Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Danny Curtin

46. Danny Curtin

The California Conference of Carpenters has long been a force in California’s housing squabbles, due in no small part to its Director of the last 30 years, Danny Curtin. The Carpenters spend a lot of money around the Capitol, but they often also occupy a unique, nuanced position on issues that puts them at odds with their traditional ally in labor, the State Building and Construction Trades Council. This scenario certainly played out in this year’s epic effort to significantly reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Newsom himself said the reforms would not have happened without Curtin’s leadership in bringing his union on board, but at one point their willingness to support a minimum wage proposal that other unions opposed nearly caused a throwdown (think Anchorman but with nail guns and claw hammers). The wage proposal failed, so you could say Curtin didn’t win that one. But the CEQA reforms passed, which is what they all really wanted anyway.

Updated Aug. 26, 2025