{"id":80849,"date":"2026-05-15T01:02:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=80849"},"modified":"2026-05-15T01:02:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:02:33","slug":"san-jose-mayor-matt-mahan-eyes-sacramento-on-housing-immigration-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=80849","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan Eyes Sacramento on Housing, Immigration, Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan believes that California\u2019s affordability crisis is a governance failure, one he has begun reversing as mayor of one of the state\u2019s largest and most diverse cities.<\/p>\n

Mahan, 43 \u2014 the only millennial in the Democratic primary field \u2014 told reporters during a May 7 American Community Media briefing that he wants a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, an overhaul of housing regulations and a state prosperity fund drawn from tech company tax revenues.<\/p>\n

With a population near one million, San Jose is the largest city in Northern California including the Bay Area, and the\u00a012th-largest<\/a>\u00a0city in the nation. It\u2019s also among the\u00a0most diverse<\/a>\u00a0cities in the nation, with\u00a0roughly 42%<\/a>\u00a0of residents foreign-born \u2014 nearly triple the national average.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s housing crisis<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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On the state level, it\u2019s a different story. California has\u00a0lost a congressional seat<\/a>\u00a0for the first time, and the culprit for this population decline is clear to Mahan: \u201cwe\u2019re not building enough housing,\u201d he said. \u201cMy sisters both moved out of state, so many of my friends have left.\u201d<\/p>\n

He attributed the shortage largely to decades of regulatory accumulation and, specifically, to the threat of construction liability lawsuits that have effectively killed the condo market.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s construction defect standards make it easier to sue a developer a decade after the fact, more than in any other state, he explained, making new condo projects nearly impossible to finance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the main reasons California has one of the country\u2019s\u00a0lowest<\/a>\u00a0rates of home ownership, 10% less than the national average,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are solvable problems because they\u2019re policy breakdowns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under his leadership, Mahan said San Jose has reduced homelessness by a third, streamlined permitting and design approval, broken ground on over 2,000 housing units in 2025 alone and cut building development fees \u2014 including affordable housing, traffic impact and park fees that he argued were suppressing supply.<\/p>\n

He called his housing plan the most comprehensive put forward in the governor\u2019s race and said he intends to bring the same focus to Sacramento.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it costs a million dollars to build a home, it\u2019s by definition not very affordable,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to acknowledge that decades of layering more rules, more process, more requirements, more reporting requirements, more legal risk, have led us to have less of the things we need \u2014 housing, energy, health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigration reform<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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On immigration, Mahan stopped short of endorsing the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) \u2014 a position at least two California gubernatorial candidates have staked out \u2014 but said the agency requires deep reform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what people really mean by that is somewhat of a symbolic statement,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause we will obviously have some level of enforcement of basic immigration rules. But where I share the sentiment \u2014 and it needs deep reform, if not a complete restart, which is what people are asking for \u2014 is starting with an acknowledgement of the humanity of all of the people within our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahan called for a pathway to \u201cpermanent legal status, ideally citizenship,\u201d for everyone already in the country, paired with a strengthened legal immigration system and a secured border.<\/p>\n

The more fundamental issue, he argued, is a bipartisan failure spanning decades: \u201cBoth parties were complicit and wanted low cost labor, and we had a very porous border, and people came back and forth regularly. That was certainly true in my hometown \u2026 and now it\u2019s become this political target, and we see people politicizing status and \u2026 country of origin as a way of scoring points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahan described growing up in Watsonville, a small farming town on the Central Coast \u201cwhere about a third of my neighbors were undocumented\u201d \u2014 \u201cthe hardest-working people I\u2019ve ever known,\u201d he said \u2014 and drew on that experience to explain the urgency he feels about the current federal posture: \u201cIt\u2019s put vulnerable people in an impossible position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under his leadership, San Jose has sued the Trump administration 12 times, multiplied by 20 the city\u2019s legal defense fund for immigrant residents and banned ICE agents from using city property to operate or wearing masks while operating within city limits.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he would prosecute ICE agents who violate California law, he was explicit: \u201cNo one\u2019s above the law. If you break the law, including as an ICE agent, you should be prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filling healthcare gaps<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On healthcare, Mahan acknowledged that federal cuts under the budget reconciliation package known as the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill<\/a>\u201d will outpace what California can backfill on its own.<\/p>\n

He said San Jose has partnered with Santa Clara County on a five-year sales tax measure to shore up some of those losses locally, but called that \u201ca bridge\u201d: \u201cWhere possible, we have to use our state and local budgets to fill the gap. The magnitude of the gap, the magnitude of the Trump cuts are so great that we won\u2019t be able to fully do that, so that\u2019s where we\u2019re going to have to evolve and get more creative.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to administrative overhead \u2014 which accounts for\u00a0up to 30%<\/a>\u00a0of healthcare costs in California \u2014 as the most immediate target for reform, and called for allowing out-of-state telehealth providers to practice in California, allowing nurses to work at the full scope of their licenses, expanding rural clinics staffed by nurse practitioners and using loan forgiveness to draw medical workers into underserved communities.<\/p>\n

Silicon Valley, AI and the workforce<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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On artificial intelligence and the threat of workforce displacement, Mahan said he supports taxing tech companies but wants to avoid regulations so costly that they drive the industry and its tax base to other states.<\/p>\n

He drew a historical parallel: \u201cWhen the tractor came along, 90% of the jobs in farming disappeared\u201d; when factory automation came, the same happened in manufacturing. \u201cThe service economy, particularly health care and education, is going to continue to grow. The building trades will continue to grow, but we have to prepare people,\u201d Mahan explained.<\/p>\n

He proposed a statewide \u201cshared prosperity fund\u201d in which all or \u201ca portion of\u201d the tax revenue generated by data centers and other tech infrastructure would be directed toward \u201cworkforce development, apprenticeships and reskilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we end up with 10% or 20% unemployment, we\u2019re going to need to experiment with new tools like a universal basic income,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause we have to protect people through these transitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In San Jose, the city has built a\u00a0government AI coalition<\/a>\u00a0now used by over 900 cities and counties nationally and internationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our policy and regulatory framework around the ethical and responsible use of AI. We\u2019re using AI on the one hand to speed up city buses and improve language translation, identify potholes faster,\u201d he explained. \u201cOn the other hand, we\u2019ve created upskilling curricula so that our workforce doesn\u2019t get left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he supports banning cell phones in schools, requiring parental consent for minors on social media and mandating human oversight in AI-assisted decisions touching healthcare, criminal justice and employment.<\/p>\n

Mahan pushed back on his opponents\u2019 attacks that he is beholden to Silicon Valley money.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have one of the most aggressive AI regulation platforms of any candidate in the race,\u201d he said, noting that \u201cSan Jose is not Palo Alto or Menlo Park. We\u2019re not where the tech billionaires are. We\u2019re a working-class, very diverse city.\u201d<\/p>\n

While San Jose\u2019s\u00a0median household income<\/a>\u00a0is $148,226 as of 2024, roughly one-and-a-half times the state median, it is nearly 10% lower than the Santa Clara County\u00a0median household income<\/a>\u00a0of $164,281.<\/p>\n

Some tech leaders have backed his campaign, he said \u201cbecause they\u2019ve seen the incredible results we\u2019ve delivered \u2026 on building housing, reducing crime, reducing homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that I am interested in giving them any special privileges,\u201d he added. \u201cI am not an ideologically rigid person. I\u2019m worried about rising populism on the right and the left. I want government to work. I believe the best resistance to authoritarianism is results, is making government work for people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySelen Ozturk May 13, 2026 Gubernatorial...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80850,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80849\/revisions\/80850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}