Here's
the Deal
The Art of Selling Policy
"They didn't forget about you. They just decided you weren't worth the investment."
Spent on California lobbying in the last decade
California: highest gas taxes in the continental US
Registered lobbyists in Sacramento
Highest gas prices of any U.S. state
Power Doesn't Hide.
It Just Buys the Curtain.
California is the fourth-largest economy in the world. It is also the most expensive state in America to live in, with the highest gas prices, the highest income taxes, and a housing crisis that has displaced millions. This film asks a simple question: why?
Here's the Deal is a feature documentary that follows the money. From the marble hallways of the Sacramento Capitol to the anonymous LLCs funding ballot initiatives, from the oil industry's lobbying apparatus to the think tanks that manufacture consensus. It is a film about how democracy works when the price of access is measured in millions.
Told through investigative journalism, exclusive access, and the voices of ordinary Californians paying the highest gas prices in America while their representatives take meetings with the people who set the price.
"When policy is for sale,
who can afford to buy it?"
Four Chapters.
One System.
The Architecture of Influence
How Sacramento became the most lobbied state capital in America. The revolving door between industry, law firms, and the legislature. Mapped, named, and followed.
Dark Money & the Ballot
Ballot initiatives were designed to give power back to the people. This chapter follows the money behind California's most consequential propositions and the anonymous donors who shaped them.
The Price at the Pump
California's gas prices are not an accident. A forensic investigation into the oil industry's decades-long relationship with state regulators, legislators, and the energy committees that set the rules.
Two Californias
The state with the most billionaires and the most homeless. The film's final chapter asks the hardest question: when policy is for sale, who can afford to buy it? And who pays the price?
Why This Film.
Why California.
Why Now.
"California doesn't just set policy for 40 million people. It sets the template for the rest of the country. What happens in Sacramento doesn't stay in Sacramento."
The most consequential political stories of the last twenty years have been told through the lens of Wall Street, Washington, or Silicon Valley. California's political economy is the most powerful state government in the democratic world. It has never been given the full documentary treatment it deserves.
This film is not partisan. It is forensic. It follows money, not ideology. The donors, the lobbyists, the legislators, and the ordinary Californians who live with the consequences. All of them have a story. Here's the Deal tells all of them.
CALIFORNIA: HIGHEST GAS PRICES IN THE CONTINENTAL US
Financial system exposed
Anonymous political donors
Academy Award Winner
Corporate power & policy
Money in democracy
This Story
Needs to Be Told.
We are seeking co-production partners, distribution conversations, and investigative journalism collaborators. If you believe in accountability journalism told with cinematic power, we want to hear from you.