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Overseeing pension funds. Investing idle cash for maximum return. These are the roles of California’s treasurer, a job that evokes someone with a fondness for green eyeshades and a favorite Excel function. That may leave voters wondering: What’s the best combination of skills, experience and values for such an exceedingly wonky job?
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Anna Caballero, Kounalakis’ chief Democratic rival, the better option is a wily elected official from a working class community with experience running a government bureaucracy. The two Republicans, Jennifer Hawks and David Serpa, both believe it should be someone eager to check the fiscal impulses of California’s overwhelmingly Democratic political establishment. Board of Equalization member Tony Vazquez thinks a long-time elected tax commissioner is a good fit.
Glenn Turner, a former crystal and Tarot card seller-turned mental health activist, believes the role calls for someone with a radical political vision. Not even turn-of-the-century Gov. Hiram Johnson, one of modern California’s political founding fathers, knew what makes a good state treasurer. The job, he complained to the Legislature in 1911, is “There isn’t much reliable public polling, but as measured by name recognition, high-caliber endorsements and campaign cash on hand, this is Kounalakis’ race to lose.
That’s in part thanks to her current role as lieutenant governor — a job that commands statewide name ID and governing experience, even if its list of responsibilities is relatively short. Kounalakis’ personal fortune has also surely helped her become a top candidate. The daughter of developer Angelo Tsakopolous, founder of Sacramento-based AKT Development Corporation, she has nearly nine times as much money parked in her campaign account as the other five candidates combined.
Kounalakis entered Democratic politics as a major donor, helping her secure an ambassadorship to Hungary under President Barack Obama. Those fundraising connections also have paid off this cycle: She is endorsed by former first lady Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Kounalakis wouldn’t be the first to take this path to the treasurer’s office.
Phil Angeledes, who served from 1999 to 2007, is also an AKT alum whose political career was partially funded by Tsakopolous.last summer amid flagging prospects in a crowded field. But Kounalakis, whose campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, has since argued that her experience as a developer and her self-professed technical orientationthat she craved a technical role after so many years as a diplomat “standing in front of a podium with a visiting dignitary. ”.
A longtime state legislator who served as Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency secretary under former Gov. Jerry Brown, the Merced Democrat was the presumptive favorite until then. Caballero has the upper hand by at least one metric: She has raised more money than Kounalakis since the beginning of this year, even if her campaign account is dwarfed by the war chest the lieutenant governor has amassed over the years.
The competition between the two top Democratic hopefuls is fierce, even if they don’t seem to disagree about much. Both want the state to simplify the application process for affordable housing subsidies — which is already in the works with the governor’sWhere there is daylight between the two, it is more a matter of emphasis than major disagreement.
Caballero, for example, avidly promotes the use of hydrogen andas gasoline alternatives and said the treasurer could foster private-public partnerships in those industries. As a member of the State Lands Commission, Kounalakis is an avid advocate for off-shore wind power development. Though Kounalakis and Caballero are the two most formidable candidates, it’s far from certain that both will make it to the November ballot.
One of the top two spots could easily go to a Republican under California’s system in which the top two vote-getters advance. California’s Republican establishment has been doing everything possible to make that happen. The California Republican Party formally endorsed Jennifer Hawks, a Bay Area party activist and former private school administrator, over fellow Republican David Serpa.with Hawks.
“We need to make sure that we have someone in the general election that we can be proud of. ”The day-to-day work is mostly done by professional staff and it doesn’t vary much with changes at the top. That doesn’t afford their elected boss much room for creativity or innovation.
Bill Lockyer, the state’s treasurer between 2007 and 2015, said the job’s main role is to ensure that work is done with Californians in mind — that the “professional staff is managing responsibly. ” Still, there are occasional opportunities to do more with the job. Lockyer pointed to his decision to invest in international renewable energy projects through the World Bank — a— as one of his most important achievements.
When Angeledes held the office, he used the treasurer’s posts on the boards of the state’s two major public employee pension funds to inveigh against investment banks and to champion the rights of shareholders. Other Democratic treasurers have acted as fiscal foils to Republican governors. Since the days of Hiram Johnson, the post has also occasionally been derided as a sinecure for career politicians awaiting their next move. That, said Caballero, is decidedly not why she wants to be treasurer.
Pointing to her work on housing policy and rural economic development, she said everything in her legislative career “relates back to what’s in the treasurer’s office. ”Not that the treasurer’s office has been a particularly effective stepping stone: Angeledes, Kathleen Brown, and, more recently, John Chiang all attempted post-treasurer’s office runs for governor. None succeeded. You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information.
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