If you're reading this blog, you know that I care about two things above all else: transport and housing. Thus, California endorsements are first, then New York below. If you want to ask about other races in the comments, I can give hot takes, but these are the ones I feel comfortable talking about.
CALIFORNIA (election day is June 2nd):
Governor: Tom Steyer.
Steyer is the only serious choice. His top two issues are "fix the housing crisis" and "tax the rich," which neatly encapsulate the problems that the state faces. I like Steyer's housing plans - they are basically sound and get into the weeds of the issues. He and his team have thought about the hard work of fixing the state. This includes things like taxing commercial property at market rates, express permitting, fixing housing finance, and reforming local impact fees. I have my qualms about electing a billionaire, but he is far better than the other options.
- Xavier Becerra doesn't take the housing crisis seriously. The first two issues on Becerra's platform are universal health care and fighting Trump, with housing a distant third. And while I support universal healthcare in California, the whole project is dead on arrival as long as Trump is in the White House. (California needs federal money to put universal health care in place.)
- Katie Porter is apparently an over-the-top terrible person to work for, and she's worse on housing than Steyer.
- Antonio Villaraigosa, Tony Thurmond, and Matt Mahan are unremarkable and no hope of winning.
- Steve Hilton is a carpetbagging Trumpy crank from England.
- Chad Bianco is a homegrown Trumpy crank from Riverside.
Mayor of LA: Nithya Raman.
Raman is the only person in the race that actually wants to fix the housing crisis, and she has been in the correct place on the vast majority of housing and transport issues. This is rare in a city as poorly governed as LA.
- Karen Bass, the incumbent mayor, is corrupt, botched the Palisades Fire response, and has persistently blocked efforts to fix LA's transport and housing problems. When she came into office, she signed Executive Directive 1, expediting processing of all affordable housing and homeless shelter projects. This was a big deal, and people started building affordable housing under E.D. 1 - so obviously, she immediately backed away from it and started reversing herself. She also delayed the K Line Northern Extension to West Hollywood because it would pass deep beneath one of her friend's houses.
- Spencer Pratt is a spoiled Trumpy crank from Pacific Palisades. Don't elect reality TV stars. Please.
NEW YORK (election day is June 23):
State Senate, District 27 (Manhattan below 14th St): Grace Lee.
I have personally met Assemblymember Lee and her staff. She's receptive to proposals to figure out how to build new housing and fix the MTA, even if I personally disagree with some of the votes that she's taken.
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Yuh-Line Niou represented this area in the Assembly, and Niou is a NIMBY. She has plenty of ways to keep people in their existing apartments, but she has no plan to build new housing, unless it's to pass a pie-in-the-sky bill to establish a state public housing authority. This is not a serious solution to New York's housing crisis.
Like it or not, private developers build the vast majority new housing in New York, and they do it far cheaper than the publicly-funded affordable housing system because of all the bureaucracy associated with the public system.
This is doubly galling because District 27 includes the Financial District, where the office vacancy rate is at 20% - twice the pre-pandemic rate. There's tons of privately-owned buildings ripe for conversion... and Niou's is leaving all of that on the table.
State Assembly, District 65 (Manhattan, Financial District, Chinatown, Lower East Side):
Jasmin Sanchez.
Note: This is based on my experience attending a candidate forum that my neighbors organized. This type of hyperlocal politics is not particularly well covered in the press, so my impressions are going to be more impressionistic - and in any case, none of the candidates is a YIMBY. I'm making the best of a bad situation.
Jasmin Sanchez approached people in good faith, and had by far the best command of the issues facing the neighborhood. I don't completely agree with her on housing - but she's willing to listen. One thing I found refreshing was that she told it to us straight when she hadn't studied an issue in depth, and that level of humility is good in a public official. Having strong opinions are great ways to accumulate likes on social media, but not great ways to run a government.
- Jacky Wong. Wong is my second choice. He's not the most charismatic, but he has clearly thought about how to build new rent-stabilized apartments in NYC with his proposal to expand the 485X program.
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Illapa Saritupac has no business running for office. He didn't know the MTA is a state agency, not a city agency. This is something that a candidate for State Assembly has to know, and it's disqualifying that he doesn't.
I asked him a softball question - "did he support the Mayor's free bus plan, and how would he pay for it," and he gave me some gobbledygook answer about how the MTA is a city agency, not a state one.
Finally, his housing stance is the same as Yuh-Line Niou's - i.e., that the State should build public housing instead of private developers. This, I'm sure, plays great at DSA meetings but doesn't get more things built. - Mariama James and Lilah Mejia had proposals which were nothing to write home about. I left the forum with no memories of why they were running for office, and their platforms were nothing special.
- Wei-Li Tjong is president of the huge Seward Park co-op complex, and his tenure as president has been marked by a months-long lobby renovation drama. I can't recommend him.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Don’t vote for the billionaire who profited from oil that’s spending $100 million of his own money to buy the race. His housing plans are logically unsound. The margin for an apartment is around 10% and the reason why apartments don’t pencil out is in fact not private equity. I believe that Mahan or Villaraigosa best have a plan for the causes of the housing crisis.