(The Center Square) – Candidates for California governor fielded many questions about affordability, housing, education, homelessness and wildfires Tuesday evening during a debate at Pomona College in Claremont.
Eight people were on stage: California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer, former Fox News Channel host and political adviser Steve Hilton, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Bianco and Hilton were the only Republicans on stage. The rest were Democrats.
The candidates, who are on the June 2 primary ballot, were not all asked the same questions during the 90-minute debate. And not all questions involved the same amount of time for answers. Meanwhile, the moderators, who included local CBS News anchors across California and a Pomona College professor, changed throughout the televised debate.
The first question involved affordability and what candidates such as Hilton would do to restore the California dream.
“I’d send to the Legislature my first budget with my plan to make our state ‘Califordable,’ ” said Hilton. “Three-dollar gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first $100,000 tax free, and especially for young people, a home you can afford to buy, so we can restore that California dream of homeownership.”
Bianco was then asked how he expects to get things done with a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature.
Bianco said it’s not an issue of how he’s going to respond to them, rather how they’re going to respond to California voters putting him into the governor’s office.
“California is broken because of what has been happening in Sacramento, because of an absolute failed Democrat progressive agenda that is destroying California,” said Bianco. “The regulations and the taxes have to go.”
Mahan then got a turn and used the opportunity to mention his personal experience of growing up in a working class family living paycheck to paycheck.
Because of that, Mahan pledged to suspend and reform the gas tax.
“It is the most regressive tax in California and working people, rural people are spending three times as much maintaining our roads as wealthier EV owners,” said Mahan. “So we need to change that, but I won’t stop there. We’ll remove all barriers to building housing.”
Becerra is not in favor of cutting the gas tax, which he said is needed to fund maintenance of roads and bridges.
“Those who say they’re going to cut the gas tax have to also say what they’re going to replace it with. Otherwise, we’re going to have potholes in every road, and we’re going to have bridges that collapse,” said Becerra. “On affordability, we’ll reduce prescription drug prices. and we’ll start building the homes that we need. Forty-thousand units are shovel-ready [for construction]. I’ll get them going the first day I’m in office.”
Pivoting to the subject of home ownership, moderators asked Thurmond what he would do to help Californians buy property. He said that as governor, he will provide down payment assistance grants to people who want to own a home.
“We’ll build 2 million housing units using surplus property that school districts have in every single county in this state, and we’ll build 2.3 million units by the year 2030,” said Thurmond. “I know what it’s like to grow up in a house without food and on government assistance. I grew up on government cheese. Even now, I work an overnight job to put my kids through college and pay for elderly family members. We can create a more affordable California together.”
Steyer said his solution for housing is not a silver bullet. He referred to it more as silver buckshot.
Examples offered by Steyer include shortening and reducing the cost of permitting. Steyer also spoke of redoing zoning and working with cities and counties to “bring the money to them so they can afford to do housing” in their jurisdictions.
“There is a plan on my website that’s very clear, but in every one of these, it’s going to be absolutely important to do structural change,” said Steyer. “The idea that we’re going to do the same thing better is insanity. We need to make structural changes in every one of the places where Californians can’t afford to live.”
Villaraigosa called for first-time buyer assistance and spoke of a $25 billion initiative at no cost to taxpayers.
“We need to build up to 150,000 units,” said Villaraigosa. “In addition, we need to fast-track and streamline housing building. As mayor, I built more housing in eight years than they did in the 12 years before that.”
Touting her experience as a “single mom of three teenagers who believe they will not be able to buy houses in California,” Porter said the state must build faster. According to Porter, California builds apartment housing and single-family homes about two years slower than its competitor states.
“In those two years, which is caused by permitting delays, labor difficulties, lack of innovation in building, everything becomes 10 or 20% more expensive,” said Porter. “So yes, we need to reform permitting. We need to innovate housing. We can bring down housing costs by 10 or 20%, and that is not a few extra dollars. That’s hundreds or thousands of dollars back in the pockets of families. and it’s opening up home ownership to the next generation of Californians.”
Later in the night, when a student asked candidates what they would do to help make college more affordable, Thurmond pointed to his Pay It Forward plan to “make college free” in California.
“You go to school for free for four years. And when you graduate and you get a job, you start to pay back what was provided for you for the next group of students who come after you,” said Thurmond. “As governor, I will implement this program so that we help to reduce the debt that California students experience so they can put that money towards buying a home or launching a business.”
Villaraigosa – who ran out of time before he could complete his answer – said there is no denying that college is unaffordable.
“Eighty-five thousand dollars for tuition at Stanford and USC is unacceptable,” said Villaraigosa.
“In fact, probably here as well,” he said during the debate at Pomona College.
Regarding K-12 education, Steyer said California needs to do a better job of paying, recruiting and retaining teachers.
Mahan advocated cutting administrative overhead and putting more money into the classroom.
“We need to reward teachers whose students show more learning growth,” said Mahan. “For those teachers whose students don’t, we need to intervene and provide coaching and training and help them get up to speed. And we need to have higher expectations including teaching phonics in the early years.”
Schools are the single biggest budget item in the state of California. This is the case while states and cities are trying to tackle issues such as homelessness.
Porter pushed for dedicated mental health responders in lieu of police.
Thurmond said he’s working on a policy to provide subsidized housing and support for homeless teens and to pass a $10 billion bond to build affordable housing for those who are unhoused.
“That’s the work that the government is supposed to do,” said Thurmond.
Bianco said the government is to blame for homelessness.
“We didn’t have this problem before 2014 and Prop 47, when the government decided to lie to the people, call it safe schools, safe streets and make drug use legal, make theft legal, and make a whole mess of other crimes legal in California,” said Bianco, pointing to Democrats on stage.
“That’s why we’re here, because of failed policies that every single one of them support,” he said.
Bianco, when asked later what he would do in response to a fire, said the better question is what the government has done to allow for the disaster.
Bianco called it a “lie” that climate change is to blame. The sheriff said the state should have more prescribed burns to reduce the chances of wildfires like the ones in recent years.
Hilton agreed.
“If want to reduce carbon emissions and protect against wildfires and revive our timber industry so we can produce timber for the homes we need to build in California, there is a simple way to do it, which is to have modern forest management, so we don’t have the fuel load in our forests,” said Hilton. “We can create jobs and opportunities in rural California and reduce carbon emissions in the process because we don’t have the mega wildfires.”
Democrats such as Mahan said a governor still needs to do more for communities when disasters happen.
“As mayor, I’ve gone through emergencies,” said Mahan. “You declare a disaster. You set up an emergency operation. You set up an operation center. You let first responders and professionals lead, but you provide the communications backbone. You assure the public. You are out there every day backing up your public, staff, and the delivery of services.”
There are more debates planned for the near future.
