Nov 2026: Federal + State Elected Officials, plus Judges

Here are my recommendations for federal & state elected officials, plus the Judges I vote on. First the TLDR summary ...

Federal & State Elected Officials

Congress, 12th District: Lateefah Simon

Governor: Xavier Becerra

Lieutentant Governor: Fiona Ma

Secretary of State: Shirley Weber

Controller: Malia Cohen

Treasurer: Elena Kounalakis

Attorney General: Rob Bonta

Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen

Member, State Board of Equalization, 2nd District - Sally Lieber

State Assembly, 14th District - Buffy Wicks

Judges

Supreme Court Associate Justices: Yes Evans & Groban

Appeals Court Associate Justices: Yes to Wilson, Smiley, Banke, Stewart, Desautels, Petrou, Rodriguez, Brown, Chou, Simons, and Burns

See other/posts for recommendations on Berkeley ballot measures & Berkeley elected officials (city council, school board, rent board) and state propositions. I'll update this page with links once I've written those other posts. 

For details on federal/state elected officials & judges, read on ..

Federal & State Elected Officials

For ones where it's a Democrat vs. a Republican, I'm voting for the Democrat, I'm guessing you are too, and I'm not going to waste our time writing why unless it seems really necessary. I'll save my ink for the D vs. D and non-partisan races. 

Congress, 12th District: Lateefah Simon
Governor: Xavier Becerra
Lieutentant Governor: Fiona Ma
Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
Controller: Malia Cohen
Treasurer: Elena Kounalakis
Attorney General: Rob Bonta

Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen

This is a tough one: Democrat vs. Democrat, and I didn't choose between them in the primary. I recommend you read CalMatters' two pieces on this race: their voter guide, where you can take a quiz to see whose opinions you agree with most, and their analysis of the two candidates, which also has links to more info about what the insurance commissioner does. 

My take is that Ben Allen looks like the more knowledgeable and professional candidate. As a State Senator since 2014, he recently wrote successful legislation affecting insurance issues. He says we should limit building in wildfire-prone areas and force insurers to incentivize resilience and risk reduction efforts. When I read CalMatters' comparison, Allen's recommended policies sound like they're likely to actually work, even if they don't create great sound bites. My friend/colleague Edie and her mom Janet also endorse Allen, as does the Sierra Club, Building Trades, Firefighters, Equality California, plus the Democratic Party, Senators Schiff + Padilla, and many more.

Jane Kim is more progressive, supported by Bernie Sanders + Ro Khanna, California Federal of Labor Unions, lots of individual unions, and some more justice-oriented groups (e.g., ACCE Action) -- here's her list. She hasn't been in elected office since she left the SF Board of Supervisors in 2019; she ran Sanders' 2020 campaign in California and has more recently been the CA Director for the Working Families Party. She promotes a public disaster insurance agency (like New Zealand) and other ways of getting the state more directly involved. I'd like to live in a world where her recommended policies work -- but I don't think we do. I worry she'd spend her time trying to create a public insurance market while not attending to all the ways the commissioner has to make the existing system work as well. 

In the end, I think this is a 55-45 decision for me, and I lean towards Allen. If any of you are particularly knowledgeable about insurance, feel free to educate me otherwise. 

Member, State Board of Equalization, 2nd District - Sally Lieber

I've never understood what the State Board of Equalization does or why it exists. It turns out a lot of other people don't either. In 2017 the Legislature & Jerry Brown stripped the Board of lots of its powers, in part because of some financial scandals. This spring I read some pieces suggesting the state should get rid of the Board entirely. I thought that sounded reasonable, so I agreed with the SF Chronicle, which endorsed John Pimentel, the only candidate who expressed openness to that approach. 

Now we're in the fall. Pimentel made it to the general election and I looked more closely at who endorses him, and I'm less comfortable with Pimentel after all. Besides a bunch of elected officials (who lean more moderate), the only groups supporting him are Grow SF, the Abundance Network, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Those are not my people. 

So I read up on Lieber, who's the incumbent in the seat. She's a pretty mainstream to liberal Democrat. She says the Board now has an appropriately limited set of responsibilities, and it should stay that way. She says plausible things about what it could do -- effectively handle tax credits for affordable housing, Veterans' poroperties, and disaster relief. I still don't really understand what the Board does. But I see myself in her endorsers -- Democratic party, lots of labor, environmental, and other organizations.

So I'm switching my endorsement to Lieber. 

State Assembly, 14th District - Buffy Wicks

I've supported Wicks for several years now. This time her opponent is Green Party candidate Mark Rendon. I honestly didn't research this race 'cuz I know Wicks will win in a walk. 

Judges: 

Supreme Court Associate Justices: Yes Evans & Groban

Appeals Court Associate Justices: Yes to Wilson, Smiley, Banke, Stewart, Desautels, Petrou, Rodriguez, Brown, Chou, Simons, and Burns

The Governor appoints justices to the California Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, but then voters get to decide whether to keep them in office. We almost never remove justices (and I didn't agree with the one time we did recall some CA Supreme Court Justices -- although that was in 1986, so I didn't get to vote on it). 

I looked around and found a good explainer/opinion piece by the SF Chronicle (behind a paywall, sorry). It opines that we should retain judges unless they do something scandalous. We should not vote them down for policy reasons. Okay, fair. But I still wanted to know if any of these people are ones I really wouldn't like. 

So I read bios about the Supreme Court Associate Justices (Kelli Evans & Joshua Groban), and then I found bios for the Court of Appeals judges on this website. They serve on lots of committees. I found some whose prior experience suggested I'd agree with them -- environmental law, public defenders, consumer protection. Some former prosecutors. Turns out I went to college with two of them, and narrowly missed a third, and one graduated college before I was born. Lots of Ivy League and California law degrees. 

I'm going to vote "Yes" on all of them. And in the absence of some concerted campaign, so will the majority of other voters.