California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer stopped in Santa Barbara on Wednesday for a town hall event, where he discussed his views on immigration, housing and big oil companies.
Steyer’s campaign for California governor has earned more attention recently since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race following sexual assault allegations.
Steyer is a billionaire entrepreneur running as a Democrat for the seat.
Santa Barbara Assemblyman Gregg Hart introduced Steyer, crediting him as a politician who listens to people and as someone who wants to make California more affordable.
“He’s here to try and make California affordable again, starting with housing and education and utility bills, and making sure we’re making the investments on climate that we need to do to make these things sustainable,” Hart said.
About 100 people had to listen to the town hall event from outside the Santa Museum of Natural History auditorium after the room reached capacity. Before taking the stage, Steyer addressed the crowd outside, apologizing for the small venue.
Once on stage, Steyer spoke for about 10 minutes before accepting questions from the crowd for the next hour.
“We’ve had probably 45 years of working people in California getting screwed, and they have been underrepresented, the corporate special interests are very well represented, and we need to turn that around,” Steyer said.
One of the first questions of the night was about what Steyer would do to stop immigration officials arresting community members. The person asking the question spoke about local arrests and argued that Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown “colludes” with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and isn’t supportive of the immigrant community.
“California is a sanctuary state, which means that no police officer or law officer can collude or cooperate with ICE agents, except in terms of violent criminals, so that sheriff is not obeying the law, just to be clear,” Steyer said.
If elected, Steyer said, he would make racial profiling illegal and investigate detention centers.
“We can prosecute people who commit violence against Californians and the people who send them to do it, not just the agents, but the people who send them to do it,” Steyer said. “We can do that.”
One attendee raised concerns about builder’s remedy projects, such as the 18-story project proposed in Carpinteria, and asked what Steyer would do to balance the need for housing while protecting open space.
Steyer emphasized the need to build more housing, with a plan to build a million units in four years, shorten permitting times, reduce the cost of permitting, change zoning, and build differently.
“Actually construct off site and assemble on site, which, if we do that, we think we can drop the cost per square foot by at least a third,” Steyer said, “and also provide money to the cities and counties so that they actually feel like it’s OK to have new housing because it’s not an unfunded mandate requiring new education dollars and health care dollars that they don’t have.”
He also said he wanted to work with individual counties and cities to build housing in a way that works for specific areas.
“In every place there are going to be trade-offs, but the idea that not building is a victimless crime, that nobody’s hurt, is not true, you guys,” Steyer said. “People are suffering because of the high rents and the cost of housing to buy.”
When it comes to environmental issues, Steyer said he wants to make polluters pay more for natural disasters, work with community leaders to address pollution, create a windfall profits tax that gives money to residents, and establish a carbon sequestration program that will take carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere and store it in the ground or ocean.
“Our corrupt oil king wants us to keep using their oil so they can keep getting rich,” Steyer said. “But the people of the world have a much better, cheaper solution across the board, and we need to adopt it right now and not feel sorry for them.”
Resident Alan Maltun said he went to the town hall because he had seen Steyer’s commercials but wanted to learn more about his actual ideas.
“I think he’s kind of inspiring, and I think he’s authentic,” Maltun said “He believes in what he says, and we’ll see. I think, from our point of view, he’s probably our choice for governor.”
Maltun said he was interested in Steyer’s ideas about the obligations that big companies have to Californian workers and communities.
“I was impressed that he seems to have studied some of these problems,” Maltun said. “I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for some of these ideas that he has to come to fruition, but I think he believes in what he says, and that’s a big plus. I think his heart is in the right place.”
Read more about the offices on the ballot in 2026 in Noozhawk’s Elections section.
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