Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was the first gubernatorial candidate to take part in the School of Social Ecology’s speaker series, “Conversations for California’s Future.” Dean Jon Gould is hosting the series. Photos by Karen Tapia
Gubernatorial candidate plays up his vast experience as Social Ecology kicks off “Conversations for California’s Future”
During a wide-ranging talk at UC Irvine Thursday evening, California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa discussed his campaign’s “affordability” theme, his quest to occupy the middle ground politically, his differences with incumbent Gavin Newsom, his support for Proposition 50 and his advanced age compared to his opponents in the November 2026 race for the state’s top job.
He pretty much summed all this up during a brief moment of the 1 ½-hour conversation presented by the School of Social Ecology in the Student Center’s Crystal Cove Auditorium.
“I am unabashedly a Democrat and a progressive, but what I say when you lose the middle, you’ve got to look in the mirror,” Villaraigosa said. “You can’t keep on losing elections, particularly to someone so far on the right. ... If you look at everything I say on TV, everything I do on social media and my website, you’ll see that I’ve got a broad agenda, focused primarily on this issue of affordability, of making things work. I’ve said I’m running out of competence, common sense, course correction. We need change. Things aren’t working the way they have to. It’s why businesses are leaving this state. It’s why regular people, middle class people, are leaving this state. They can’t afford it.”
The former mayor of Los Angeles began the evening by expressing surprise over the number of people in the audience given that the Dodgers were playing in (and winning) the third game of the National League Championship Series. But, he also expressed joy at being the first candidate or state leader appearing as part of the School of Social Ecology’s new “Conversations for California’s Future” series (or, as moderator and Dean Jon B. Gould called it, “a fireside chat minus the fireside”).
Despite intimate surroundings, the guest has been a political heavyweight for decades. Besides formerly serving as a councilman and mayor of the nation’s second-largest city, Villaraigosa was a state assemblyman and Speaker of the Assembly, co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, member of President Barack Obama’s economic transition team and chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
He started his political ascent as a Chicano student movement leader back in the 1970s, and shortly thereafter became a teacher union rep, American Civil Liberties Union of Los Angeles president and American Federation of Government Employees leader. Antonio Ramón Villar Jr. really made a name for himself when he adopted the blended surname Villaraigosa upon marrying Corina Raigosa in 1987. Three years later, he was appointed to the LA Metropolitan Transportation Board, where he served until being elected to the California State Assembly in 1994.
The rest is political history, which led to an indelicate question Gould handled as delicately as possible: “I say this as someone who remembers Watergate as a kid, but there’s been a lot of talk in Democratic circles about passing the torch to a generation of younger leaders. What do you say to those critics about the fact that you are … let’s just say not one of those younger leaders?”
“I’m a grandfather, and I was bragging to a few people over there about how proud I am to be a great-grandfather,” answered Villaraigosa as he motioned to the back of the room. “Look, I’ve been around, but this election is about young people. And all the candidates in this race are roughly my age. I’m the oldest. I’m roughly the same age as Jerry Brown. Last time I looked, he left the state on a sound financial footing with a $300 million surplus.”
He later added that “I’m up at 4:30 every morning. I’m in the gym at 5. I do pushups, pullups, I work on weights, I hike. I’m healthy.”
Villaraigosa vowed to be the candidate for young people, calling it unfair that he was able to buy a home as a young Californian while that American Dream is out of reach for too many today. Despite the Golden State having the fifth largest economy in the world, “what the politicians don’t tell you is we have the highest poverty rate along with Louisiana,” he said. “We have an economy that’s not working for enough people, so affordability is the big challenge, and I’m someone that is suited to taking on big challenges. That’s why I’m running.”
Of the current occupant of the governor’s office, Villaraigosa confided that he and Newsom “don't agree on everything. I think he’s done some good things without question. What are they? He expanded healthcare. That was important. That’s critical, because I believe healthcare is a right. He expanded childcare. Childcare is critical. Too many people go to work every day and struggle to make ends meet because they can’t afford childcare.”
However, the former speaker was critical of the governor having kept children out of schools for 18 months during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No state in the country did that,” Villaraigosa said. “The notion that, you know, Republicans opened up their schools after six months. Private schools in this state were opened up after six or nine months. Nobody in the Republican states got any sicker, disproportionately, than the population overall. We know that when you can’t read in the third and fourth grade, that’s what you estimate for how many prison beds you’re going to have a decade and a half later.”
He also does not agree with Newsom’s strategy of countering President Donald Trump via social media.
“I don’t intend to spend all day long tweeting about him,” Villaraigosa said of Trump. “I don’t expect to spend all day long focusing just on the problems he’s created, and he’s created a lot of problems in the state. But there are a lot of problems we’ve created. A lot of problems in this state, the high gas prices, highest in the country; the second highest utility costs; the highest home prices – that’s not Donald Trump. That’s us, and I intend to take on those challenges as well.”
Villaraigosa indicated the best places to fight Trump are in the streets, via peaceful protests, and in the courts, via lawsuits. That includes suing to stop the White House’s threat of poaching $1 billion from the University of California budget over perceived antisemitism at the candidate’s alma mater, UCLA.
“We can’t agree to the demands he’s making on UCLA,” Villaraigosa said. “I prefer the Harvard way. We’ll take them on in the courts and not to Columbia University way [of settling with the Trump administration for $200 million]. Even USC is pushing back.”
As a follow-up, Gould asked if the Trump administration took $1 billion away from the UC system, would a Gov. Villaraigosa “backfill” that amount from state coffers.
“What I’ve said is we’re going to find it,” the candidate replied, “and I expect that we would win it [in court]. I believe in universities. I believe in the young, bright people that are here. I met a couple of them from San Jose and San Diego. You know, ultimately, if that happens, we’ll have to backfill it. … And I think we should. We’ve got to stand up for the rule of law. Stand up for the Constitution. And I think this man is violating the Constitution.”
Asked what he would say if he were face-to-face with Trump, Villaraigosa replied, “You sold us a bad bill of goods. You said that you’d focus on the economy, and you’re only making it worse with tariffs, because tariffs are taxes. You said that you wanted to secure the border and go after violent criminals, and you’re going after hardworking people. Some of them have been here 30 years ...170 of whom were U.S. citizens. Why are you doing this?”
The next governor has “a big job” ahead of them, Villaraigosa reasoned.
“All of the progressive legislation that came out in the 1990s came out in my two years as Speaker,” he said. “And I worked with Republicans. You know, this is a purple county. I worked with Scotty Baugh [R-Huntington Beach]. I worked with Curt Pringle [R-Anaheim]. And you know, we disagreed. We fought. We got things done. We need leaders to get things done, so I’m going to work with both sides of the aisle.”
He added: “There’s nobody running in this race that has anything close to the kind of experience I do. There’s nobody that comes from, initially, the civil rights movement. President of the ACLU, the labor leader, the majority leader, speaker, mayor, president of the conference. I’ve done this, and I’m ready to do this on day one.”
Other hot button issues the candidate faced during the event at the prodding of Gould or members of the audience, including students and faculty members:
Prop. 50, the redistricting state ballot initiative before voters on Nov. 4: “I support it because the people have a right to voice their opinion. … Look, Texas didn’t put it up to a vote of the people. Ohio, Indiana and Florida are looking at it, but they are avoiding the people. We’re putting up to vote of the people. If the people say we ought to pass it, I’m fine with that.”
Prop. 13, the 1978 state ballot initiative that capped property taxes and limited property reassessments: “I didn’t vote for it. ... You know, it used to be that commercial was paying 60% of the freight, and homeowners 40%. Now, it’s reversed. But I’ve said this: You are not going to fix it until you fix the whole broken tax system.”
Video of Democratic frontrunner (and UC Irvine law professor) Katie Porter berating one of her staffers: “It’s offensive. When you tell a staff member to get the F out of here because she was standing in the background on a Zoom, trying to explain that [Porter] had misstated something … it’s unacceptable. ... And what I found disturbing: You can’t answer a simple question, and you want to be governor.”
Transgender rights: “Do I think a transatlete, a man who's gone through life as a boy and now is a woman, should play women’s sports? No. I’m sorry. I don’t think they should. You know, that’s not homophobic. That’s not mean spirited. I just don’t think they should. Should they be discriminated against? Absolutely not. Should they be persecuted? No way. Now, you ask another question: If they’re in jail, someone who is a man and now wants to be a woman and get gender-affirming care, should taxpayers pay for it? No. I’m sorry.”
Saturday’s (Oct. 18) No Kings 2 protest: “I will be at No Kings, and I hope you will, too, because I believe in this country. I know a little bit about 1776, and I'll tell you: We said no to King George and no to King Trump.”
New housing construction: “Homeowners and residents and people ought to have a right to say no to projects. But they can’t have a right that lasts for 20 years, and oftentimes projects last for 20 years. You can sue from Timbuktu to Temecula but, at the end of the day, I think we need some balance there because we’ve got to build. And again, it's about you, the young people, in particular. You ought to have that same right that we have to buy a home.”
Supporting California’s small businesses: “I came out of the union. I believe in workers’ rights. But you can’t have workers without business, and this is a very difficult state to operate in for businesses. … So, I want to make it easier to operate small businesses. I did when I was in LA.”
Gun control: “I believe in the Constitution. The Second Amendment is part of the Constitution. But when we passed the Second Amendment, we didn't have assault weapons. We didn't have some of the firepower we have today. When I was Speaker, I authored the toughest assault weapons ban in the country at the time.”
— Matt Coker
Watch the full discussion on Youtube