Who is running for lieutenant governor of California

from Nadia LathanCalMatters

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Candidates running for lieutenant governor tend to allude to the office’s largely symbolic and overlooked status when discussing their ambitions for statewide office.

It is true that the lieutenant governorship of California is a largely ceremonial position. Eleni Kounalakis, who currently holds the position, is next in line if the governor is absent or leaves office, such as when they are out of state, undergoing surgery or if they die. Kounalakis, who stepped down this year, is also president of the state Senate and could cast a rare deciding vote if called upon. Most of her influence lies in higher education, where she sits on all three state boards of higher education.

That’s why the four main front-runners for the job in the upcoming June primary are emphasizing the impact they’d like to have on higher education, such as freezing tuition or cutting remedial courses.

Previous lieutenant governors have used the office as a stepping stone to the state’s top job, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who held the position for eight years before his 2018 election.

But it is still unknown to voters and has a bad reputation.

“I called the lieutenant governor kind of like the Seinfeld of state government because nobody knows who he is, and then they think it’s a job for nothing,” Gloria Romero, a Republican candidate, told CalMatters.

The main Democratic candidates include Josh Friday, who runs volunteer programs in the Newsom administration, State Treasurer Fiona Ma, who is running for office this year, and former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs.

Here’s what each candidate had to say, in alphabetical order, about how they’d approach the gig.

Josh Friday

Friday said one of his biggest priorities as lieutenant governor will be to try to get California’s community colleges to accredit more trade workers to help build more clean energy projects and boost the state’s supply of renewable energy.

Before becoming part of the governor’s office in 2019, he was CEO of NextGen America, a clean advocacy organization founded by billionaire Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer.

He also said he would push for more student housing to be built on public land to increase enrollment and create more revenue to stem rising tuition costs.

The former Novato mayor also emphasized expanding the volunteer service program he helped develop as Newsom’s chief cabinet officer. He would like to include more community colleges and universities. In addition to Newsom’s support, he is endorsed by the California Association of Teachers and the California Federation of Teachers.

Janelle Kelman

Former Sausalito Mayor Janelle Kelman wants to make community college free and expand training programs for in-demand jobs as a member of the state’s higher education boards. But the lieutenant governor is one of 18 members of the UCLA Board of Regents and has limited capacity to enact a single policy change.

She received support from the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and the LGBTQ Stonewall Democratic Club.

The lieutenant governor has no role in electricity regulation or insurance. But Kelman, a climate advocate, said he would work to lower utility costs by getting rid of electricity surcharges. She also said she would work with the insurance commissioner to lower premiums for homeowners who take preventative measures to mitigate wildfire risks.

Kelman spent 10 years in local government on the Sausalito Planning Commission and City Council and is the founder of a climate nonprofit focused on sea-level rise.

She also supports building more student housing.

Fiona Ma

Finding other ways to generate revenue for California universities outside of the general fund is one way Ma would like to reduce housing and tuition costs. She supports more partnerships with private companies to rent out spaces like theaters on campus when not in use.

Ma has an extensive resume in local and state politics: She spent six years in the Assembly after one term on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and was on the Board of Equalization for four years before being elected state treasurer in 2019.

As treasurer, she issued housing bonds to California universities, which she says gave her a “different perspective” on how to build more student housing.

“Some of them have land and they work with some of the developers who specialize in building student housing,” she said.

Ma is backed by the California Democratic Party and the construction and hospitality unions. She was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee in 2021 who accused Ma of requiring her to share a hotel room with her and buying her gifts. The state, using taxpayer dollars, settled the case for $350,000 in 2024.

Ma has repeatedly denied the allegations and called the case “frivolous.”

It took three years of her life and voters still chose her, she said. “I still have the same endorsements I got the first time I ran in 2018,” Ma said. “I got even more support for my race for lieutenant governor.”

Gloria Romero

Romero, a former Democrat-turned-Republican, supports school vouchers, which allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to pay for private school education — which teachers unions strongly oppose. She also supports reducing remedial coursework to help students complete their degrees faster.

A former assemblywoman and the first woman to become Senate Majority Leader, Romero spent 12 years representing East Los Angeles in the state legislature as a Democrat until 2010. She switched parties in 2024 and announced she would run for lieutenant governor as joint ticket with Steve Hiltonone of the leading Republican candidates for governor.

As for how he will navigate negotiations with the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and on numerous boards as a rare Republican, Romero said he will meet individually with each colleague to see where their priorities overlap.

Michael Tubbs

Tubbs wants to return to office to help reduce higher education costs more than a decade after rising to political prominence in Stockton as one of the county’s youngest major-city mayors.

His elevation as the city’s first black and youngest mayor at age 26 in 2016 brought him national attention as the son of a single mother who grew up in a poor neighborhood and rose to full-fledged success at Stanford.

He supports freezing tuition at all public colleges by reducing “administrative bloat,” cutting remedial courses that don’t count toward graduation requirements and streamlining programs for in-demand industries like nursing.

Tubbs is a special economic adviser to the governor and leads the nonprofit organizations Poverty in California and Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, dedicated to implementing universal basic income pilot programs in cities across the state. leading initiative since his mayoralty.

California’s major public employee union, Service Employees International, supports Tubbs.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.