Matt Mahan is the mayor of San Jose, but he’s looking to follow in the footsteps of a couple of earlier Bay Area city mayors who made that leap to the Sacramento mansion.
Mahan is one of several Democrats in this race, but when it comes to some of the issues in the state, he says that Democrats “can’t blame anybody else for the state’s failures.”
“The outcomes we're getting in the state are really a reflection of the policies that we've implemented and, in many cases, I think clung to even when they don't work,” he told Mike Simpson.
Mahan is also a big supporter of Prop 36, which takes a new approach to prosecution and sentencing, aimed at addressing theft, addiction, and homelessness.
“The reason I supported Prop 36 was actually it’s eminently pragmatic,” he said. “It said on your third offense, we can charge this as a felony and give you a choice between treatment and incarceration. That, to me, is the right balance of there's a consequence, we're taking crimes seriously, you're harming other people.”
You can listen to the full interview with Mahan here.
