Ahead of the June primary election, the Southern California News Group compiled a list of questions to pose to the candidates who wish to represent you. You can find the full questionnaire below. Questionnaires may have been edited for spelling, grammar, length and, in some instances, to remove hate speech and offensive language.

Name: Tom Steyer

Current job title: Climate Advocate

Age: 68

Political party affiliation: Democratic

Incumbent: No

Other political positions held: Co-Chair, Governor’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery (2020)

City where you reside: San Francisco

Campaign website or social media: tomsteyer.com

What is your top economic development priority for the state? How will you work with cities to achieve this? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

My top economic priority is building an economy that works for everyone, not just the billionaires and biggest corporations. As governor, I’ll call a special election to get this done and make sure our economy grows from the bottom up, not the top down.

This starts with fixing the inequities in our tax system created by what I call the “Trump Tax Loophole.” Closing this loophole will force corporations and the billionaires who control them to pay their fair share — even Donald Trump himself. Right now, cities are starved of revenue because large commercial property owners are paying artificially low, outdated tax rates and that holds back local investment in schools, housing and infrastructure. I’ll partner with cities by giving them the resources they need by closing this loophole and returning billions of dollars to local communities.

Affordability continues to be top of mind for Californians. What is one specific area where the state could bring about immediate relief for residents? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

The fastest way we can deliver real relief is by lowering the cost of housing for both renters and homeowners who are being squeezed every month. That means putting money back into people’s pockets now — expanding the Renter’s Tax Credit while also providing targeted relief to help homeowners stay in their homes and manage rising costs. I will fully enforce California’s Tenant Protection Act to ensure renters are protected statewide, including the cap on excessive rent increases, just-cause eviction standards and relocation assistance for displaced tenants.

At the same time, we need to make sure people can access the support they need, from housing counseling to homelessness prevention, so fewer Californians fall through the cracks. This will provide immediate relief while we build more housing and fix the underlying affordability crisis for the long term. But short-term fixes alone won’t solve this crisis. That’s why we’re committed to building 1 million new homes over the next four years — funded by closing corporate tax loopholes and making sure big corporations finally pay what they owe. Expanding housing supply remains the most durable solution to the affordability crisis and will serve as a cornerstone of this agenda.

Legislative Republicans this year called for a one-year suspension of the state’s gas tax. Meanwhile, another legislative proposal would consider charging drivers based on how much they use the roads as opposed to the fuel consumed. As governor, would you support any of these proposals? How else would you hope to alleviate prices at the pump for California drivers? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

I support a windfall profits tax on the oil companies that are making billions in extra profits at the expense of California families, and paying it out directly to the citizens of California. The companies that caused this crisis should pay for it. We need to provide immediate relief to Californians, but do it in a way so we can maintain our roads. Any solution that can’t lower costs and maintain our critical infrastructure is not a serious solution.

How do you propose to manage the state’s budget to ensure long-term fiscal stability? What areas would you consider for spending cuts, and, similarly, where would you like to see increased investment and why? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

I will never balance the budget at the expense of working people — especially not when some of the wealthiest corporations and people on earth aren’t paying their fair share in taxes to the state of California. Long-term fiscal stability starts with fairness: closing the Trump tax loophole created by Proposition 13, which costs California cities, schools and communities $15 to 20 billion a year, is the single biggest step we can take. That revenue would allow us to invest in education, health care, affordable housing and local services without raising taxes on working families. At the same time, I’d ensure every dollar the state spends is accountable and effective, focusing on programs that deliver real results. This approach balances fiscal discipline with bold investments in the people and communities that make California strong.

One of the main concerns cited by opponents of a proposed billionaire tax is that it would push the state’s wealthiest residents to move elsewhere. Should this tax proposal qualify for the ballot and be approved by voters, what would you do as governor to ensure California remains a place where entrepreneurs and innovators want to live, so that the Golden State can continue to benefit as one of the world’s largest economies? And if it doesn’t pass, how would you propose the state pay for health care amid the Trump administration’s funding cuts? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

California is the best place in the world to start and grow a business. We imagine and build the future here like no place on earth. To keep it that way, locally, we need to expand Film Tax Credits to keep arts and entertainment in Los Angeles and keep an industry in California that employs tens of thousands of people. Broadly, the single most important thing we can do to ensure that entrepreneurs and innovators want to stay in California is to bring down costs — and I have plans to bring down the cost of housing, energy, health care and more.

Regardless of what happens with the specific billionaire tax on the ballot, I’m proposing we close the corporate property tax loophole in Proposition 13, which would bring in $15 to 20 billion every year for California schools, health care and local services. It’s a long-term solution that ensures everyone pays their fair share and that communities get the resources they need year after year.

Speaking of health care, should the state provide free or subsidized health care, such as Medi-Cal, to undocumented immigrants? Should there be any conditions placed on their eligibility? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

Health care must be a right for every Californian, and that includes undocumented immigrants who are here participating in our society, working in our society, paying taxes and bringing up their families. Ultimately, I’m fighting for a single-payer system, which is the only way to make coverage universal, affordable and equitable. But the answer is not to turn people away from hospitals when they need medical care — access to care shouldn’t depend on income, status or luck. It’s to make corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, and to structurally change the system so we can afford to deliver health care as a right to everybody in California.

Would you continue to implement CARE Court, which is meant to help get people with severe mental illnesses off the streets? What changes, if any, would you make to the program? (Please answer in 200 words or less.)

CARE Courts may play a role in connecting people with severe mental illness to treatment, but they are not a substitute for housing or comprehensive support. My focus as governor would be on preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place and getting those who are on the street off it as fast as possible and into stable, supportive housing. We must treat this emergency with the urgency and depth of policy it deserves. We need to make sure people are paired with real housing, mental health services and case management, because treatment without a home doesn’t work. The priority has to be a full continuum of care — emergency interim housing, permanent supportive housing and mental health services — so people can rebuild their lives safely and sustainably.

As part of combating homelessness, elected officials often talk about the need to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place. What policies or programs should the state adopt to make housing more affordable for renters and homeowners? What do you propose the state do to incentivize housing development and expedite such projects? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

I have released a comprehensive housing plan that addresses many of these questions. We have to tackle housing affordability on both fronts — keeping people in their homes today and building the homes we desperately need for tomorrow. That means expanding the Renter’s Tax Credit, protecting homeowners from rising costs and making sure renters know their rights and can access homelessness prevention services.

To quickly get unsheltered Californians off the streets, I will conduct a comprehensive spending review and partner with local governments to urgently expand interim bridge housing paired with robust stabilization services, ensuring we match the right type of housing and level of care to the specific needs of every individual.

At the same time, public dollars should bring investments to the table, not scare them away. Housing finance in California is too fragmented, burdensome and restrictive, and adds time, costs and complications that disincentivize the private investments that are vital for affordable housing. We need to cut the red tape that slows development, use publicly controlled land and give cities and developers real incentives to build affordable and mixed-income housing while confronting NIMBYism that too often blocks progress. This is about moving quickly to get people off the streets, into stable homes and finally creating the housing supply California families need.

What is a policy or project from the Newsom administration that you’d like to expand or continue? Is there something you’d change about the approach? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

Gov. Gavin Newsom has made real progress in positioning California as a global leader in clean energy and climate action, and that’s something I would absolutely build on. We should accelerate investments in clean tech — scaling renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy storage — because that’s how we create good-paying jobs and lead in the industries of the future. I’d focus on expanding these efforts so that every community shares in the benefits, from lower energy costs to cleaner air and new economic opportunities.

Conversely, name a policy or program from the Newsom administration that you’d want to eliminate or make major revisions to and explain the changes. (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

Gov. Gavin Newsom has done a good job standing up to Donald Trump and defending California’s values, and he’s made real progress on some of the toughest issues we face. But what he hasn’t been able to do yet is make billionaires like me and the largest corporations pay their fair share in taxes. As governor, I will. That starts with closing loopholes, especially in our commercial property tax system, so we can generate stable, ongoing funding for schools, health care and local services. It’s about strengthening the foundation we already have and making sure California’s prosperity is shared more broadly.

Artificial intelligence has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Yet public concerns remain that there aren’t enough regulations governing when or how AI should be used, and that the technology would replace jobs and leave too many Californians unemployed. How specifically would you balance such concerns with the desire to foster innovation and have California remain a leader in this space? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

I am the first and only candidate in this race to have released a comprehensive AI policy plan because this issue is too important to ignore or get wrong. AI is a threat to our safety, mental health and kids, but if we get it right, we can support our schools, businesses and communities. That’s why my plan ensures companies are held accountable with stronger regulations, requires data centers to pay their own way and creates a “Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund” by taxing AI-driven profits. That fund will be reinvested directly in Californians — supporting education, job training and new opportunities — so workers benefit from this boom, not just the companies at the top. We cannot let AI be a technology that helps a handful of tech billionaires become tech trillionaires while putting millions of Californians out of work.

Last summer, President Donald Trump not only deployed federal immigration agents to California to carry out his mass deportation policy; he also federalized the National Guard and sent them to Los Angeles. How would you respond as governor should the president deploy more federal agents or troops to California again? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

ICE, as it exists today, should be abolished and demolished — it’s a criminal organization that has operated without accountability and has caused real harm to families and communities across this state. When an institution is broken from top to bottom, you don’t patch it — you replace it with something that reflects our values and the rule of law. As governor, I’ll use every legal tool to stop federal overreach, protect our residents, stop masked ICE agents from terrorizing California citizens and make sure California stands for dignity, justice and accountability.

What’s a hidden talent you have? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)

Looking into the future.

OK, not literally. But I was a professional investor, and the job of an investor is to try to think about the future, anticipate it and figure out how to respond to it, knowing that you can never actually “know” what’s going to happen. And when we look at the problems that the California government has been having, that the institutional thinking has been having, we really haven’t seen a consistent focus on what’s going to happen — just a focus on what has happened, or what is happening now.

California’s billionaires are not the only ones fighting back against the state’s largest health workers union this election season. Now the clinics are too.

The California Primary Care Assn., which represents more than 2,300 community health clinics, and Open Door Community Health Centers filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West from placing an initiative on the November ballot that would dictate how clinics spend money.

The clinic measure is less prominent than the billionaire-backed fight against a wealth tax, but recently came closer to appearing before voters.

The clinic’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the union’s ballot measure would interfere with federal laws and regulations that place strict spending requirements on nonprofit health clinics that serve low-income patients.

Joey Cachuela, general counsel for the clinic association, said in a statement the initiative threatens patient care. “We are filing this preelection challenge and need the courts to act to prevent this drastic measure from ever going to the ballot. Patient lives are at risk,” Cachuela said.

Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for the healthcare workers union, said the proposed initiative was “legally sound” and called the lawsuit a “desperate attempt by the clinic industry to avoid accountability.”

Last month, union members turned in more than 1 million signatures to qualify the “Clinic Funding Accountability and Transparency Act” for the ballot. The union collected nearly double the number of signatures required to place the proposal before voters.

Under California’s election rules, proposals that gather enough signatures qualify for the ballot after the secretary of state’s office verifies their validity.

The union proposal would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of revenue on services that fulfill the stated mission to “provide primary and preventive care to low-income and underserved populations.” It would also punish clinics that do not adhere to this spending formula and place the money in a state-operated account that could later be used for worker training and staffing programs.

“It is the intent of this initiative to create a reasonable minimum standard of mission-directed spending … to ensure clinic patient service delivery and workforce stability is prioritized over management and overhead spending,” the initiative states.

Union leaders and members argue that clinics spend too much money on executive pay and administrative overhead and too little on patients. They also contend that some clinics spend only half of their revenue on direct patient care, an allegation that clinics call misleading.

“We have one message for our clinics: Put patients first. It’s time for an end to wasteful spending. It’s time to make sure clinics are putting their money in patient care and not CEO pay,” said Brisa Barrera, a medical assistant from Santa Rosa Community Health during an April rally to celebrate delivering the signatures.

The clinic association, however, argues that the initiative would illegally force hundreds of community health centers to close by stripping nearly $2 billion from health systems.

Tory Starr, chief executive of Open Door Community Health Centers, which operates clinics in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, said the measure would be “devastating” to the organization’s rural patients and would result in layoffs, reduced services and closures.

A nearly identical version of the ballot initiative failed to pass in the state Legislature earlier this year.

The initiative is one of three measures the union has submitted to the ballot. Another aims to limit healthcare executive pay at $450,000, and SEIU-UHW is also backing the “billionaire’s tax” that has drawn ire from both Democrats and Republicans.

Hwang writes for CalMatters.

For the next week or so, in homes all over California, ballots will be arriving for the June 2 primary.

Since 2020, a ballot has been mailed to every active registered voter in the state — more than 23 million, by last count. The time to choose is drawing nigh.

In addition to the race for governor, Californians will vote in contests for seven other statewide offices, the Board of Equalization — which oversees the property tax system — and a great many congressional, legislative and local races, including the primary for Los Angeles mayor.

What’s a voter to do?

If you’ve waited your entire life for a candidate like Republican Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff running for governor, or you’ve been jonesing to cast a gubernatorial ballot for Democrat Katie Porter from the moment she whipped out her famous whiteboard, the choice is easy. Fill out that ballot and toss it in the mail, stat! No postage needed.

“Don’t mess around,” said Paul Maslin, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist. (His candidate for governor, Betty Yee, quit the race late last month, so he’s a neutral observer at this point.)

“If you have pretty good inkling what you want to do,” Maslin urged, “vote.”

But if, like many, you’re not wed to a particular candidate, what then? If you’re worried about mailing in your ballot and then having some awful, Eric Swalwell-like revelations surface, or if you fret about wasting your vote by supporting someone who drops out before June 2, then what?

There are no do-overs in a California election. Once you’ve cast your ballot, you’ve made your choice. That’s it, however sorry you may be.

Which is why Republican strategist Rob Stutzman, who’s worked in California politics for decades, urged voters not to mail their ballot too soon. Like Maslin, he’s unaffiliated with any of the gubernatorial campaigns.

“It’s a slow-developing race,” Stutzman said of the contest for governor, the marquee attraction on the June ballot. “These are still relatively little-known candidates. There’s going to be a lot more campaigning to go in the weeks ahead. [So] unless you feel really strongly about somebody, I’d hang on to that ballot and see what happens over the next several weeks.”

Then again, with all the talk of clamping down on mail-in ballots and concerns about processing delays by a stretched-thin Postal Service, is there a danger of waiting too long to vote? What if your ballot arrives past the deadline to be tallied?

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court strongly signaled a likelihood it would require mail ballots to be received by election day if they are to be counted as legal. As it stands, California accepts mail-in ballots that were cast before the end of election day, so long as they arrive no later than seven days after.

The court seems unlikely to issue its ruling before the June primary — but that’s not guaranteed.

So is there a sweet spot, somewhere between voting in haste and having your ballot go to waste?

The Official Voter Information Guide, produced by California’s secretary of state, urges those voting by mail to “return your ballot … as soon as you receive it.”

But Kim Alexander, head of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, falls into the wait-a-bit camp. “Don’t vote too early,” she counseled, “because this is a very dynamic election.”

Once you’ve made up your mind, her best advice is to mail your ballot at least a full week before election day, which is May 26, to ensure it arrives on time to be processed and counted. If someone wants to drop their ballot off in person, either at a vote center or secure drop box, Alexander suggests doing so by May 30, which is three days before the election.

“The good news,” she said, “is that under a new state law … all county election offices will be open at least six hours on Saturday, May 30, for voters to come vote in person or to turn in their vote-by-mail ballots.”

Voting in person is an option right up until 8 p.m. on election day, even if you received a ballot in the mail. That applies everywhere in California, save for three sparsely populated, rural counties — Alpine, Plumas and Sierra — which conduct their elections entirely by mail. Bring your unused vote-by-mail ballot to your local polling place and swap it for a polling-place ballot you can use instead.

For procrastinators or those wanting to wait until election day to mail their ballot, they run the risk that it won’t be postmarked until after June 2. That means it won’t be counted, regardless of when it arrives at their county elections office.

“Voters who want to hold out as long as possible … ought to be planning to turn their ballot into a drop box or a voting site and not use the mail at all,” Alexander said.

Having spent decades working to make voting easier and elections safer and smoother, Alexander knows that voting by mail has made many people miss “the election day experience.” (Things like bringing the kiddos into the voting booth, or posing for selfies with an “I Voted” sticker.)

Her suggestion is to find other ways to mark the occasion.

“Help somebody else go and vote,” Alexander suggested, “or volunteer to help with an organization” running a get-out-the-vote operation.

“If you want to help election officials get ahead on the vote count” — a source of repeated upset as the country awaits California’s lagging results — “you can be part of the solution by getting your own ballot in just a little bit earlier.”

All of which sound like fine ideas. That way you can celebrate election day and make sure your ballot isn’t cast for naught.