California needs a housing champion

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OPINION – When people ask me why I’m running for lieutenant governor, I understand the confusion. It’s typically treated as California’s most ceremonial office – a title you hold while waiting for something better to come along.

But I’ve never been interested in titles for their own sake. I’m interested in what you can do with them.

As mayor of Stockton, I inherited what’s often called a “weak mayor” system, which has limited formal authority and control over the city budget. On paper, I was supposed to cut ribbons and chair meetings. Instead, we launched the nation’s first guaranteed income pilot, created college scholarship programs, and brought homicide rates to historic lows.

We did this not because the job description said we could, but because the problems demanded it and the platform made it possible.

California’s housing crisis demands the same approach. We don’t have time to wait for the perfect policy vehicle or the ideal political moment. We need to use every lever available – including the ones gathering dust in the lieutenant governor’s office.

Here’s what many people don’t realize: the Lieutenant Governor sits on the governing bodies for both the University of California and California State University systems, and chairs the State Lands Commission. These aren’t ceremonial appointments. They’re positions of actual authority over some of the most valuable public land in America that can be repurposed to house our neighbors, teachers, students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and the unhoused.

California’s public universities control prime real estate in our most expensive regions. Meanwhile, faculty and staff struggle to afford housing near campus. Students take on debt they’ll carry for decades. And communities surrounding these institutions face their own affordability crises.

We can solve multiple problems at once if we’re willing to think differently about public assets. My plan is simple: make public land work for the public purpose.

Across the UC and CSU systems, that means long-term (from 50-99 years) ground leases that keep land in public ownership while unlocking it for housing. Mission-aligned developers would build mixed-income homes for faculty, staff, students, and surrounding communities, helping stabilize the very people who make our universities thrive.

The land stays public. The housing gets built. And lease revenue flows back into what matters most: financial aid, scholarships, and campus infrastructure. All of this strengthens our higher education system without raising tuition or selling off public assets.

Every lease would come with binding commitments on affordability, sustainability, and labor standards. This isn’t privatization. It’s public land delivering permanent public benefit.

And this approach doesn’t stop at campus boundaries. As chair of the State Lands Commission, I’ll identify underused state parcels near universities and job centers and mobilize them for housing and education — no selloffs, no giveaways, just smarter use of what Californians already own.

If it’s public land, it should serve public needs – starting with housing.

I’m not waiting to take office to work on this. Last legislative session, I testified in support of legislation to reform permitting to make housing construction faster and cheaper.

This approach has earned me endorsements from groups that approach housing from different ends of the spectrum – from the Abundance Network, which advocates for more housing supply, to ACCE, a tenant rights organization fighting for affordability and protections. That coalition tells you something: we can build more housing and protect renters. We can use public assets and advance equity. These aren’t contradictions, they’re necessities.

California has spent too long treating our most pressing challenges as unsolvable. Housing isn’t unsolvable. It requires political courage, creative policy, and a willingness to use every available tool.

The lieutenant governor’s office may have limited formal power, but it has real levers that I intend to use. California doesn’t need another placeholder in this role. It needs someone who will show up, do the work, and prove that even offices dismissed as ceremonial can drive meaningful change. I’ve done it before as mayor, and I’ll do it again as lieutenant governor.

Michael Tubbs is the former mayor of Stockton, Calif. and a candidate for lieutenant governor of California.