Controller

As GrowSF described, multiple candidates are qualified to fill the shoes of Betty Yee (whom I voted for in 2018). Yee has endorsed Board of Equalization member Malia Cohen (whom I also voted for in 2018) and Los Angeles Controller Ron Galperin. State Senator Steve Glazer has the strongest legislative experience, and I personally admire his commitment to a renters’ tax credit expansion he’s proposed in multiple sessions.

However, given the Controller’s role as a fiscal watchdog, I’m voting for the leading candidate who promises to hold Sacramento’s Democratic supermajority to account---maybe even challenge them. Chen, a Republican, worked at the Department of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush, then as policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, then was appointed by Barack Obama to the Social Security Advisory Board, and is now a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. I prefer Democratic Party policies, and so I almost always vote for Democrats for policymaking roles, but Lanhee Chen will provide the necessary independence for this non-policymaking role.