By Matt Mahan
When you grow up in a neighborhood in which most families live paycheck to paycheck, and where schools are known more for their dropout rates than their graduation rates, it forms your values and shapes your priorities.
That was my life growing up in working-class Watsonville as the son of a unionized mail carrier and a school teacher. Before dawn each day, I got on the bus to start my two-hour commute to San Jose for high school, and on the way, I saw my neighbors already hard at work in the fields.
Whether talking around the dinner table with our family or after Mass with our neighbors, the topics that dominated our conversations were about the problems we all faced every day — crime, job loss, how to make our schools better and the change we wanted for ourselves and for the world.
That was before our politics became blood sport, before policy ideas were judged based on who had them instead of whether they actually worked, and before leaders started putting clicks and views above problem solving.
But outside of political circles, Californians are still having those same kinds of conversations. And I think they are right to question whether anyone is listening.
That’s what our campaign to get California back to basics is all about.
It’s why, as mayor of the state’s third largest city, I’ve focused on making measurable progress on dinner-table issues — street homelessness, housing, energy costs and public safety. It’s why we use public dashboards to show taxpayers exactly where their money is going and why we analyze outcomes to make sure government does better before we ask people to pay more.
We’re now the safest big city in America — and the only city in America to have achieved a 100% homicide clearance rate nearly four years running — because we’ve built community partnerships based on accountability and trust. We’ve cut unsheltered homelessness by nearly one-third by getting more people indoors right now. And our strong advocacy for Proposition 36 means we will have a new tool to require treatment for those who are living on the streets and stealing to feed their addictions.
We opened more than 1,000 beds last year alone — the largest expansion of dignified shelter of any city on the West Coast — and we’re doing it at a fraction of the cost. We’ve unblocked the construction of thousands of new homes that had been stuck in the pipeline for years by reducing regulatory barriers and cutting fees. And we’ve leveraged our local public power agency to hold PG&E accountable and stabilize energy rates, while finding new ways to improve reliability and grow our economy without adding costs for ratepayers.
Our state is certainly under attack from President Donald Trump. Many of our communities are living in fear, and many of our fundamental rights are being undermined. And that demands we stand up for our Constitution and our values as Californians and as Democrats.
But I believe the best resistance is the results we deliver for our communities. We need to show the rest of the nation that our values work in practice — that California is a shining example of how we can uplift every community. That’s the Democratic Party my parents and neighbors believed in — one that would fight to make life better for working families.
We know California’s cost-of-living crisis won’t be fixed by viral TikToks, strongly worded letters, “messaging bills” on the floor of Congress, or making our state a place that lowers the economic ceiling instead of raising the floor.
At the end of the day, Californians want safe streets, good jobs, affordable homes, and great schools. We want a better future for our families and — most of all — our kids. As Democrats, we can offer a better way forward if we’re willing to focus, innovate and accept year-over-year progress over no progress at all. We need to be willing to end programs that aren’t working or change programs that aren’t affordable — and hold ourselves accountable for delivering the results we know our communities need.
We face an uncertain fiscal future in California. That’s why we do need a governor who knows how to say no when we don’t have the money we need to pay for everything we might want. But much more importantly, we need a governor who knows how to say yes to our communities when they ask government to do better, focus on the basics and listen to us.
The most basic reality is that most families aren’t interested in excuses. They want a relentless focus on results they can see in their communities and feel in their wallets.
That’s the Democratic Party I grew up with around the dinner table in Watsonville. It’s the principle that unites families in every corner of our state. It’s the approach we’ve brought to California’s third largest city. And it’s why I’m running for governor.
Matt Mahan is the mayor of San Jose and a Democratic candidate for governor of California.
