Your guide to California’s state controller primary race
The state controller is one of eight elected constitutional officers in California and serves as the state’s accountant. The office is responsible for fiscal control over the disbursement and receipts of public dollars and issues regular reports on the financial conditions of local and state governments.
In addition to serving on boards of the state’s two largest public pension funds, the controller is in charge of unclaimed property reported to the state and works to get those assets back to its rightful owners. California’s controller also has the ability to audit how state agencies spend public dollars.
One challenge the next state controller will face is the effort to modernize the state’s payroll system, which has encountered significant delays and is one of California’s most costly IT projects. The current legacy system, which handles payroll for civil service workers and California State University employees, distributes paychecks once a month and often results in incorrect payments to employees.
The relatively low-profile statewide position has been held by public officials who have gone on to serve in more prominent elected offices, including former Gov. Gray Davis.
The current controller, Malia Cohen, was elected in 2022 and is running for reelection against two candidates, union leader Meghann Adams and Herb Morgan, a chief investment officer.
Who are the candidates?
Adams is a school bus driver and union president who is running for state controller as a member of the Peace and Freedom party. Adams serves as the president of SMART 1741, which represents bus drivers and staff in San Francisco and San Mateo schools, according to her campaign website.
“Through nearly a decade of managing union finances, she has developed a sharp skill set for fiscal responsibility, accountability, and transparency to members,” her website reads.
If elected, Adams’ pledged to launch a “Statewide Housing Affordability Audit” that will aim to identify where bulk buyers and corporations have purchased housing and look for connections to rent increases and vacancies. Adams said as controller she would conduct a public utility study to compare the services provided by private utilities like the Pacific Gas and Electric Company with nonprofit providers like the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
Adams unsuccessfully ran for state treasurer in 2022.
Prior to Cohen’s 2022 election as state controller, she was elected to California’s Board of Equalization from 2019 to 2023, during part of which she served as board chair. Previously, she served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2011 to 2019 and was president of the board during the last two years of her term.
On her campaign website, Cohen has listed affordable housing as one of her priorities. She pointed to her recent approval of a $804 million bond for affordable student housing across the state. Cohen also noted that she serves on the Veterans’ Home Finance Committee and the First-Time Homebuyers Financing Committee as evidence of her efforts to address California’s high housing costs.
While serving as the chair of the San Francisco Employee Retirement System, Cohen said she led the effort to divest $100 million of the pension fund from fossil fuel investments. The state’s two largest public pension systems, which Cohen sits on the board of, have not divested from fossil fuels despite activists urging the funds to do so.
Cohen is running as a Democrat.
Morgan founded the investment firm Efficient Market Advisors, which was acquired by the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald in 2017. Morgan’s campaign website stated that his track record “managing large-scale financial operations uniquely qualifies him to oversee the state’s massive budget and ensure taxpayer dollars are used wisely.”
He served on the board of the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System from 2009 to 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile.
One of Morgan’s priorities is to increase transparency around how California spends public dollars by publishing state agencies’ ledgers online and in real time. Morgan set up a public-facing campaign finance tracker as a transparency initiative. He pledged to produce a similar tracking system for state agencies if elected.
Alongside other Republican candidates for statewide office, Morgan has proposed creating a California Department of Government Efficiency to “expose corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse in California government.”
Morgan is running as a Republican.
Who is funding the race?
Cohen is leading in contributions by a wide margin, receiving nearly $1 million in contributions in 2025. Much of her campaign cash has come from unions, including SEIU California, the California Nurses Association and the California Faculty Association, which all gave Cohen over $19,000 last year. According to the latest campaign finance report, her campaign had $1.2 million on hand.
Morgan’s campaign has less than a tenth of Cohen’s war chest, with $106,000 on hand, according to the latest finance report. In total, Morgan has reported receiving over $232,000 for his bid for state controller. Most of those funds came in the form of contributions from individual donors. Those donations can be viewed live on his public-facing campaign finance tracker.
Adams has raised over $11,000, according to the latest campaign finance report from the Secretary of State’s office. Most of those contributions have come from individual donors.
Who has endorsed the candidates?
On his campaign website, Morgan boasts endorsements from various organizations, GOP officials and local parties. Those include Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, the California Republican Assembly and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association Political Action Committee.
Cohen’s list of endorsements includes prominent Democrats including Gov. Gavin Newsom, California Senator Adam Schiff and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis. She is endorsed by several political and labor groups including the California Democratic Party, the California Legislative Women’s Caucus and the California Labor Federation.
Peace and Freedom, a socialist political party, has endorsed Adams.
