The Case for Climate Champion Tom Steyer in the California Governor's Race
Like a lot of you, I'm not, to say the least, a fan of billionaires as a species. Perhaps unlike a lot of you, I'm not a fan of airtight categories either: categories are leaky and a lot of what you may assume about gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer might be undermined by knowing what he's done for California and the climate and how he's shown up on issues of economic justice over the past sixteen years. That's why Our Revolution, the group Bernie Sanders founded, endorsed him enthusiastically: "Tom Steyer has stepped forward with a platform that is clearly aligned with the priorities of our movement — single-payer healthcare, taxing extreme wealth, bold climate action, and getting money out of politics. He didn’t just seek our endorsement — he engaged directly with our organizers and demonstrated a real commitment to a people-first agenda."
[My apologies to readers outside the state; but this is what I had time to write this week, and what happens in California often has repercussions far beyond. I'll be back to broader issues next essay.]
I have spent my whole life as a voter voting for people who are somewhere between not as bad as the other guy to reasonably okay on some of the stuff I care about. As a longtime climate champion, Steyer offers Californians a rare chance to vote for someone who will bring the necessary urgency, boldness, vision, and expertise to the climate crisis. In California, most of our politicians and our last two governors have been willing to support renewables but not to fight fossil fuel corporations boldly or consistently, and Steyer's main Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra seems to be more of the same in that regard (there's a footnote about his not-good climate policies below).
I've never met Steyer, but the voices of those who know him well count for a lot. Among the most compelling is former state senator Nancy Skinner, a progressive environmentalist who represented the East Bay from 2008 to 2024, first in the California assembly, then in the state senate. When I talked to her recently, she praised him as a collaborator she'd worked with again and again when she was a legislator. She covered some of the same ground in a written statement, declaring, "Tom first came to my attention in 2010 when big oil tried to overturn CA’s signature climate law AB 32 [the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006]. Tom and just a handful of others took the lead and funded the campaign to uphold AB 32 and stop big oil’s ballot measure. Tom put his money where his mouth is to protect our climate. Tom is the only Governor candidate who has actually closed a corporate tax loophole. In 2012 when California still had lingering budget deficit from [the] Great Recession, Tom personally funded Prop 39 which closed a corporate tax loophole and dedicated 5 years of the resulting $2B annual revenue increase to a green jobs fund. Prop 39 passed and for 5 yrs it funded solar installations and energy efficiency upgrades at CA schools.... Even though Tom has never held elected office, he has been actively involved in state issues for decades. He established Next Gen California to be his policy think tank and advocacy group in Sacramento. NextGen and Tom were at my side for some of my most important progressive victories such as Universal School Meals - CA’s program that gives every public school student 2 free meals a day, and a number of groundbreaking criminal justice reform measures that lowered sentences and expanded effective reentry programs so those leaving our state prisons can be successfully return to their communities." He's also taken a strong position against ICE, vowing to fight it with the resources available in California.
Skinner's testimony shows not just his support for progressive issues, but that he understands the system well enough to have operated successfully within it again and again. That might answer the charge that he's never held elected office, usually levied to suggest he isn't qualified to take on the job. I met Skinner at an event for Jane Fonda's climate PAC (if you haven't noticed, Fonda has spent the last several years deeply --and brilliantly – involved in climate work). Incidentally, Fonda has ringingly endorsed him, as has Our Revolution, former State Controller Betty Yee, the California Nurses Association, the California Teachers Union,AFSCME 3299 (the union representing the most University of California workers), the California Domestic Workers union, the action funds of both the Center for Biological Diversity and the NRDC, a lot of elected officials in state office and Congress, and Third Act California (full list here), while the Bay Area chapter of 350.org has endorsed Steyer and Katie Porter, neither of whom will take fossil fuel money.
Bill McKibben co-founded 350.org in 2008, when the climate movement was just gathering force, and created Third Act in 2021 to mobilize people over sixty for climate and democracy. I've known Bill for more than two decades as a dear friend and climate role model and collaborator (and I sit on the board of Third Act). Bill in turn has known Steyer since Steyer came to him to deepen his understanding of the climate crisis and what to do about it. Bill writes, "Maybe 15 years ago he called me out of the blue to pick my brains about climate stuff; as he talked on the phone, I googled him and established he was a hedge fund billionaire, a species to which I am allergic. I tried to put him off, but he politely insisted to the point where escape would have required real rudeness on my part.... Over time we became real friends.... He’s the real deal: he stepped away from his hedge fund [in 2012] because his colleagues wouldn’t divest it from fossil fuel, and he’s been working hard ever since to make progress on the energy transition. I can’t think of a more knowledgeable or committed climate champion in political life in America today. Steyer has supported one bill after another that would raise his taxes, and he’s fanned out across the state year after year to help with important referendum fights—which is why, among other things, he’s found widespread endorsements from labor unions... And as a governor on climate and energy issues, he’d be relentlessly focused; the Golden State is America’s leader in clean energy deployment, but it has much more to do, especially in linking that deployment to widespread prosperity. Steyer has been aggressive in taking on the utilities in California, a key next step."
One piece of evidence that his plan to reform California utilities is serious is the fact that PG&E, the for-profit utility serving much of California is dumping shocking amounts of money--a bit of the profit off our overpriced electricity--to fight him. The San Francisco Standard reports, "Pacific Gas & Electric has injected close to $10 million into an anti-Steyer PAC called 'Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy,' according to new campaign finance disclosures. If he becomes governor, Steyer plans to introduce electricity reforms that could end up being a threat to the company and other investor-owned utilities." There are positive endorsements, but sometimes you can judge someone best by their enemies, and the animosity of PG&E is its own kind of endorsement. Steyer has pledged to cut electricity costs by 25%, a direct threat to the kind of profits that lets PG&E throw that kind of money around.
From drought to flood to extreme heat to catastrophic wildfire to sea level rise, California is facing climate chaos, and it's an issue that must be addressed through many avenues. Steyer was recently interviewed by Emily Atkin for her climate newsletter Heated, a climate newsletter and podcast, and when she asked him why he doesn't talk more about climate in his campaign he replied, "Because when I talk about electricity, I’m talking about climate. When I talk about wildfires and insurance, I’m talking about climate. When I’m talking about technology growth and inventing the future in California and building the companies about it, I’m talking about climate. I’m trying to talk about climate in terms of the way that people experience it.…"
Most of the reasons cite for why people don't like or trust Steyer have to do with what he was doing before he walked away from his hedge fund and its investments, the work that made him a billionaire. But he changed his politics to reflect his changed values when he abandoned that work almost fifteen years ago. Of course I don't like the fact that Steyer's investment corporation held, from 2004-2006 shares in a private prison corporation, but he sold them and has apologized repeatedly for it, in actions as well as in words, by supporting progressive measures to reduce incarceration and reform the system. He's also vowed to give half his fortune away in his lifetime and been a hugely generous donor to climate action and the Democratic Party ever since.
Steyer and his wife (since 1986) Kat Taylor have done a lot more: together they funded set up Beneficial State Bank, a nonprofit community bank in Oakland whose investing "commitments include no predatory lending, and no investments or lending to fossil fuel, private prisons, or weapons manufacturing industries." Steyer likewise founded NextgenAmerica, originally NextGenClimate, to register young voters and mobilize them and candidates on climate and other issues, and another investment company, Galvanize Climate, specifically focused on investing in climate solutions.
Betty Yee, in her endorsement after dropping out of the governor's race last week, said, "The only candidate who has the vision for California to become a truly golden state where economic prosperity is shared, is Tom Steyer. The other Democratic candidates are gifted but lack a comprehensive vision; we cannot return to a status quo of the past. This is unacceptable because too many Californians are struggling. I’ve known Tom and his wife, Kat, for two decades. I’ve seen firsthand their integrity, their commitment and their humble hearts for service. Tom leads with humility, surrounds himself with people who challenge him, and builds the type of partnerships needed to actually get things done. I campaigned too hard to just settle for a candidate. I am not settling for Tom Steyer. I am all in for Tom Steyer. I hope you will join me."
A lot of you probably don't hate all billionaires, because the category includes Beyonce, Rihanna, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Only too often candidates who don't have their own money become beholden to those who have lots of it, be they individuals – think of Silicon Valley oligarch Peter Thiel as JD Vance's puppetmaster – or corporations and dark-money PACs that dole out money as an investment and reap huge returns on it in the form of favorable legislation. Getting money out of politics would be a huge step back toward representative democracy in America. In the meantime, it's a pay-to-play game, wherever the money comes from.
If you asked me last year, my dream candidate for governor would've been current attorney general Rob Bonta, a climate and human rights hero, but Bonta wisely decided he can do the most good right where he is and didn't jump into the race (but is up for re-election). With the candidates we've got, Steyer seems the strongest, and the first rule of electoral politics is you deal with what's possible, aka who made it onto the ballot (though in other moments you can change what's possible and who and what makes it onto the ballot).
Right now every voter who cares about climate and human rights should first focus on the mess this jungle primary hands us: the top two candidates go on to the general election, and if the Democratic vote in this blue-violet state is spread too widely the two Republicans could be those top two in the November election. But Steyer is currently one of the top two Democratic candidates. In 2016, I said voting is a chess move, not a valentine. I believe that Steyer is the right chess move for California voters. If he wins, we might be able to checkmate the fossil fuel industry at last and improve the life of so many Californians treated like pawns.
p.s. A note on Xavier Becerra, who seems to be the other top Democratic candidate in the race: he is not good on climate. Becerra took the maximum donation from Chevron for this election, and said "We need Chevron.... They're not the bad guy" in a recent appearance. The Action Fund of the Center for Biological Diversity gives him a C+ on environmental issues and Steyer an A, noting that Becerra "has not supported California’s Climate Superfund Act, instead asserting that the best way to make polluters pay is to give them a 'seat at the table,' demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of Big Oil’s relentless opposition to climate solutions. As attorney general, he did not file suit to hold major fossil fuel companies liable for climate deception, though his successor Rob Bonta did." Chevron absolutely is the bad guy in so many ways.
