Marisa Lagos: Betty Yee is here with us in studio. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she started crunching numbers as a kid at her family business, and she spent years overseeing state finances. Now she wants to be in charge of spending that money. We’re going to chat with Yee shortly about her run for governor and current position as vice chair of the state Democratic Party.
But first, Scott, it’s been, I would say, a little bit of a quiet August — I mean, in California. We’re not even going to talk about Trump and the national news.
Scott Shafer: Or Maui for that matter.
Marisa Lagos: Or Maui, which is horrific.
Scott Shafer: Sad, super sad. But yeah, politically, it’s been, you know, it’s the dog days of summer.
Marisa Lagos: I’m not complaining, honestly, but we got to talk about something.
Scott Shafer: We’ve got to talk about something. There’s some stuff.
Marisa Lagos: In his continuing quest to not run for president, but burnish his national credentials, our fair governor has, as you may recall, introduced a constitutional amendment not for the state, but for the U.S. Constitution. This would enshrine gun control into the state constitution. And this week, we saw state lawmakers actually introduce that the first step in a very long —
Scott Shafer: Very long and somewhat unlikely process. Yeah, it would do three things. It would raise the age to 21 to purchase a gun, it would ban assault weapons, and it would require, you know, mandatory background checks for —
Marisa Lagos: And waiting periods.
Scott Shafer: Yeah waiting periods. Things that all poll very well certainly in California but really nationwide but which have not you know been able to get any movement on really since the assault weapons ban that Dianne Feinstein kind of muscled through the Senate and through Congress expired. And so there’s a lot of frustration on the part of Newsom and many with the level of gun violence and the inability to really do that much about the supply of guns and guns that kill a lot of people in a very short amount of time.
Marisa Lagos: And I think in part, I mean, this is, you know, part of a long story of Democrats pushing back against the NRA and other, you know, gun rights groups. But it also really comes, I think, in part because of U.S. Supreme Court decisions and lower court decisions of recent years that have really undercut not just California, but other blue states like New York’s own laws. I mean, you said it has three parts. There’s actually a fourth part I found interesting, which is it would essentially affirm the rights of cities and states to pass even further gun control, which is something, you know, that the court has really undermined in particular with last year’s Bruen decision. I mean, this was a decision that we’re even seeing lower courts really push back on, because in it, Clarence Thomas wrote that essentially we need to take into account the historical context of any gun law. And it’s like these judges are like, well, how do we know what was sort of normal in the 18th century when we’re talking about…
Scott Shafer: Well Clarence Thomas has figured it out so I’m sure he could teach them. But no, you know, this is obviously something that is, as you said, it becomes a national story if it passes. And, you know, we’d have to get a lot of other states, 33 total states, to actually call for a convention, a constitutional convention, which has a lot of risks. You know, Newsom thinks that he can focus this in on the gun issue, but there’s a lot of concern, including among people like Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean at Berkeley, saying you can’t control it. And once you open that box, you could be dealing with LGBTQ rights, abortion and any number of other hot button issues which, you know, would potentially be on on the docket, you know, if you’re going to start talking about those things.
Marisa Lagos: Absolutely. Well, another story that we continue to follow is the past and future, really, of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. You know, her longtime husband, Dick Blum, passed away about a year or so, a year or two ago. And Scott, you’ve been following there’s now a kind of fight over his estate and the trustees that were put in charge here. Yeah. Tell us why this matters, though, to average people.
Scott Shafer: Well, it’s just another sad chapter, unfortunately. And, you know, final years of Dianne Feinstein. She’s has such a, you know, storied career. But we’ve seen the cognitive declines, evidence of that. She was very sick. She had shingles. And now we’ve got this dispute between really her, but her daughter, Katherine, her only daughter, and the four daughters of Dick Blum, who, you know, this sometimes happens with blended families if you don’t have clear instructions—
Marisa Lagos: Or non-blended families, honestly
Scott Shafer: But especially when you have competing interests, you know, within one family. And, you know, Katherine Feinstein and through the attorneys say that the trust has not been properly funding the marital trust. They have not been responding to requests for funding to help pay for Feinstein’s medical bills. One thing that confuses me, I mean, it’s just a big mess, you know. And they’re also alleging, by the way, financial elder abuse. And so but, you know Dianne Feinstein was quite wealthy on her own, you know. So I don’t quite understand entirely, I mean, apart from this, you know, why it is that, you know, she needs, you know, money from that trust to pay for her medical bills. But clearly, there’s a lot at stake because the daughters of Blum want to just kind of drag this out as long as possible, because once Feinstein goes, you know, all of his money goes to them. And I think that’s clearly part of it.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah, I think there’s also sort of bringing it back to like her as a public official. Interesting questions this raises. And we may never know the answers about her financial situation and how much that has impacted her ability to, say, travel back and forth between California and D.C.. I think a lot of us when she was having that bout of shingles, were a little confused about why somebody who, quite frankly, is as wealthy or has been as her, wouldn’t just charter their own jet. Why is she flying commercial? Why is the stairs in her condo in D.C. an issue? And maybe this answer some of those questions that maybe there isn’t as many resources available to her as we all assume.
Scott Shafer: Right. And some of those resources were available when Dick Blum was alive. He had a plane, which she presumably used. The other thing is, you know, her daughter, Katherine Feinstein, former judge who’s now retired, has been given durable power of attorney over her legal and financial issues. And, you know, it does raise a question of just how able is she to do her job as senator if she needs to have someone step in for her on these issues. That, you know, in and of itself does not say she can’t be the senator and do a job. But we’ve seen, you know, in a number of different ways her decline and it’s just sad because it’s I’m sure it’s not what she would have hoped for for her final years in office.
Marisa Lagos: And I think you and I have also, you know, talked to a lot of people who are close to the senator and have been historically and know that I think there’s been some disagreement between herself and her daughter about whether she should continue her job in D.C.. That may also explain why Katherine Feinstein has not been as visible by her mom’s side as other folks, including Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, who she I think is kind of another daughter to the senator who and has been really assisting her.
Scott Shafer: A lot of people have tried to get her to not run, you know, back in 2018 and then to even to step step aside early. But she just really refused to do that.
Marisa Lagos: Well, we do wish her the best and we will be watching this case. We’re going to take a short break. When we come back, we’ll be joined by former state Controlle and 2026 gubernatorial hopeful Betty Yee. You’re listening to Political Breakdown from KQED Public Radio.
Marisa Lagos: Welcome back to Political Breakdown, Marisa Lagos here with Scott Shafer. Today, we are excited to welcome Betty Yee. She has served on the state Board of Equalization, as state Controller and is now vice chair of the state Democratic Party and a candidate for governor in 2026. Betty Yee, welcome to Political Breakdown.
Betty Yee: Thank you. Good to be with you both.
Marisa Lagos: Great to have you. So we want to start at the beginning, as we often do. I know you were raised in San Francisco on the west side and your parents had a business there. Tell us about them and your family. I think you’re one of four siblings?
Betty Yee: Six. There are six of us. Yes, I have five siblings. I am the second oldest of six children born to Chinese immigrants. My father came to the United States when he was 14 years old, essentially kicked out by his family in China, southern southeastern part of China, in a prearranged marriage to my mother and was urged to go find a better life that he could have to provide for his future bride and family.
Scott Shafer: How did they end up in San Francisco?
Betty Yee: So my father came over. He was sponsored. My then godfather was already here in San Francisco, so he essentially sponsored my father to come to San Francisco. Shortly after his arrival, he apprentice in the laundry business in San Francisco, Chinatown, and did that for quite a while. But his path to citizenship was naturalization after his service in World War Two and the United States Army, a very common path for immigrants during that time. And so eventually he opened up his own laundry dry cleaning business, brought my mother here the year before I was born. And so I do have four sisters and one brother.
Marisa Lagos: Wow. And so this was a laundromat on the west side. And I know you helped them. I think all of you guys did. But it sounds like your affinity for numbers came early through that that experience.
Betty Yee: Absolutely. Well, you know, the best employees of a family business are the kids, right? And so I think each of us had a had a role. I was particularly facile with numbers. And so my father, I remember of the end of every week, we’d figure out, you know, what our bills were. He’d hand me all the receipts of the week in a cigar box, and I had to kind of figure out how much money we had. But I also began to negotiate with vendors when I was at a young age, probably about seven or eight years old, how to get a good price on supplies that we needed. And the banking, at the end of the year, another cigar box approached me with tax forms and they were Board of Equalization forms, I had no idea what they were. Follow the instructions, file them and who knew decades later, I’d become a member of the board hearing tax appeals.
Scott Shafer: And hopefully not dealing with cigar boxes.
Betty Yee: No
Scott Shafer: You had receipts at that point. But you got into politics in a way, when you were quite young, 13 years old. Yes. And there was an issue in your neighborhood about busing. Your younger sister was going to be bused under a policy that was being proposed. And you stood up at the school district hearing to advocate against bussing. Tell us how you got to that microphone.
Betty Yee: Absolutely. I was 13 years old at the time, and as I always recall the story, I’m happy I’m sitting down because I remember the moment I was so nervous. I had never spoken publicly before. But the four Chinese-American families, who all were small business owners in the neighborhood, came to my father and said, ‘We would like your daughter to attend the town hall meeting of the school board,’ which was at the elementary school two blocks away, walking distance from my family’s business, and to essentially make a statement about the bussing program, which essentially says, we are small business owners, our children are able to walk to school today. If anything should happen to them, if they’re bused across the city, we would have to shut down our business. We’d lose a day of livelihood. It would take us well over 2 hours to be on public transportation, to pick up our children and bring them home. And none of us drive. And so we don’t oppose the goals of the busing program. But could we use that money just to improve the quality of all of the schools in San Francisco? And so I made that statement. I got up, made that statement and went back to my seat in the auditorium. And of course, we know that the busing program lasted that the better part of the next three decades. But everything was fine. Nothing happened to my sister and my siblings after her. But it was a moment that just stayed with me.
Marisa Lagos: Well this was over desegregation.
Betty Yee: Yes, exactly.
Marisa Lagos: I mean, the idea was to make schools more equitable and more diverse. And this is an issue that continues, this debate. I’m curious, like as a staunch member of the Democratic Party, do you see the issue any differently now than you did as a kid at 13?
Betty Yee: You know, it’s interesting. I’m a product of San Francisco public schools. I went to Lowell high school, and I always thought, even as I was growing up and to this day, why were we never just trying to create more Lowell high schools, you know, just throughout the city? You know, we’ve got this crazy competitive process, you know, for everyone to get into the one of the top college prep schools. But yet, you know, we could have at the same time just created more of those to have more opportunities for students. You know, I would say, you know, the bssing program at that time was about a family hardship. I personally support busing programs. I think the earlier we can have young people just be able to understand, you know, the diversity of, you know, our society and to be able to just learn and play and grow with them is a beautiful thing. And I think probably would deepen just so much of the understanding across communities that is so lacking today.
Scott Shafer: I’m curious, you know, sometimes when you have these big cultural issues come to the fore, I’m thinking about same sex marriage, you know, And the opponents said, you know, if we let gay couples marry, the sky is going to fall, is going to ruin this, that and the other thing, and lo and behold, it didn’t. Right. And I’m wondering, so did the things that you said when you stood up that day come to pass in terms of your family? Did they have to close the business? Or was that maybe a little easier, turned out to be a little easier than you thought?
Betty Yee: It turned out to be easier. I mean, I think a lot of it was just the unknown. And really, when you have the convenience of an elementary school two blocks away, walking distance. I mean, my younger sister, I remember, actually got lost walking home from school one day. And so what could happen possibly when she’s across the city?
Marisa Lagos: And so did she go to Visitation Valley ultimately?
Betty Yee: She did, she did, yes.
Marisa Lagos: Interesting. So you I mean, you say that that was kind of a political awakening for you. You go on to U.C. Berkeley for undergrad, then Golden Gate University. But I know your college student experience was kind of interrupted in a way when your father became ill. Talk about that. And like, how what did that change? It must have been a very different experience for you than a lot of your peers at that time.
Betty Yee: Definitely. And even when I was going to Berkeley, I commuted every day. I worked to essentially put myself through school. And you know what was really unfortunate, my father became ill with kidney failure when I was a junior at Cal, and I had to move back home. So each of us, the siblings, took on various responsibilities. A couple of my sisters kept the business going with my mother. I was responsible for taking him to dialysis three times a week at UCSF, and we all coordinated his therapies. But he ended up living for another five years before he passed away, but fairly young in his early sixties. And so this created a situation where my mother decided to continue the business and eventually shut it down. I know one of my sisters wanted to take it over but she just was adamant, you know, ‘My father and I did not sacrifice to have you all be able to get to college and for you to run to run a laundry and dry cleaning business after.
Marisa Lagos: Very immigrant mom.
Betty Yee: Right, exactly. But what changed about all of that was just really having to navigate so many things for my father’s health care. Understanding, you know, all of the health benefits, Social Security, disability, looking at how to be an advocate in terms of just being sure that his care was the best that he could get. And also understanding that, you know, in terms of just keeping the business going, we came to a point of where, you know, people weren’t like really coming to dry cleaners a lot anymore. And so really seeing kind of the nature of the business declining over time as well. And he was known, by the way, as finishing men’s shirts. So when he wasn’t there to finish men’s shirts anymore, I think that, you know, there was something that just kind of went by the wayside without his talent still in place.
Scott Shafer: If you’re just joining us, you’re listening to Political Breakdown from KQED. I’m Scott Shafer here with Marissa Vargas. We’re talking with Betty Yee, former state Controller, who is now working with the Cal Democratic Party, running for governor in 2026. You know, you’re talking about your dad’s health problems and one of your early jobs was in public health in Santa Cruz County, and you got involved with HIV AIDS. How did you make that pivot? [
Betty Yee: Sure. After graduate school at Golden Gate University, I really wanted to be in a smaller community to look and see whether I could have more impact. And I was very attracted to women’s health issues. And Santa Cruz County, particularly Santa Cruz city, had a very strong women’s health collective. So I moved down there, did a lot of work with them, and the women’s committee was quite integrated, to where we had dealt with issues of fiscal health, certainly public health, domestic violence, mental health, all of that was just one really integrated community of service providers. One of the members of the Board of Supervisors always selected his member of the County Public Health Commission from the women’s health community. So I was selected by then supervisor Gary Patton to sit on the Public Health Commission. I believe we were the first county to write an anti-smoking ordinance for the unincorporated areas of the county, this was back in the mid-1980s.
And also when the HIV AIDS epidemic broke, we really were at a loss about what to do. We didn’t know anything about treatment at the time, but certainly wanted to get information out to as many communities as possible. And I was tasked to go to Sacramento and bring home some public health dollars for the county for HIV AIDS purposes. I went to Sacramento as a Senate fellow, and did my fellowship with the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and was appalled at what I saw in terms of very, actually no women and very few, I could count on less than one hand, staff of from our diverse communities who are advising our legislators about funding for for health issues. And so I decided I wanted to stay after my fellowship and change that.
Marisa Lagos: And you never left, Kind of. I know you lived in the Bay Area. But I do wonder I mean, you talk about the lack of diversity there. I mean, that’s even more so, I would imagine, in the finance sort of sector of public policy. So you end up working for both the legislature on fiscal policy and then Governor Gray Davis. I mean, obviously, that played to your strengths. But were you also attracted by the fact that you could kind of be a trailblazer in those places?
Betty Yee: I would say yes to some extent, but I also wanted to change the landscape. So I’m happy to say today it looks very, very different. I think Californians would be pleased to hear that their committees are well-represented, not just in their elected officials, but certainly among the staff who are advising our electeds.
Scott Shafer: You did work for Governor Gray Davis, who, of course, was recalled, replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He had been state comptroller before that and, you know, before he was lieutenant governor. Did he advise you? Did you ask him about running for state Controller? What were you going to say?
Marisa Lagos: I was going to say, did he take your advice at all? But that’s a whole other question. Start with Scott’s question.
Betty Yee: Well, first of all, let me say I have a very deep fondness for for Governor Davis, who I believe when history looks back at his tenure as governor, we’ll see that we did some really wonderful things for the state of California. You know, for Governor Davis. I did Secret Service in terms of Controller. You know, my discipline has been in finance. And so he was very encouraging. Certainly thought being state Controller was one of the best statewide offices because you really had the ability to elevate the public’s trust and confidence in their government. You know, this is a fiscal watchdog, financial watchdog position. So to the extent that you do that job well and give the public a sense that somebody is, you know, watching over our finances and our fiscal house, that just has, you know, a really good connection with what the public generally.
Marisa Lagos: I mean, on the other hand, I kind of allude to this, but, you know, he was recalled, I think, largely because of the energy crisis. But I think in hindsight, there’s a lot of criticisms of the way he oversaw the budget. There’s a sense that he over promised to unions. You know, Schwarzenegger inherited a really dismal budget deficit. Was he listening to you? Like what? What did he do differently than what you were advising?
Betty Yee: You know, I think it’s always, you know, the devil’s in the details with respect to how budgets put together. Look, there was a lot of legislative pressure. Prior to Governor Davis, we had, you know, governor, Pete Wilson. So a lot of pent up frustration in terms of what some of the constituencies were not able to get during those years with Governor Wilson in office. And so I think Governor Davis, you know, did the best he could relative to negotiations. As his budget director and adviser, I always say fiscal prudence is never an unpopular thing. So, you know, always reminding him that, you know, this is a good place to be. But at the end of the day, to get a budget, these were protracted budgets. You remember during those years where you didn’t have a budget —
Marisa Lagos: Well and you needed a two-thirds, it was a much different process.
Scott Shafer: Well and full disclosure, I was working for him when he was the state Controller at that time and they were issuing IOUs
Betty Yee: That’s right.
Scott Shafer: And he and Wilson did not get along. And I think, you know, now that I can say this now, he was, I think, using that to elevate himself, that conflict. And I’m wondering, you know, what did you learn observing that in terms of how different constitutional officers get together or should get along or not?
Betty Yee: I wish there could be more collaboration, frankly. We are independently elected constitutional offices, but I certainly view the role of the Controller as being very pivotal to just the entire operation of the state. We’re a high production office. We have the ability to look out at just any kind of economic risks that could be hitting California. Certainly from a cash flow perspective, when we might run into trouble. And look, I was proactive, always advised, you know, the executive branch, the governor’s office, whenever we saw anything. But I think there could have been more collaboration because, you know, we are the ones that really understand how to, you know, just push money out the door. And certainly, you know, when the pandemic hit, I think there was a bit more collaboration, but it could have been much deeper.
Marisa Lagos: Well, you mentioned pushing money out the door. As I said at the top, you’re running for governor. You want to pick how to spend that money. When you ran for Controller, you talked a lot about tax reform and the idea that we do need to at least tweak our system so that it’s less reliant on the top 1%. Of course, that means the other 99% probably would pay more. Talk about your vision for the state. If you do become governor, what you know, what would you like to see done? Understanding you won’t be empress but you could try.
Betty Yee: The tax system is I mean, we have it, we’re living with it, I will say the one reform that has really helped us tremendously is the voter approval of a rainy day fund. Frankly, if we didn’t have that at the beginning of the pandemic, we probably would have had to do some pretty expensive borrowing. So we’re very grateful for the voters wisdom in that.
But also, when you look at other states in terms of, you know, just fiscal stability, I think the mix of taxes is really important. You know, obviously we have Prop 13, which capped the local property tax. But the mix from the perspective that, you know, when you have such reliance on upper income earners who and there’s been a lot of stories about many of them leaving California. But we’re also still getting new people coming into California. So from a tax perspective, close to being a wash. But I think the more that we see affordability issues here, we are going to see more Californians leaving. So sales tax, we’ve talked a lot about how being one of the few large states that does not tax services and that is real money. I mean, that is money that could actually come in on a pretty regular basis. Example of that, you go take your car in for repair. You pay for tax on the parts, but not on the service. And that could generate, you know, quite quite a quite a chunk of change,
Scott Shafer: Although a lot of the states, I would guess, that have that tax don’t have other taxes, like some states don’t have income tax for example. So I mean you’re talking about adding yet more tax on a, you know, somewhat high tax burden states.
Betty Yee: Well but it’s also about the what you do on the spending side too. But relative to the just kind of the tax sources and the mix of taxes I think that it actually could result in hopefully a decrease in some tax rates on the income tax side so that we can have the sales tax really be more reflective of, you know, what’s really happening on the economy. You know, on the spending side, I would say, look, I was comptroller, did audits, you know, uncovered a lot over my eight years, about $7.3 billion of public funds that were directed to unallowed uses. And there’s more there had we had more time and resources to uncover that there was always waste. It’s not fraud. It’s just that’s part of the system. And so we have to root that out. And we also know that from a tax perspective that there are those who are going to continue to not be compliant. And so to the extent that we can add, you know, more resources to have to work with taxpayers to become compliant, that is to the good for the long term.
Marisa Lagos: Well, you’re running in 2026 and before then we have just this little election next year. I’m curious, you know, the California Democratic Party is seen as to the left of even some Democrats in California. How do you see kind of approaching that? Do you think there needs to be any change in the way that the party operates? And and how are you thinking about heading into this election year?
Betty Yee: Yeah, you know, I think there has been a change in how the party operates. So we have invested in what we call year round organizing. So we are engaging Democrats, the 10 million plus Democrats in the state, year round now instead of just months ahead of an election. And the reason we do that is because we actually get informed by the voters and Democrats about what’s top of mind for them. That helps us then begin to, you know, message how we are going to have our endorsed candidates pay attention to these issues. And and so that has been really, I think, a game changer that this organizing isn’t around election, it’s around being able to really live the values of being Democrats in California. And so whether it’s health care, whether it’s housing affordability, you know, whatever the issue is, we are hearing pretty common themes across all of California. But in certain areas of California, even more dire issues around water and, you know, other top of mind issues.
Scott Shafer: We noted at the top that California’s never had a female governor like so many states have had. There’s a Eleni Kounalakis the lieutenant governor, also running. There’ll be plenty of time to debate the differences. But why do you think there hasn’t been a woman governor in California? And what difference would it make to have one?
Betty Yee: As with any office, including governor, you know, women, and this really speaks to, you know, how women professionally have not had the deep networks. You know, these are races that cost tens of millions of dollars. And so to have the deep networks, to be able to fundraise, to be viable as a candidate statewide, I think has been definitely a barrier. But I also think that has changed. We are now running with a sense of maturity in terms of, you know, those networks being much more robust. I also think that given the issues of the day, particularly as it relates to reproductive rights and just so many of these critical social issues, you know, the women’s voice is really important. And so and when you look at the electorate, over half are women. And so I think it’s high time.
Marisa Lagos: All right. We are going to leave it there. That is former comptroller and 2026 governor candidate. Betty Yee thanks for coming in.
Betty Yee: Thank you.
Marisa Lagos: That will do it for this edition of Political Breakdown. We are a production of KQED Public Radio.
Scott Shafer: Our engineer today is Christopher Beale, Guy Marzorati is our producer. I’m Scott Shafer.
