In California, unions control the state government. Yet only about 14.9% of employed wage and salary workers are union members. A little more than half of those are public employees.
On the debate stage Wednesday night, candidate for governor Xavier Becerra campaigned directly to the 14.9% and the union leaders who control vital campaign cash and on-the-ground support.
Becerra practically punctuated his sentences with shout-outs to powerful unions. He referred to “the teacher or the firefighter” trying to buy a home. He described tax rates for “billionaires” as “lower than a teacher, a firefighter, a nurse.” He mentioned “carpenters” and “construction workers,” as well as “our peace officers and our carpenters and our teachers.” He didn’t leave out “farm workers,” who were granted collective bargaining rights in California in 1975.
It was epic pandering, with a puppet show thrown in. It’s not hard to figure out who was really speaking when Becerra declared that teachers were “underpaid compared to professionals with similar education levels.” Or when he vowed to ensure that “taxpayer dollars stay in our public schools” and never help low-income parents who desperately want to put their kids in a school that will teach them to read.
Connoisseurs of the COVID lockdowns will remember that the teachers’ unions fought fiercely to keep schools closed and Becerra, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, presided over the CDC “guidance” that served to let state and county officials enforce the unions’ wish list. Children were harmed by school closures, social distancing, mask mandates and other “guidance” that Becerra enabled.
But union power elects the state’s officeholders or, alternatively, runs a candidate against them to end their careers. Only the puppets and panderers survive.
For the roughly 85% of employed Californians who are not members of a labor union, Becerra offers high taxes and high prices to pay for whatever employs union members. The bullet train is probably the most spectacular boondoggle in the category, but government-funded housing projects and subsidized green energy projects are high on the list.
Thankfully, there’s another candidate in the race for governor, and it’s not too late for a majority of voters to snap out of the hopeless moping and vote for him.
Steve Hilton has spent years talking with people throughout California about the problems they’re facing and how the state’s actions have caused or worsened them. He’s offering voters something other than the continuation of the same failing policies.
For example, the state has discouraged oil production and harassed oil companies into closing much-needed refineries, instead of producing oil in Bakersfield and reliably refining it in California.
Today California depends on costly imported oil to a degree that would make the 1980s blink in disbelief. In 1982, California’s in-state production accounted for 61.4% of the oil sent to California refineries. In 2025, it was just 22.9%, with foreign sources of oil supplying 61.1%.
Hilton has vowed to use the power of the governor’s office to restore in-state energy production, bringing high-paying jobs in that industry back to California. Hilton’s wider plan calls for eliminating pointless regulations that have caused California to have higher electricity rates and gasoline prices than other states.
On housing, Hilton’s plan calls for enabling single-family home construction in areas where land is available but state regulations bar “sprawl.” He said during the debate that he would cap government fees on the construction of a new home at $50,000, down from the current level averaging four times that amount.
Hilton called out Becerra for giving Gov. Gavin Newsom a grade of “A” on homelessness. Hilton’s plan calls for more shelters, treatment for mental illness and substance abuse, and enforcing the law against public encampments. He would end “housing first” and “harm reduction” policies that enable addicts to stay addicted.
Hilton has said he would cut income taxes and vehicle registration fees, replacing bureaucracies like the DMV with online services, as some other states have.
These ideas, if implemented, could make California more affordable and improve the quality of life for the state’s 39.6 million residents. Could Hilton, a first-time candidate for public office, get any of this done? None of it is easy.
But Becerra’s record as an “experienced” government executive is horrendous. On his watch as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement loosened the vetting and screening of sponsors who apply to care for unaccompanied migrant children. Among other failures, the Office of Inspector General documented a disturbing lack of sponsor safety checks in 16 percent of children’s case files. Nineteen percent of children were released to sponsors before a check was completed to see if they were on a state child abuse and neglect registry.
Becerra’s successor at HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said Becerra reduced an 80-person staff to just six people to oversee “program integrity” – anti-fraud – for more than $2 trillion in annual HHS payments for Medicaid and Medicare.
Becerra’s HHS engaged in arguably the worst First Amendment violations in U.S. history as the Surgeon General and the CDC pressured social media companies to censor and deplatform respected medical experts and others who questioned the government’s COVID policies and narrative.
Becerra insists he knew nothing when three people conspired to drain his state campaign account of $7,500 to $10,000 per month over more than two years, a total of about $225,000, to supplement the income of his chief of staff after he moved to Washington. While prosecutors haven’t accused him of criminal wrongdoing, he repeatedly signed the campaign finance reports showing the uncommonly high “fees” for managing an account with no campaign activity.
The three individuals – Becerra’s chief of staff Sean McCluskie, Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson and lobbyist Greg Campbell – have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. They await sentencing.
If elected governor, Becerra will bring his blinders and puppet strings to the state’s highest office. Nothing will get better.
Californians have a chance to avoid that fate. Vote for Steve Hilton.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley