{"id":308225,"date":"2026-05-09T23:03:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T23:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/308225\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T23:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T23:03:20","slug":"a-look-at-the-top-candidates-vying-to-be-californias-controller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/308225\/","title":{"rendered":"A look at the top candidates vying to be California\u2019s controller"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marisa Kendall<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""Construction\"
\n\t\t\t\tConstruction on the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

In the race for oversight over California\u2019s budget, the two main contenders are an incumbent with three years of experience and a challenger who is set on exposing fraudulent and wasteful spending.<\/p>\n

Democrat Malia Cohen has served as controller (AKA California\u2019s chief accountant) since 2023, and has raised more than $1.2 million for the race<\/a> to keep her seat. She oversees spending for a state with a budget of nearly $350 billion and one of the world\u2019s largest economies. It\u2019s her job to make sure the state spends wisely and efficiently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the governor and the Legislature hash out a budget deal for this year, Cohen has urged caution<\/a>, saying higher-than-expected spending \u201creinforces the need for restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen also has improved the state\u2019s ability to deliver a key financial report that was chronically late<\/a> for years. Cohen made up the backlog by releasing four reports in two years, and she told CalMatters that the upcoming report (called the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report) will almost be on time \u2014 late a mere two months, compared to the years others were delayed.<\/p>\n

While running for office in 2022, Cohen told CalMatters<\/a> she planned to scrutinize the state\u2019s homelessness spending and take a critical look at the Employment Development Department and the Department of Motor Vehicles. A 2024 report by the state auditor found that California fails<\/a> to adequately track its homelessness spending.<\/p>\n

Cohen did not meet those campaign promises. She said that\u2019s because the state auditor had already looked at those agencies. Instead of duplicating that work, she decided to focus on improving some internal functions of the state\u2019s financial arm. She\u2019s in the midst of ongoing efforts\u00a0 to modernize FI$Cal \u2014 the IT system that manages the state\u2019s finances \u2014 and the system that pays state employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is that I do believe that Californians deserve to know where their money is going,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that\u2019s what I’m working to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cohen\u2019s main challenger, Republican Herb Morgan, has promised to pick up the slack he says his opponent has dropped. Like Cohen promised in 2022, Morgan said if elected, he will carefully scrutinize the state\u2019s spending on homelessness. He wants to create a system where every time a state-funded nonprofit pays for anything, that transaction goes into a state database. Then, he said, he\u2019ll use AI to monitor those purchases and flag anything suspicious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an example of how state spending can be transparently tracked, a public dashboard<\/a> on his website logs his campaign donations in real time. He\u2019s raised $367,000 as of the end of April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morgan acknowledged he\u2019s an outlier as a Republican running in a state historically dominated by Democrats. But he believes voters will look at both candidates\u2019 qualifications instead of voting along party lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t care where you are on the social spectrum, 99% of us are fiscally responsible,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean cutting spending. It doesn’t mean defunding. It just means being responsible with our money. And that, I think, appeals to all political ideologies.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also running is Meghann Adams, a Peace and Freedom Party candidate. A school bus driver who lives in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, she is president of her union and manages its finances. If elected, Adams promised to expose corporate landlords that drive up rent prices, analyze the cost of imposing a single-payer Medi-Cal system and divest state investments from companies that support Israel\u2019s war against Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s raised $16,000 as of the end of April.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Marisa Kendall, CalMatters Construction on the state Capitol in Sacramento on April 29, 2024. Photo by Miguel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,5402,1708,9,8,4303,35072],"class_list":["post-308225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-democratic-party","tag-california-elections","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-republican-party","tag-election-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}