The Los Angeles Times, whose left-wing bias extends beyond the editorial board to the news pages of the paper, endorsed Republican Lanhee Chen for California State Controller in the June 7 primary election in an unusual editorial Thursday.
The controller is the state’s chief fiscal officer, and audits government departments, among other financial responsibilities.
The Times‘ editorial explained its choice:
Voters will pick a new controller this year because Betty Yee, the current controller, is termed out after eight years on the job. Californians have several smart candidates to choose from on the June 7 ballot, including Democrats Ron Galperin, controller for the city of Los Angeles; Malia Cohen, a Board of Equalization member from San Francisco; Steve Glazer, a state senator from the Bay Area city of Orinda; and Republican Lanhee Chen, a public policy expert who teaches at Stanford University.
Among this strong field, we believe Chen is the best choice for this position. Why? Because he is a sharp thinker with experience analyzing large financial systems, and because the controller should be as independent from the party in power as possible.
Democrats control state government and we support their priorities to combat climate change, preserve abortion rights and advance economic and racial justice. But California’s governance is falling short of its ideals. And that’s despite several years of strong revenue that have pumped billions more into education, healthcare and alleviating homelessness. Yet too few students can read at grade level, too many Medi-Cal patients can’t see a doctor and too many people sleep on the streets.
If Chen wins, he would be the first Republican to win statewide office, other than a seat on the Board of Equalization, for more than a decade.
Chen, who is on leave from the conservative Hoover Institution think tank, promises in his candidate statement mailed to all voters statewide that he will “force Sacramento politicians to answer tough questions about the $20 billion in unemployment benefits sent to convicted felons and fraudsters, the billions spent each year on homelessness with dismal results, and the lack of a detailed accounting for the $300 billion in checks our state writes every year.” He notes that he has worked for “both Democrat and Republican presidents.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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