The Brief

The candidates running for lieutenant governor are apt to hint at the post’s largely symbolic and overlooked status when discussing their ambitions for the statewide office.

It’s true that California’s lieutenant governor is mostly a ceremonial position. Eleni Kounalakis, who currently holds the position, is next in line if the governor is absent or vacates the office, such as when they’re out-of-state, undergoing surgery or if they die. Kounalakis, who terms out this year, is also president of the state Senate and can cast a rare tie-breaking vote if called upon. Most of her influence lies within higher education, where she sits on all three of the state’s higher education boards.

Because of this, the four major leading candidates for the office in the upcoming June primary are emphasizing the sway they’d like to have on higher education, such as freezing tuition or cutting back on remedial coursework.

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 election in 2018.

But it’s still mostly unknown to voters and suffers a poor reputation.

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

The major Democratic candidates include Josh Fryday, who leads volunteer programs in the Newsom administration, state Treasurer Fiona Ma who terms out this year, and former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs.

Here is what each candidate, in alphabetical order, said about how they’d approach the gig.

Josh Fryday

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

Prior to becoming part of the governor’s cabinet in 2019, he was the chief operating officer of NextGen America, a clean advocacy organization started by billionaire Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer.

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

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

Janelle Kellman

Former Sausalito mayor Janelle Kellman 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 on the UC Board of Regents and has limited capacity to enact a single policy change.

She’s 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 Kellman, a climate attorney, said she would work to cut utility costs by getting rid of extra electricity fees. She also said she’d work with the insurance commissioner to reduce premiums for homeowners who take preventive measures to mitigate wildfire risks.

Kellman spent 10 years in local government on Sausalito’s 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 Cal State universities outside the general fund is one way Ma would look to lower the cost of housing and tuition. She supports partnering more with private companies to lease out spaces such as campus theaters when they’re not being used.

Ma has an exhaustive 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 she was elected state treasurer in 2019.

State Treasurer Fiona Ma in the Senate chambers at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 5, 2026.

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

“Some of them do have land and they are working with some of the developers that have a speciality with building student housing” she said.

Ma is endorsed by 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 lawsuit for $350,000 in 2024.

Ma has repeatedly denied the accusations and called the lawsuit "frivolous."

It took up three years of her life, and voters still elected her, she said. “I still got all the same endorsements that I got the first time I ran in 2018,” Ma said. “I’ve gotten even more support for my lieutenant governor’s race.”

Gloria Romero

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

Former state Sen. Gloria Romero in Culver City on April 18, 2024.

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A former assemblymember and 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 her lieutenant governor run as a joint ticket with Steve Hilton, one of the leading Republican candidates for governor.

On how she’d navigate negotiating with the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and on numerous boards as a rare Republican, Romero said she would individually meet with each colleague to see where their priorities overlap.

Michael Tubbs

Tubbs is looking to return to office to help drive down the cost of higher education more than a decade after skyrocketing to political stardom in Stockton as one of the youngest big city mayors in the county.

His ascent as the city’s first Black and youngest mayor at 26 in 2016 garnered him national attention as the son of a single mother raised in a poor neighborhood who climbed his way to full ride at Stanford.

He supports freezing tuition at all public colleges by cutting “administrative bloat,” cutting remedial coursework that doesn’t count toward graduation requirements and streamlining programs for in-demand industries such as 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, a flagship initiative of his mayorship.

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

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Hearings being held this week could decide whether California continues to have a say over what happens in federal waters off the state’s coast.

It’s part of the Trump administration’s efforts to supercharge industrial activities, including offshore drilling, rocket launches and desalination plants along California’s coast. At a hearing Monday at a Santa Monica hotel and at a news conference beforehand, speaker after speaker decried any effort that would allow the federal government to revoke California's ability to manage its coast.

A federal law called the Coastal Zone Management Act gives states with coastlines the right to review and veto projects that may conflict with state policies and economies. The law was signed by President Richard Nixon after a devastating oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara and is credited with launching the modern environmental movement.

More than 50 years later, the federal government has called for a detailed review of California's compliance with the 1972 law.

In a May social media post, the Trump administration said California is standing in the way of economic progress and called the state’s coastal management practices “obstructionist” and “environmental extremism.”

California officials, including state Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, dispute that, saying the state approves federal initiatives 96% of the time.

“ Never before in the five-decade history of this federal act has this sudden baseless review taken place on any state's coastal management program, and never before in the history of this act has a coastal management program ever been revoked,” Crowfoot said at a news conference in Santa Monica on Monday.  ”This federal administration is bent on industrializing our coast.”

The hearings, which are being administered by NOAA, could result in the federal government decertifying California’s rights under the Coastal Zone Management Act. A decision to do so would almost certainly be challenged in court, experts say.

That possibility has prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to call on Californians to submit public comments on the issue.

“Give the Trump administration an earful,” Newsom said in a statement.

The hearings this week are solely for public comment. The review “seeks any new input from relevant stakeholders regarding spaceport infrastructure, offshore oil production, pipeline maintenance, desalination projects, and undersea cables,” according to a notice in the federal register. 

Such reviews have happened before — in 2024 a draft review by NOAA found the state’s coastal agencies had properly carried out the CZMA. The review, however, was not finalized due to the change in administration.

The latest review comes after the Trump administration gutted NOAA staff and funding. It has also aggressively worked to expand drilling off the California coast, while at the same time using taxpayer dollars to pay offshore wind companies to abandon their energy projects — something L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath highlighted at the Monday news conference.

“ L.A. County will soon achieve 100% renewable and reliable electricity. This is the change that we want to see,” she said. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration is recklessly starting foreign wars and skyrocketing the price at the pump.”

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath also spoke Monday at the news conference ahead of the NOAA hearing in Santa Monica.

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Tina Calderon, Gabrielino Tongva and Chumash culture bearer, speaks at Monday's news conference.

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Horvath is part of a coalition of local, state, tribal, environmental, legal and business leaders who are calling the review a “takeover” of state and local rights.

Orange County resident Grant Bixby, who founded the Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast, pointed out at the news conference that offshore drilling makes up a tiny fraction of the state’s coastal economy, which generates between $44 billion and $50 billion a year, according to NOAA.

"Should we put 99% of the other employment at risk for the benefit of one dirty industry?” Bixby said.

Bixby recalled how the 2021 Huntington Beach oil spill turned the beaches into a “ghost town.”

The NOAA hearing was held in a ballroom at the Santa Monica Hilton.

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Among the speakers at the news conference and hearing, a clear theme emerged: The coast is an integral part of being a Californian, whether you’re lucky enough to live beachside or you live inland and have a favorite spot to call your own on hot summer days.

“The point is that we all love our beautiful saltwaters,” said Tina Calderon, Gabrielino Tongva and Chumash culture bearer, at the news conference. “These are sacred waters, and it's up to us to be the voice. It's up to us to cause no more human harm. We've done enough.”

Jackie, the bald eagle whose livestreamed life with her partner Shadow won the hearts of fans worldwide, has died, rescuers announced Monday.

The famous raptor, believed to be 14 years old, was receiving intensive care at the Ojai Raptor Center for severe anemia. She ultimately succumbed to her condition after a team of veterinarians struggled for weeks to figure out what was causing it.

Jackie remained critically ill despite receiving oxygen therapy, supportive treatment and around-the-clock monitoring. 

"We know this news will be deeply felt by the many thousands of people around the world who have followed her journey, hoped alongside us, prayed for her, and supported the people caring for her,” the Ojai Raptor Center said in an Instagram post. “Our team is heartbroken. It has been an extraordinary privilege to care for her."

Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that launched the popular nest livestream in 2015, confirmed the news on social media.

“It is with great sadness and heavy hearts, to bring you the latest update from Ojai Raptor Center,” the nonprofit said to its roughly 1.3 million Facebook followers. “Please be kind to yourself, to others, to the FOBBV team and to those at the Ojai Raptor Center. Soar free Jackie…”

What happened to her?

The rescue center said on social media Sunday that she was “critically ill,” “unstable” and still in an "extremely serious” condition.

She was getting oxygen therapy, supportive treatment and around-the-clock care from vets and specialists across the country. But her red blood cell levels continued to drop well below normal after rebounding a bit after she was rescued.

Jackie was rescued in July by Big Bear’s Dana Point Park after a brief fight with two other eagles. Jackie was weak, vulnerable, underweight and unable to fly, according to the Ojai Raptor Center.

The center said the fight is likely what left her grounded, but her condition suggests she had been sick for some time.

How Jackie’s Big Bear saga started

Jackie was the matriarch of the famous Big Bear bald eagle nest since around 2017. She’s believed to be the first bald eagle chick hatched in Big Bear Valley in recent history, according to the nonprofit.

The pair believed to be her parents, Ricky and Lucy, left the area around 2016. The young Jackie then started hanging out in their old nest, where the livestream camera had been installed.

Jackie took on her first mate, a bald eagle known as Mr. B, and laid her first clutch of eggs in the nest the following season. Shadow came into the picture in the summer of 2018, refusing to leave until Mr. B eventually flew away from the area, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.

Jackie and Shadow were mates ever since. They successfully raised six chicks together — Sandy and Luna this season, Sunny and Gizmo last year, Spirit in 2022 and Simba in 2019.

Amid growing frustration with both major political parties, voters are open to some big changes.

A new poll, commissioned by supporters of election reforms and shared with NPR, shows there is significant support for upending winner-take-all U.S. House elections and single-member congressional districts and instead moving toward proportional representation, a system that elects multiple representatives in a single district in rough proportion to a party's vote share.

Earlier this summer, about 500 democracy and legal experts sent a letter to Congress urging members to consider proportional representation as a solution to the redistricting brinksmanship set off by President Donald Trump last year.

"There should be little doubt that the single-member district system is failing to deliver fair and representative outcomes," they wrote. "We urge Congress to adopt a proportional system of representation, solving the gerrymandering problem at its source."

According to the poll conducted by the advocacy group Fix Our House and liberal think tank New America, half of 1,000 respondents said they support proportional representation, with nearly a quarter opposed. A third of those who participated said they were not sure whether they supported it or not.

Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America, said he was surprised to see how much backing there is for proportional representation, despite the idea being fairly obscure in the United States.

"It really did shock me how supportive people were of the various principles of proportional representation across the board," he told NPR.

While support was highest among younger, more educated, more left-leaning voters, Drutman found that 6 in 10 Trump voters who have an opinion on proportional representation said they back it, too.

American voters want more political parties

Pollsters also walked respondents through some of the tradeoffs of proportional representation — including that it can lead to multiple parties having to find a way to work together.

"For every one of those questions, people prefer the proportional system with multiple parties," Drutman said, "even if it leads to a coalition government that is maybe not quite as efficient."

He said voters also weren't very concerned when asked about the possibility of proportional representation leading to some more extreme political parties.

"One thing people said is they already think the parties are pretty extreme right now," Drutman explained. "So that's not quite the fear that some in the political class think it would be."

Jocelyn Kiley, director of political research at the Pew Research Center, said voters writ large have been in a "prolonged period of disaffection with politics and the political system."

She said Pew has found there is a lot of openness to reform, with nearly 70% of respondents to its polls saying they wish, at least somewhat, there were more political parties to choose from.

Kiley said detailed knowledge of what any election reform would look like is rare among voters. And she said that when many reforms "move from theory to practice," they often hit some resistance.

"People want to understand exactly how that reform will impact them," she said.

Room for a national conversation

Drutman told NPR the new poll numbers mark a starting point for what could be a national conversation about how to break out of the country's two-party system.

"People are dissatisfied," he said. "People are frustrated. People don't have a language for how to talk about alternatives because they haven't really heard all that much about the alternatives, because we haven't had a national conversation about the alternatives yet. So, there's a lot of room to have that conversation."

Drutman said only about a quarter of the respondents were aware that there are alternatives to a two-party system, and even fewer people could name an alternative when pressed.

In fact, only about 2% of the participants in the poll could name proportional representation off the top of their heads, said Dustin Wahl, executive director of Fix Our House,

"But when asked about the kind of underlying values beneath it and the component parts, there was widespread support from all across the political spectrum," Wahl said. "And that's not something we would have expected to see necessarily four years ago, for instance. But as the problems grow, the desire for solutions grows, as well."

Proportional representation is currently the most widely used electoral system among the world's democracies. Wahl points out that the U.S., along with the likes of Canada and Australia, has a system that was abandoned long ago by other countries.

"Arguably the only reason we don't use proportional representation is because it wasn't used anywhere in the world at the time of [America's] founding," he said. "And we just kept doing elections the same way."

The poll also found a majority support (54%) for expanding the House, with 150 new members.

There are bills in Congress, with all Democratic co-sponsors, that would study or move the U.S. to a system of proportional representation, but Wahl said any bill that doesn't include expanding the House is "politically dead in the water" because without expansion, lawmakers have to choose to potentially vote themselves out of office.

"That [150-seat expansion] gives you enough of a cushion so that members, incumbents know that they're very likely to hold on to their seats," he said. "It wouldn't run into the problem, at all, of candidates or of sitting members of Congress thinking that they're going to lose their seats because their elections would be totally untouched."
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