Objective

By May 2026, oil interests had turned the highest gas prices in years into a campaign against California's climate law. They had spent a record $10 million-plus lobbying Sacramento in the first quarter alone. The legislature had already renewed the state's Cap-and-Invest program; the fight had moved to how regulators would implement it — a decision due at the end of May, in a venue almost no Californian was watching. 

The problem was not that Californians disagreed. It was that the debate had no public constituency attached to it, and public servants under industry pressure had no visible counterweight.

Veterans, active-duty service members, and military spouses have lived the cost of America's dependence on fossil fuels — deployments, price shocks, families absorbing the difference. On energy, they are among the few messengers with earned authority on both sides of the political divide. So, Vet Voice Foundation set out to defend California's clean energy leadership, partnering with XOMAD through Sunstone Strategies to put that constituency into the record before the board voted.

THE GOAL: In 22 days, make veterans and military families an audible constituency in California's Cap-and-Invest decision — putting the household cost of the oil industry's ask in front of Californians statewide, through voices they already trusted, before the May 29 vote.

Strategy

The opposition had a record lobbying budget, paid pump-side advertising, and newsletter buys running for months. We had 22 days.

XOMAD and Sunstone Strategies built the campaign not as a reach play, but as a digital door-to-door effort -- a small and deeply credible cohort speaking to their own communities under #wevepaidenough. In under a week, XOMAD recruited: four veterans, two military spouses, and one active-duty service member. They spanned the political divide, and each held an audience within the state.

Under the "We've Paid Enough" campaign, these messengers spread a core message: clean energy is more affordable, more stable, and less exposed to global volatility. Oil prices are set by events far outside California, from distant shipping lanes to conflicts abroad, and those shocks reach California pumps no matter what Californians do, while energy produced at home carries no such exposure. 

To preserve their own voices and lived experiences, creators worked without scripts, just clear direction and creative freedom. The campaign ran on two layers. Vet Voice Foundation produced an anchor asset featuring Shannon Corbeil, and the trusted messengers extended and reshared it into their own communities alongside original content of their own making. 

The campaign didn't stop at the feed. Content from the seven messengers was compiled and delivered directly to California Air Resources Board members as documentation of constituent concern — turning creator posts into a record of who was watching, and what it was costing them.

The hardest constraint was the box. Creators could not reference voting, name the regulatory body, or name any California political leader. No stock footage, no AI-generated elements, everything original and pre-approved before posting — all inside a nine-day posting window. So the content stopped talking about policy and talked about household cost and family safety instead,

One creator stitched the Corbeil video and picked up her warning, calling out how Californians keep paying while oil companies profit, anchoring it in what veterans have lived through: wars, instability, families carrying the cost. Another spoke to other veterans while going about an ordinary day, folding energy independence into the routine and tying it to safety, stability, and the prices people feel. And the other spoke as a military wife and mother: gas prices are not abstract when you're doing the grocery run and the school drop-off. 

This authenticity, and the diversity of ideas, opinions, and stories behind it, built real, meaningful credibility within affected communities. XOMAD did not recruit creators to talk about energy policy. It found people for whom the cost of energy dependence was already personal, speaking to audiences who knew their background and service.

88 posted pieces of content and shares, seven messengers, 41 of California's 58 counties, nine days of posting, one hashtag, against eight figures of lobbying.

Results

The "We've Paid Enough" campaign achieved what it set out to do: make veterans and military families audible in this decision within 22 days. Seven messengers carried it into 41 of California's 58 counties inside a nine-day posting window. 

The campaign moved the issue out of regulatory circles and into California communities:

• Awareness became advocacy. 38.4% of comments highlighted or advocated for the campaign's message. Another 41.6% described what energy costs meant for their households, turning a policy debate into a kitchen-table conversation. Positive sentiment hit 95.2% and negative just 3.2% — on hostile terrain, against heavy industry advertising.
• Attention held where policy content usually fails. Content averaged a 5.9% engagement rate, nearly 7x the industry benchmark, with 10.2 seconds average watch time. The audience was overwhelmingly women, roughly half under 25, and nearly seven in ten people of color — communities the climate conversation usually misses.
• The constituency was audible in the room. All seven messengers' content went directly to board members before the vote. Four CARB members voted no, citing public pushback on affordability — the exact argument these messengers had spent three weeks making. A decision on track to pass unopposed instead passed over documented objection.

Success here was never going to be impressions. In 22 days, against a record-setting lobbying campaign, seven Californians gave a regulatory decision a public — and gave military families a voice on the cost of energy they have already paid.

Media