Gloria Romero, a former Democrat and state Senate Majority Leader, announced Monday she is running for lieutenant governor as part of a ticket with GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator.

“At the end of the day, it’s really about one-party rule in Sacramento. I’ve seen it. I left it,” Romero said in an interview. “We’ve got to make a change, otherwise we will never turn around on accountability or affordability and fight for working families like the Democrats once said the party stood for. Those days are gone. It’s a new day, and I’m proud to work alongside Steve in this exciting race to make California Golden again.”

Hilton, who has a long-standing political relationship with Romero, said her expertise in the state Capitol is among the reasons he selected her. Romero served in the state Senate and Assembly for about 12 years, including three as the state Senate’s first female majority leader.

“She’s been incredibly helpful already, helping me understand how Sacramento works and doesn’t work,” Hilton said. “When I’m the governor I will have to work with the legislature. And one of the most important things that I see as a real benefit from having Gloria there with me is that she’s not just been in the legislature, she’s led one of the chambers. She really understands how it works and still has relationships.”

Other candidates running for lieutenant governor include Treasurer Fiona Ma, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and Josh Fryday, a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cabinet, all Democrats, and state Sen. Brian Jones (R-Santee).

Romero was a lifelong Democrat, including co-chairing President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign in California. But she began to break with her party over education reform, notably her support for school choice.

“Education is the key to the American dream, and yet my party was so beholden to the teachers union, the alphabet soup of power influencers in Sacramento,” she said.

Invoking the words of the late President Reagan, Romero said she didn’t leave the Democratic party, the party left her. She became a registered Republican in September 2024 after what she calls a “political coup” to oust President Biden as the Democratic nominee. She then endorsed President Trump and spoke at a rally supporting him near Coachella.

She said the lieutenant governor’s role is typically a sleepy perch for politicians as they bide their time to run for higher office.

“It should not be that way,” Romero said, adding that the lieutenant governor’s role on the boards that oversee the UCs, Cal States and community college is a particularly good fit for her wheelhouse. “Education and turning around education, it’s in my blood, it’s in my dreams. It’s my passion.”

Unlike presidential elections, statewide contests do not feature running mates; each candidate must be elected on their own merits.

Hilton said Romero was the first member of his “golden ticket for California” and that he planned to roll out other statewide candidates who will join their effort.

“I know it hasn’t been done before. It’s not how things are normally done,” he said. “But right from the beginning, when I was thinking about my race for governor, one of the things that I really wanted to do was to put together a strong team, because turning around California is going to take a strong team.”

FIRST ON FOX: A Trump-aligned legal group is urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to scrap its demographic reporting mandate, arguing that the rule allows lenders to consider the race and sex of mortgage applicants as part of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

America First Legal said in a petition, first reviewed by Fox News Digital, that the CFPB should encourage mortgage lenders to focus strictly on the creditworthiness of home buyers. The CFPB’s Regulation C, which requires the lenders to track and report race and sex, is unconstitutional, the group argued.

“The disclosure of this information leaves applicants vulnerable to race- and sex-based discrimination by government and private actors in violation of federal civil rights law and the Constitution,” an America First Legal representative wrote.

The petition comes as part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to quash diversity, equity and inclusion, also known as DEI, in the public and private sectors. The petition aligns with an executive order Trump signed in April urging a “meritocracy and colorblind society.” The order was aimed at agencies responsible for evaluating people’s credit.

DEI is a framework that companies, schools, government agencies and other entities have adopted to promote equal treatment for minorities, but conservatives have long argued its practices can be discriminatory by improperly extending preferential treatment to them.

America First Legal said Regulation C flies in the face of the administration’s sweeping efforts to root out DEI across industries. The group’s petition functions as a request to the CFPB to formally begin the process of eliminating the regulation.

“The federal government has no business forcing Americans to disclose their race or sex as a condition of applying for a mortgage,” America First Legal President Gene Hamilton said in a statement. “Regulation C pressures lenders to sort borrowers by immutable characteristics and invites discrimination under the guise of ‘equity.’”

The CFPB was created by Congress in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to investigate complaints about mortgages, various other loans and other banking activity that involves consumers.

But since its inception, Republicans have targeted the agency as a rogue entity that imposes unnecessary and burdensome regulations on financial institutions.

The acting director of the agency, Russell Vought, has sought to shutter the CFPB entirely, but those efforts have thus far been stalled by the courts, which have found that only Congress can get rid of it. The CFPB has remained somewhat operational, as it has been filing reports through late last year, and Vought recently requested an additional $145 million to fund it to remain compliant with a recent court order.

More than 60 largely peaceful protests took place this weekend against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, including several in Southern California.

But while many protests were without incident, they were not short on anger and moments of tension. Organizers called the gatherings the “ICE Out for Good” weekend of action in response to the fatal shooting of Renée Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.

In Huntington Beach, Ron Duplantis, 72, carried a diagram to represent the three shots fired at Good, including one through her windshield and two others that appeared to go through her side window.

“Those last two shots,” he said, “make it clear to me that this is murder.”

Huntington Beach has seen past clashes between Trump supporters and anti-racism activists, but as of mid-afternoon, Sunday’s protest was tense at times, but free of violence. About 300 people — and two dozen counterprotesters — stood outside City Hall, with protesters carrying anti-ICE signs, ringing cowbells and chanting “ICE out of O.C.”

As cars sped past them on Main Street, many motorists honked in a show of solidarity, while some rolled down their windows to shout their support for ICE, MAGA and President Trump.

“The reason why I’m here is democracy,” said Mary Artesani, a 69-year-old Costa Mesa resident carrying a sign that read “RESIST.” “They have to remember he won’t be in office forever.”

Participants in the “ICE Out” protest in Huntington Beach hold signs as a car with a MAGA hat in the windshield passes.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The Trump administration has largely stood behind the ICE agent, identified as Jonathan Ross, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying he acted in self-defense. Democratic officials and many members of the public have said the videos of the shooting circulating on social media appear to contradict at least some of the administration’s assertions.

“I’m outraged a woman was murdered by our government and our government lied to our faces about it,” said protester Tony Zarkades, 60, who has lived in the Huntington Beach area for nearly 30 years. A former officer in the Marines, Zarkades said he is thinking of moving to Orange to escape the presence of so many Trump supporters in Huntington Beach.

Large protests against ICE occurred in the Bay Area as well as Sacramento and other California cities over the weekend. In Oakland, hundreds demonstrated peacefully on Sunday, although the night before, protesters assembled at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and left graffiti, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In Los Angeles on Saturday night, protesters marched through the downtown area to City Hall and past the Edward Roybal Federal Building, with the L.A. Police Department issuing a dispersal order at about 6:30 p.m., according to City News Service.

While many of the protests focused on what happened to Good in Minnesota, they also recognized Keith Porter Jr., a man killed by an off-dutyICE agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve.

In Huntington Beach, the coastal community has long had a reputation as a Southern California stronghold for Republicans, though its politics have recently been shifting. Orange County has a painful legacy of political extremism, including neo-Nazism. In 2021, a “White Lives Matter” rally in the area ended in 12 arrests.

On Sunday, a small group of about 30 counterprotesters waved Trump and MAGA flags on a corner opposite from the anti-ICE rally.

Counterprotester Victoria Cooper, 72, holds signs and shouts at participants of the “ICE Out” protest in Huntington Beach.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

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“We’re here to support our country and president and support ICE,” said Kelly Johnson, who gave his age as “old enough to be your sugar daddy.”

Wearing an “ICE Immigration: Making America Safe Again” T-shirt, Kelly said the protesters were “paid agitators” who had been lied to by the media.

“Look at the other angles of the [shooting] videos,” he said. “She ran over the officer.”

Standing with him was Jesse Huizar, 66, who said he identifies as a “Latino for Trump” and was here to “support the blue.”

The Chino resident said he came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 5, but that he has no fear of ICE because he “came here legally.”

Huizar said Good’s death was sad, but that she “if she had complied, if she got out of her car and followed orders, she’d be alive right now.”

But their voices were largely overpowered by those of the anti-ICE protesters. One of the event’s organizers, 52-year-old Huntington Beach resident Denise G., who declined to give her last name, said they’ve been gathering in front of City Hall every Sunday since March, but that this was by far one of the largest turnouts they have seen.

She felt “devastated, angry, and more determined than ever” when she saw the video of Good’s shooting, she said.

Counterprotester Kelly Johnson stands across from the “ICE Out” demonstration.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

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“It could be any one of us,” she said. “The people not out here today need to understand this could be their family member, their spouse, their children. The time is now. All hands on deck.”

Nearby, 27-year-old Yvonne Gonzales had gathered with about 10 of her friends. They said they were motivated to come because they were outraged by the shooting.

“I wish I was surprised by it,” Gonzales said, “but we’ve seen so much violence from ICE.”

She suspected that race was a factor in the outpouring of support, noting that Good was a white woman while many others who have been injured or killed by immigration enforcement actions have been people of color, but that it was still “great to see this turnout and visibility.”

A few feet away, 41-year-old Christie Martinez stood with her children, Elliott, 9, and Kane, 6. She teared up thinking about the shooting and the recent ICE actions in California, including the killing of Porter.

“It’s sad and sickening,” said Martinez, who lives in Westminster. “It makes me really sad how people are targeted because of their skin color.”