CBS California Investigates obtained receipts behind the watchdog's findings of wasteful spending, revealing previously undisclosed connections to the high-speed rail CEO.
Page F115From§Eachthe evening edition — 10 October 2026
Newsom vetoed the oversight his own watchdog called essential; the consultants' nightclub bills tie to the rail CEO.
Take the car rides first, since they are the cheapest item here and the one you will carry home. Late-night rides. Nightclub outings. Billed to you, by consultants on a railway that does not yet run, and the inspector general counted hundreds of thousands of dollars of questionable spending among them. CBS California has the documents behind that audit, and they carry connections to the rail authority's chief executive that were previously undisclosed. Grubby, yes. The handsome part is the calendar. The bill proved severable: the controversial part enacted in September, the part his own watchdog called essential to transparency and accountability left to sit. Less than a month after the audit. Vetoed, mind you ... not amended. And what did the consultants pay to have the arrangement continue as drafted? Nothing. A signature did the work, and it was somebody else's. The railway does not run. The rides are on your bill.
“They keep telling you there's no money for the train, and meanwhile the consultants are expensing club nights and car service, and the paperwork runs back to the guy running the authority. The audit lands in September, and three weeks later the governor kills the half of the bill his own watchdog said he needed to see this stuff. Nothing broke — a door got closed on purpose, and you're covering the cab fare.”
“Look, he signed part of that bill — part of it, which nobody wants to mention. Did I say he vetoed oversight? That doesn't sound like me. There was an audit, the inspector general caught the spending, the system worked, which is honestly why you don't need a second bill stacked on top of a system that already worked.”
The receipts
· Newsom vetoes rail oversight bill after watchdog’s scathing audit from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
· Will Gov. Newsom veto the high-speed rail oversight bill that his own watchdog calls essential? from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.