Quick Take
Similarly policy-minded Democrats aimed to differentiate themselves on housing, climate, business and wealth and more on Thursday evening as they debated for two hours in Monterey.
In one of the most open gubernatorial races in recent California history, six Democratic candidates for governor converged on the Central Coast to debate Thursday evening ahead of the June 2 primary. They focused on the big statewide issues such as housing, health care and climate that much of local politics focus on.
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Monterey’s Hilton Garden Inn hosted them, with more than 200 attendees in the crowd who wrote questions on notecards and passed them up to the stage. The debate was organized by the Democratic Women’s Club of Santa Cruz County, the Democratic Women of Monterey County and the San Benito County Democratic Central Committee. Erica Padilla-Chavez, co-chair of Women in Leadership for Diverse Representation (WILDR) and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank, asked the candidates questions drawn from a committee of the organizing groups. Prior to the debate, she said the goal for the evening was simple: to inform the audience.
The candidates spoke for two hours. They included:
- Former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary and former California attorney general Xavier Becerra;
- San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan;
- Businessman, billionaire, environmentalist, and founder for Farallon Capital Tom Steyer;
- State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond;
- Former Los Angeles Mayor and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa;
- Former State Controller Betty Yee.
Those six candidates make up just over half of the Democratic candidate pool following the terming out of Gov. Gavin Newsom, with no clear heir apparent to succeed him. Neither former Democratic U.S. Rep. Katie Porter nor Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, two of the front-runners in polls, chose to attend the Monterey debate. The two Republicans in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, a Fox News contributor and former advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, were not invited to the Democratic event.
Given California’s electoral system in which the two top vote-getters in the primary, regardless of party, advance to November’s general election, Democratic leadership has feared that such a large number of candidates will lead to those Republican candidates taking the top two primary spots, leading to a Republican governor in a blue state. Recent polls show Swalwell gaining an edge among the candidates, and in one, leading the two Republicans.
Recently, state party leader Rusty Hicks wrote an open letter urging candidates with no “viable path” to the governor’s seat to drop out before March 6. Prior to the debate, Yee told Lookout she sees the move as “unprecedented and undemocratic,” which she repeated during the debate.
“It’s the most undemocratic thing I’ve ever heard. The idea that we are going to have our party set the field for this race when the voters should have a choice is, really, I think, unconscionable,” she said.
While not directly addressing specific Central Coast issues, the two hours produced much conversation — with relatively little difference on policy — on statewide issues, many of which hit close to home: housing affordability, immigration and climate action. In many cases, the candidates highlighted state and federal failures that have snowballed over time.
The housing-market woes of the Central Coast, as well as throughout the state, consumed some of the debate.
“We’ve created this crisis because we broke the housing market,” said Mahan. “Even when we approve new housing, we can’t build it because it’s too expensive.” He said that he would look to cap local fees, which he said typically add 10% to 20% to the price of a new home.
With all the candidates agreeing to the point that the state has to increase its housing supply, Becerra said he’d like to identify how many shovel-ready or nearly shovel-ready projects there are and figure out why they cannot be built. He added that the state also needs to improve its payment assistance for renters as well as down-payment assistance to remove barriers to homeownership. Villaraigosa said the state needs to cut red tape and address what he calls a “broken” California Environmental Quality Act “that allows you to sue from Phoenix to a project in Watsonville.”
Climate action
Thurmond said California needs to be serious and proactive about offsetting climate change, adding the state should build 2 million charging stations for electric vehicles and provide discounts for people who cannot afford one to continue shifting away from fossil fuels.
Villaraigosa said when he was a child in Los Angeles, the smog was sometimes too severe for him and other children to play outside during the day. He said it inspired him to author the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program, a major effort in cleaning air throughout the state, when he served in the Legislature. “It’s about getting things done, not just setting goals. It’s about understanding we need an ‘all of the above’ strategy to deal with climate change and energy security.”
Mahan, a Watsonville native, said he remembers hearing the spraying of pesticides in the fields near his home at night, and added that there were high cancer rates in the area: “This is an area where it is important that the law can be used as a tool to ensure environmental justice for working people and communities of color.”
ICE and immigration crackdown
All of the candidates staunchly opposed the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration, with both Thurmond and Steyer saying that the agency needs to be abolished. Steyer called the agency a “criminal organization” and “basically a secret police” whose main goal is to sow fear in communities and control people it does not like.
“We have to start all over from scratch. They’re not protecting us – what they’re doing is they are arresting and deporting farmworkers, child care workers and people who work as nannies,” Thurmond said, adding that he has already worked to pass legislation to keep ICE out of schools and hospitals.
Becerra said he would move to investigate and prosecute ICE agents “because we have rights to do that when they go beyond the law.” Yee said Democrats need to take at least the House of Representatives in this November’s elections and move to “reverse this massive funding for detention facilities.”
Business development and wealth
Yee said the state needs to incentivize business development where housing is under construction to create jobs within new communities and promote economic sustainability.
Becerra said that corporations and wealthy Californians need to pay their fair share.
“What that means is we’re going to go after passive income that never gets taxed the same way,” he said. “Then we’ll be able to build housing, make sure that we have affordable health care and use the revenue where we need it the most.”
Thurmond advocated for a national wealth tax, while Steyer said he would call a special election to close a corporate real estate tax loophole he says is worth $22 billion each year.
Health care
The candidates also discussed health care and the ballooning costs associated with it. They agreed that Californians pay too much for not enough service. Yee said the system is inefficient and should be converted to a single-payer system, which the candidates largely agreed with, but with some caveats.
“This cannot work without someone cooperative in the White House,” said Steyer. “That’s why I say it takes at least three years, because I’m hoping there’s someone cooperative in the White House in three years, but it’s a much cheaper system and we’re not solving this without structural change.”
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