In the California attorney general election, only one candidate is qualified | Opinion

There are three candidates running to be the next Attorney General of California but only one of them is qualified and fit for the job. McClatchy Media’s California editorial board endorses Rob Bonta, who is running for re-election to a position he has held since April 2021 when Bonta was appointed to replace Xavier Becerra by Gov. Gavin Newsom..

Becerra left the AG’s job to be Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden after suing President Donald Trump 125 times during Trump’s first term. Bonta is well on his way to eclipsing that number in Trump’s second term, having already filed more than 50 lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Time and again, the president has undermined state authority by sending federal troops to Los Angeles against the wishes of Newsom; ordering offshore oil operations off the coast of Santa Barbara and threatening to withhold federal funds because he disliked certain state policies.

Elected by California voters in 2022, Bonta says court challenges have been highly effective; his office has recovered or protected $200 billion in federal funds Trump tried to withhold.

He also has a strong record of enforcing state housing regulations and renter protections, investigating reports of civil rights abuses and taking on antitrust cases. In 2024, Bonta and Newsom settled a state lawsuit against the city of Elk Grove for violating California’s housing laws when the city denied a needed supportive housing project. We applauded Bonta at the time.

The settlement required Elk Grove to pay $150,000 in attorney fees and identify new sites for affordable housing.

“We can’t solve California’s homelessness crisis without creating new housing and supportive services,” Bonta said at the time. “Elk Grove is not immune to this challenge, and the city’s decision to block these efforts — wasting valuable time and resources — is especially shameful.”

Affordable housing units are too often and too easily killed at the local level by elected leaders and bureaucrats. If anything, we wish Bonta had been more aggressive with Elk Grove and other cities because the need for affordable housing in California is dire.

In addition, Bonta was also among the attorneys general who won a jury verdict against Ticketmaster/Live Nation for operating a monopoly that gouged customers. Bonta is also coordinating an antitrust review of the $110 billion merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance.

Politico recently reported that Bonta has emerged as “a key backstop against a transaction (some) worry could not only embolden Paramount — whose CEO David Ellison has cultivated ties with President Donald Trump — but also trigger sweeping staff reductions and accelerate the sort of media consolidation that harms consumers and creative talent alike.”

In this race, Bonta’s opponents are Republican Michael Gates and Marjorie Mikels, a self-described peace candidate representing the Green Party. Neither of Bonta’s opponents is fit for office. Mikels isn’t qualified and Gates’ past work and positions on key issues, or lack therof, are outside the mainstream of California.

It didn’t help that when we asked Gates about the economic concerns in Southern California over what the Paramount/Warner Bros deal could do to Hollywood, Gates said he didn’t know enough about the issue to comment.

Gates made a name for himself as the elected city attorney of Huntington Beach, where he challenged the state over housing mandates and a voter ID requirement the city tried to impose. Bonta rightly sued Huntington Beach for its refusal to adopt a housing element that included affordable housing. Bonta also sued to stop Huntington Beach for requiring residents to show ID when voting in local elections.

The 4th District Court of Appeal struck down the Huntington Beach Voter ID law, siding with Bonta. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Huntington Beach’s federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of certain California housing laws.

We endorse Bonta because he is on the right side of housing and civil rights law and Gates was on the wrong side, the losing side.