LOS ANGELES – Most Californians have no idea what the state controller does, despite the fact that the office is the state's top fiscal watchdog, helps administer $300 billion in pension funds and monitors a $100 billion state budget for waste and fraud.
That power is among the reasons the down-ticket race has attracted a crowded field of veteran officeholders going into the June 6 primary despite its low profile with voters.
Democrats hoping to replace gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly as the state's chief financial officer include Sen. Joe Dunn of Garden Grove and John Chiang, a member of the state Board of Equalization. Republicans are state Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria and former Assemblyman Tony Strickland of Thousand Oaks.
The winner for each party will advance to a November general election.
The seat is considered by many as a fast track to a higher-level state, or even federal, office. Its former occupants include Gray Davis and the late U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston; the current controller, Westly, is making a run for governor in the Democratic primary.
“I doubt that many politicians have as their ultimate ambition controller of the state of California,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College. “But they do see that constitutional office as a springboard for the governorship or perhaps a Senate seat.”
In addition to helping guide the California Public Employees Retirement System, the nation's largest public pension fund, the controller also serves on more than 60 policy-making state boards and commissions and provides fiscal guidance to local governments.
The closest race appears to be between the Democrats.
Dunn, a termed-out state senator and self-styled legislative watchdog, settled on the controller's race after announcing and withdrawing from state races for attorney general and treasurer. His campaign bills him as the “man who cracked Enron,” a reference to a three-year state Senate investigation led by Dunn into the business practices of the Houston energy company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
Chiang, a lawyer and former IRS tax law specialist, serves on the Franchise Tax Board and the state Board of Equalization, two agencies tightly linked with the state controller's office.
On the Republican side, Maldonado, the only Latino Republican in the California Senate, is a close ally of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Strickland has touted his conservative credentials.
Maldonado, whose family owns a Central Coast vegetable-growing business, sponsored a bill at Schwarzenegger's behest that would raise the minimum wage by 50 cents an hour – something that has angered some conservatives in his party.
Maldonado's problem is that “he has the support of party liberals, and in a Republican primary that is not an asset,” Pitney said. “Those are ideas that could actually be popular in a general election but not in a primary.”
