What am I looking for in a new California governor?<\/p>\n
Like a big chunk of the state\u2019s voters, I\u2019m not exactly sure. But I\u2019ve been watching and listening to their spate of debates in the last week, and I\u2019m actually shocked by who I am leaning toward. <\/p>\n
I know who I don\u2019t like, though.<\/p>\n
Every time I see Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, with his Tom Selleck mustache, I can\u2019t help thinking he should play a lawman on TV. A onetime member of the far-right Oath Keepers, just about every political take he has is bad:<\/p>\n
A lack of affordable housing has nothing to do with homelessness, Bianco has said repeatedly<\/a>. \u201cThis is not and never has been about homes. It\u2019s about drugs and mental illness,\u201d he proclaimed Wednesday at the NBC4\/Telemundo debate at the Skirball Center.<\/a> <\/p>\n Bianco wants to get rid of (not reform) the California Environmental Quality Act \u2014 dreaded by builders everywhere \u2014 and abolish the California Coastal Commission, which for 54 years has ensured public access to beaches that otherwise would have been blocked by private development. When asked whether he supports finishing the high-speed rail that would link Merced to Bakersfield, Bianco replied, \u201cNo, I would rather arrest the people that stole our money.\u201d<\/p>\n To which former Democratic U.S. Rep. Katie Porter interjected, \u201cThat would be on brand for you, doing something illegal,\u201d alluding to the thousands of Riverside County ballots Bianco seized in a bid to gin up fear about nonexistent voter fraud.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always liked Porter and her famous white board. I don\u2019t believe snapping at your staff or a reporter is disqualifying, and I\u2019m glad she\u2019s been able to joke about the leaked video <\/a>that damaged her campaign. She concluded a recent ad<\/a> by telling the crowd of supporters behind her: \u201cNow could you guys please get out of my shot?\u201d<\/p>\n However, I winced at some of the things Porter said on the debate stage.<\/p>\n Tuesday, at East Los Angeles College<\/a>, she called her opponents \u201cboys\u201d and chastised them for interrupting one another. <\/p>\n \u201cYou are actually interrupting them, too,\u201d Bianco complained. \u201cI don\u2019t know why you want to act like you weren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, cowboy up, cupcake\u201d Porter retorted.<\/a> <\/p>\n On Wednesday at the Skirball Center she repeated the insult during a discussion of sanctuary cities, which Bianco opposes. \u201cI think we ought to enforce the existing sanctuary laws so we don\u2019t have crazy cowboys taking the law into their own hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Bianco suggested she tell that to a mother whose child was killed by an undocumented immigrant. Porter, who\u2019s raising three teenagers as a single mom, said she didn\u2019t need any lectures from him about being a mother. \u201cYou might,\u201d he said.<\/a> The audience gasped.<\/p>\n Steve Hilton, the Trump-endorsed, British-born businessman turned Fox News host, became a U.S. citizen in 2021. Who doesn\u2019t love an English accent? He\u2019s reasonable sounding, bright and engaging, but deeply misguided.<\/p>\n Last month, in a radio interview on LAist<\/a>, Hilton revived the creaky welfare queen trope. In a town near Modesto, he told host Austin Cross, \u201cI was talking to some dairy workers there, not making a huge amount of money, 50 grand, something like that. They were telling me that their girlfriends \u2014 none of them work \u2014 and they all make more money than them on a range of different benefits that are available, both federal and state.\u201d And they all drive Cadillacs, too, amirite?<\/p>\n Cross pressed him hard on whether Trump lost the 2020 election and Hilton refused to give a yes or no answer. That alone is disqualifying.<\/p>\n Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been coming in hot<\/a> on the debate stage, but he\u2019s polling so low that the attacks he unleashed on the presumptive Democratic front- runner, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, probably aren\u2019t going to help. It doesn\u2019t seem Villaraigosa\u2019s 73-year-old heart is in this quest. <\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure what I was expecting from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan<\/a>, who at 43 is the youngest contender. A darling of Silicon Valley (and onetime Harvard dorm mate of Mark Zuckerberg) who has made headway against homelessness in his city, I was hoping for someone with Pete Buttigieg star quality. Instead, Mahan comes across as super competent, not ideological, and a bit rehearsed. (\u201cOh my god, he\u2019s reciting his lines,\u201d said Hilton during Wednesday\u2019s debate, in full mean-girl mode. \u201cHilarious.\u201d)<\/p>\n Honestly, it\u2019s too bad Mahan can\u2019t run for mayor of L.A.<\/p>\n After former U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell\u2019s implosion amid allegations <\/a>that he is a serial sexual harasser, Becerra has emerged in polls as the Democratic candidate most likely to end up in a runoff with Hilton.<\/p>\n And so he has become the punching bag for the other Democrats, who\u2019ve hammered him with accusations about how, on his watch at HHS, the Office of Refugee Resettlement lost track of 85,000 migrant children, most of whom poured into the country from Central America as unaccompanied minors between 2021 and 2023. The New York Times found<\/a> that many of the minors, mostly teenage boys, were exploited by sponsors, who illegally put them to work in various factories, food processing plants and as roofers.<\/p>\n In his defense, Becerra has said that HHS\u2019s legal authority ends once a child is placed with a sponsor, and the department has no legal way for sponsors to stay in contact.<\/p>\n \u201cC\u00e1lmate, Antonio, c\u00e1lmate,\u201d said Becerra<\/a> after Villaraigosa lit into him. (Translation: \u201cTake a chill pill.\u201d)<\/p>\n This brings me to billionaire Tom Steyer, who, as much as I hate to admit it, has really grown on me. Yes, he\u2019s trying to buy the election. And yes, Californians have always turned up their noses<\/a> at billionaires with aspirations to run the state.<\/p>\n But, but, but \u2026 Steyer seems to be the most committed environmentalist of the bunch, despite, as his opponents repeatedly point out, having made part of his fortune investing in fossil fuel and coal companies and private prisons. He swears he\u2019s seen the light<\/a>, and Bernie Sanders supports him, though questions linger <\/a>about Steyer\u2019s ties to Farallon Capital, the hedge fund he founded.<\/p>\n He is the one candidate who actively embraces closing the real estate tax loophole<\/a> that has allowed commercial property owners to evade reassessment, thus keeping their property taxes insanely low. Closing this loophole<\/a>, which voters narrowly rejected<\/a> in 2020, would generate billions in new revenue for the state. He said he will vote for the billionaires tax if it qualifies for the ballot.<\/p>\n But he really won my heart last week when he declared at the Skirball debate that \u201cICE is a criminal organization. They\u2019re coming into our state, they\u2019re terrorizing people, and they\u2019re racially profiling people \u2026 I am in favor of abolishing ICE.\u201d He vowed to prosecute ICE agents and its leadership \u2014 \u201cincluding Stephen Miller.\u201d<\/p>\n Could it be I\u2019m falling in love?<\/p>\n