Aggregated News
Businessman behind Prop. 71 has become powerful player
Mercury News
Faced with a massive federal roadblock to his plans to develop low-income housing, a frustrated California lawyer built an alternate route, creating a state program to help pay for what the U.S. government would not.
Three decades later, a similar strategy designed by the same man launched the state's $3 billion stem-cell program, which could make California a global leader in the promising field. This time, his motivation is personal -- a drive to find cures for diseases like juvenile diabetes and Alzheimer's, which afflict his son and his mother, despite federal restrictions on stem-cell research.
Robert N. Klein II, who will lead the effort and help decide how to spend all that money, has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in state government, yet voters have never seen his name on a ballot and know little about him.
Who is this 59-year-old Portola Valley financier who gave $3 million to the successful initiative campaign?
Government and legal records, along with interviews with more than 40 associates, reveal...
Mercury News
Faced with a massive federal roadblock to his plans to develop low-income housing, a frustrated California lawyer built an alternate route, creating a state program to help pay for what the U.S. government would not.
Three decades later, a similar strategy designed by the same man launched the state's $3 billion stem-cell program, which could make California a global leader in the promising field. This time, his motivation is personal -- a drive to find cures for diseases like juvenile diabetes and Alzheimer's, which afflict his son and his mother, despite federal restrictions on stem-cell research.
Robert N. Klein II, who will lead the effort and help decide how to spend all that money, has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in state government, yet voters have never seen his name on a ballot and know little about him.
Who is this 59-year-old Portola Valley financier who gave $3 million to the successful initiative campaign?
Government and legal records, along with interviews with more than 40 associates, reveal...