Over the past weeks, Chronicle reporter Sophia Bollag has met with nearly every candidate in the gubernatorial race to press them on their records and their plans for how they’d govern (Chad Bianco has so far declined to be interviewed). Today we’re breaking down for you what these interviews have told us about how each would approach their relationship with the Legislature.

We’re getting closer to the official launch of this new newsletter in June and hope you’re enjoying these early dispatches from our politics team. 

For those new to this list, welcome. In the coming weeks and months, we will be tracking the bills moving through the Legislature, as well as the people behind the bills and the forces driving the biggest conversations in Sacramento.

What the gov candidates have been telling us about the California Legislature

For a race with so many top-tier candidates, the race to become California’s next governor includes surprisingly few people with state legislative experience. Three of the Democrats running – Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa and Tony Thurmond – served in the Legislature. Becerra served one two-year stint in the Assembly; Thurmond served in the Assembly for four years and Villaraigosa served in the Assembly for six years, including as speaker.

Whoever is elected governor will need to forge a new relationship with lawmakers, as they hash out budget agreements and deals on how to make their biggest priorities happen.

Here’s what the candidates said in our interviews.

Steve Hilton: One point of pride for the supermajority-Democratic Legislature is California’s status as a leader on policies fighting climate change. But the Republican, whose only experience working in government took place in England, has vowed to dismantle those policies. When it comes to California climate policies, Hilton said, “You’ve got to scrap it. All of it.”

On top of specific climate policies, Hilton has made it a centerpiece of his campaign to disparage how the state has been run for decades. That all but ensures he would have a contentious relationship with lawmakers he’s spent the past year criticizing.

Read our Steve Hilton interview here.

Tom Steyer: The billionaire former hedge fund manager has suggested that when it comes to some of his most ambitious ideas, he might try to go around the Legislature. He’s said that when it comes to his plan to reform a piece of Prop 13, he would go directly to voters. He knocked the Legislature for going too easy on tobacco companies. 

But he also noted that he’s been endorsed by several members of the Legislature, and said lawmakers would be critical in helping him enact some of his biggest proposals. 

Read our Tom Steyer interview here.

Katie Porter: As a member of Congress, Porter was part of a much different legislative body. She said that she’d take a page from her tenure there by trying to seriously beef up the Legislature’s oversight role.

“In Congress, regardless of what committee I was on, if we asked the federal government to give us an answer, to give this data, to come testify, they showed up with answers. That’s not always the case in the California Legislature. So that’s an area where I want to make sure every agency in California understands that the relationship with the Legislature isn’t adversarial, it’s cooperative,” she said.

Read our Katie Porter interview here.

Matt Mahan: Mahan has received millions of dollars in campaign funding from tech billionaires and other executives who want to curtail regulations on their businesses as much as possible. 

Mahan also indicated an aversion to tech regulations in his interview with the Chronicle: “If we simply try to stop technological change, it will just happen somewhere else,” he said. That will likely put him at odds with lawmakers who’ve sought to position themselves as national leaders on regulating AI. 

Mahan might find common ground with Democratic lawmakers, though, when it comes to strengthening the social safety net, which he said was key as AI displaces people from jobs.

Read our Matt Mahan interview here.

Antonio Villaraigosa: Villaraigosa has the most state legislative experience of all the candidates running. He’s said he will only serve one term if elected, which means he wouldn’t have as much time to potentially forge relationships with lawmakers.

Villaraigosa indicated in his interview with the Chronicle that he’s open to regulating AI and other tech companies that might put people out of jobs. But he also said he’s not a fan of current state law that will ban new gas-powered car sales by 2035. He’s received donations from oil and gas corporations, and has indicated he wants to keep California refineries open, which would put him at odds with environmentalists in the Legislature.

Read our Antonio Villaraigosa interview here.

Tony Thurmond: Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed dramatically scaling back the power of Thurmond’s current role, state superintendent of public instruction. Thurmond said if he’s elected, he’d work with the Legislature on a different approach: bolstering the department to help it proactively tackle big priorities, instead of focusing mostly on federal compliance.

Read our Tony Thurmond interview here.

Xavier Becerra: The former Health and Human Services secretary said he’d work to restore health care access to undocumented immigrants, including by reforming medical billing practices – and that some of that work could be done outside the Legislature.

“We’ll do some regulations, which don’t require the Legislature. And if we need authority from the Legislature to pass a new law, we’ll do that as well,” he said.

Read our Xavier Becerra interview here.