newsom to win his support during an interview at the Capitol.

Although the bill did not make it through the Legislature, lawmakers ended up securing budget funds to keep the program going for up to 10 additional months.

Hilary Swank

Requiring prenatal vitamin ingredient testing

The actress, who does work for baby supply company HealthyBaby, visited the Senate Health Committee to testify in favor of a bill requiring prenatal vitamins to be tested for toxic ingredients.

During her testimony, Swank said she was appearing in her capacity as a mom and an entrepreneur, mentioning her two-year-old twins.

Upon learning she was pregnant, the actress said the “guiding light in my life evolved into educating myself on the healthiest things I could put into my body to nurture myself and my babies.”

Swank said she was supporting the bill because she believes all companies should subject their prenatal vitamins to the same rigorous testing HealthyBaby uses.

Lawmakers approved the legislation, which Newsom later signed.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

No on Proposition 50

Schwarzenegger was the reluctant celebrity face of the failed anti-Prop 50 movement. The former governor was willing to make public remarks against the Democratic gerrymander at a USC event that opponents of the measure turned into a television ad, but he wouldn’t officially align himself with either of the two anti-Prop 50 campaigns.

Schwarzenegger didn’t do a lot to help them raise money to fight the ballot measure. He also didn’t do much social media outreach to encourage his followers to take action against the measure, aside from a post showing the former governor wearing a “Terminate Gerrymandering” T-shirt.