Whenever I'm criticized, I ask them the following.

Do you have a job?

Do you have health care?

Do you have a pension?

And when they're screaming at me, and I say, "And if you do, you ought to thank me."

I had the courage in both instances to take on my friends.

There's still uh people that I support and believe in.

I just said to your people, you need a union.

You know, we have one.

We have two.

Actually, I'm a big believer in unions.

But I also have said this, when your interest meets the public interest, I'm with you.

When it's your interest, I respect that you got to fight for your interest.

But if it's not in the public interest, I can't be with you.

And so that, I think, is an example of what we need in the next governor.

Someone who's willing to say to their friends to a reporter who's covered them and done a really nice job, say, "I disagree with you.

you're wrong.

That's frankly what a proven problem solver, somebody who's done this kind of thing before, if you notice everybody else in this race, everything they say is in agreement with these people.

And you know what?

When you agree with somebody on everything, something's a-miss.

Hey everyone from KQED in San Francisco, this is Political Breakdown.

I'm Marisa Lagos and I'm Scott Shafer.

Today on the breakdown, we continue our series with the many candidates vying to be California's next governor.

A decade ago, today's guest was mayor of Los Angeles.

Before that, speaker of the state assembly.

Now, Antonio Villaraigosa is asking voters to make him governor.

It's Villaraigosa's second run for the top job.

The Democrat cast himself as a pragmatist who can stand up to President Donald Trump while still helping lower costs for California families.

Antonio Villaraigosa, welcome to Political Breakdown.

Thank you, Marisa.

Great to be here.

Well, we're thrilled to have you.

We're opening this series uh asking everyone the same question, which is who are you politically and what is your vision for this state?

I'm a problem solver.

Uh you mentioned I was speaker of the California State Assembly uh where I balanced two budgets with a surplus.

Yes.

With a Republican governor when we had 42 votes and a Democratic governor when we had 48.

We didn't have a supermajority.

I had to work with other people to get that surplus and author the biggest expansion of health care since Medi-Cal, the healthy families programs.

Millions of kids have had that health care as a result.

Author of the Carl Moyer Act the biggest effort to clean up the air since the Clean Air Act until AB32 and SB32.

It was a grant program to incentivize truckers and operators of heavy duty machinery to be able to use clean machinery and clean fuel machinery.

When I was mayor, LA was one of the most violent big cities in America.

When I was done, a 48% drop in crime and with New York the safest big city.

One out of three schools were failing.

By the time I left, it was a 60% increase.

Built more infrastructure than anybody, United States of America.

About 25% of all the cranes in the US were in LA in the middle of a recession, by the way.

And then finally, number one American city in reducing greenhouse gases, number five in the world.

We need a problem solver right now.

This state's given me more than I could have ever imagined, but it's a state with big challenges.

Let's be honest.

Yeah.

We're going to talk more about your plans if you become governor, but we want to talk about how you got to where you are today.

You were born in East LA.

Uh your dad was an abusive alcoholic who left when you were five.

Your mom was a state worker and an activist, I think.

Tell us about her.

God, you know, my mom struggled to make ends meet.

She suffered abuses as you said.

by my father who left when I was five.

She always believed in her kids.

She always said to us, we grew up in uh the Ellis Island of LA, Boyle Heights.

So it was Jews, Japanese Americans, Mexicans, Blacks, living in the projects, and some Armenians.

And what we say back then you know the reason why we all lived there is because that was one of the few places that didn't have covenants with the land that prevented us from living in other places and because we lived among Jews and Japanese Americans.

My mom used to say all the time, education, education, education.

And she tried, you know, to put us in Catholic school when she could and when she got divorced, in public school, but she always said that nobody could take away your education.

So she was a woman of indomitable faith in God, loved this country, but always told us, "Be proud of where you come from."

And we were.

My sister's a superior court judge.

My brother's an investment banker.

My other sister runs a large medical nonprofit for indigents.

You know, America's been good to me.

But my mom is the reason for everything I've been able to do.

Well, in addition to some of the hardships you just described, you had a benign tumor when you were 16 that left you briefly paralyzed, I believe.

How, I mean, talk about that and how it affected you at that age.

You know, my mom actually didn't tell me what I had.

We we got to the hospital.

And for three weeks they didn't know what I had.

They finally discovered I had a a tumor wrapped around all my nerves in my spine.

All I knew was I hadn't seen my father since I was five.

He came and he was crying.

My stepdad who never showed a lot of love was crying.

My mother was crying.

Everybody was crying.

And then the priest came.

I didn't really know what was going on.

Everybody but I knew it was serious.

And thank God uh they were able to take most of it.

I still have the tumor in the spine.

It's wrapped around all the nerves and if they cut it out I would be paralyzed from the waist down.

So yeah, it was a traumatic time.

I was playing football.

I was running track.

That ended and actually it kind of was the beginning of a of a downfall, if you will.

I got involved, you know, in drugs.

I got a big fight, right?

Got kicked out of school, was fighting all the time.

I was an ang- Well, were you angry?

I was an angry kid.

Yeah, I was just an angry kid.

And um but I was also somebody who fought like protecting against the bully, you know, when they beat up the Japanese Americans or the Jewish kids.

I was or the kids with polio or the kids looking back that were gay but at the time feminine.

I'd be the one always saying leave them alone.

Um and but yeah, I was an angry kid.

Got kicked out of school.

But I was in a college prep Catholic school.

I go to public school and they put me uh in basic reading classes, basic math classes, and upholstery class.

So, I ended up dropping out.

I got back in because I had a mother that really believed in me.

If I could say something, if you want a story, I had just come home from a fight.

I was full of blood.

She thought I'd been stabbed because I had been stabbed a few months before with a screwdriver.

Oh, wow.

She says, "What happened?"

I said, "Uh, don't worry.

It was the other guy's blood."

In the morning, she sees a bandage on my arm and she said, "What's that?"

Uh, it was my third tattoo.

And and back then, nobody had tattoos except for sailors and pachucos or cholos, you know, gang members at the time.

And so my mother freaked out and she started to cry and she said, "You don't believe in you, but I believe in you.

You are destined for greatness and you don't even know it."

Now, at the time that was just, you know, I saw it as, you know, a mother doting on her son and, you know, exaggerating about their talents.

But, you know, that summer I ended up going back to school.

I had a great teacher, Herman Katz, who saw some talent, took me out of the basic reading class into a power reading class, got me to take the SAT, tried to pay for it.

Um, you know, in my other inspiration, you were talking about people who inspired you as a kid, and you recently said that when you were about 15, uh, you met Caesar Chavez and the great boycott that he was leading, and that really inspired you.

There have been a lot of revelations in the past week about him.

How are you thinking about him and his legacy and all of it that we we have learned so recently?

Well, as I said in a statement the day after reading the the New York Times article, it was a punch to the gut.

I've been inspired by him virtually my entire life.

I first got involved in the Civil Rights movement, civil liberties movement because of him and Dolores Huerta.

I didn't meet him on the same day, but I met him around the same time at the same Joaquin Murrieta center because we were working on the great boycott.

And look, it feels like a punch in the gut and as we've all said, it's a stain on his memory that will always be a part of him.

At the same time you know I think our hearts and you know prayers are with the victims who had the courage to come forward including Dolores Huerta.

I think it, you know, I was just passing Cesar Chavez Boulevard here and I thought soon it's they're going to change the name of the street.

And while that's right and important, I think at some point people will also say you can't erase all of what he did.

But what he's done is certainly a black mark on his legacy.

It's interesting.

There's actually an elementary school not far from Cesar Chavez Boulevard that is named Dolores Huerta.

So we have a Well, I named the school after Dolores Huerta.

You know, it's interesting.

I'm not saying I was pressing in any way, but I had an opportunity to name it after Cesar about 20 years ago, and I decided to name it after Dolores because I felt like people really didn't acknowledge her enough back then and I felt like there are enough schools are about named after Cesar.

What about Dolores?

So, I named one of my schools after Dolores.

By the way, that's those schools the graduation rate it was 36% not 44 when I became mayor.

Uh that graduation rate of my schools now are 92%.

Wow.

I want to ask you about your name.

You were born Antonio Villar and you changed your name to Villaraigosa when you married your first wife Karina Raigosa.

I just wonder like this was not an era where that was common at all for a man to sort of change his name to take on part of your your wife's name.

Why did you do it?

And did you ever think about changing it back?

I was a progressive and I am still and I believe what we were we were at a party and someone said, "I hear you're getting married," and they asked us if she was going to take my name and bit of a sexist and on some levels I answered for her and I said of course not she's going to keep her own name and then she looked at me and she said no I'm taking on your name and then I said well if you're taking on my name I'm taking on your name and then a month later uh someone said I hear you're taking on each other's names what's it going to be and she said hers was going to be Raigosa-Villar Mine was going to be Villar-Raigosa.

And then the person asked, "What are the kids' names going to be?"

And I immediately said, "They're going to have my name."

And then she said, "No, they're going to have my name."

So then I came up with two people.

Coming together, making one.

My name ended in R. Her name started in R, blended together.

My name individual, her name individual and then people started doing it all over LA.

Yeah.

But there aren't many Villar- other than your children.

There aren't many people named Villaraigosa, right?

Well, my nephew whose father doesn't have a relationship as well.

Good name.

Well, let's talk about move forward a little bit your career.

You worked at a law firm representing poor folks.

You were an investigator for the Center for Law and Justice.

Center for Law and Justice.

Got it.

And I think you worked also for the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees.

You were an organizer for the United Teachers LA.

What drew you to organizing?

And then we'll talk a little bit about your relationship with unions.

The great boycott, the UFW.

I was steward, chief steward of the American Federation of Government Employees representing workers at the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

I ran for president at 25 or 26.

I ran for national president at 28, lost by seven votes.

So, I've lost elections before and you know, worked for the teachers union, worked for SEIU.

I'm a union person and I believe in unions.

But you've also clashed with unions over the years, including, you know, when you were mayor, you really took a strong hand trying to take more power over the LAUSD school district.

I know in your first race for governor, you were, you know, supported by the charter schools associations.

The CTA really came out against you.

I wonder just like how you think about that and what like what are your critiques of unions?

Why have you seen in certain situations you're not going to line up always with them?

It wasn't a critique of unions.

It was an understanding that LA was not going to succeed with a school district where one out of three schools were failing.

Where the San Fernando Valley, which is the epicenter of the middle class, was going to secede from LA Unified.

It was an understanding that poor kids can learn and and that they should have access to the best schools.

So, it actually started with that in mind.

Over time we had a conflict because I wanted to set the highest expectations.

I didn't accept this notion that because they're poor or they're English language learners or someone said their mother doesn't have a credit card that they can't learn.

And so, as an example, in my schools today, before me, they would only test for gifted if the parent or the teacher asked for it.

In my schools, we test everyone for gifted.

And guess what?

The number of gifted kids went up 25%.

Gifted kids aren't just the kids of rich kids or uh, you know, they come in every color and they come in every socioeconomic background.

with respect to other clashes.

LA was going bankrupt, the pensions, I said not under my watch.

And whenever some, you know, I wasn't I didn't run on that.

I wasn't looking to fight with uh our city unions, but whenever I'm criticized, I ask them the following.

Do you have a job?

Do you have healthcare?

Do you have a pension?

And when they're screaming at me, and I say, and if you do, you ought to thank me.

I had the courage in both instances to take on my friends.

There's still people that I support and believe in.

I just said to your people, you need a union.

You know, we have two.

But I'm a big believer in unions.

But I also have said this, when your interest meets the public interest, I'm with you.

When it's your interest, I respect that you got to fight for your interest.

But if it's not in the public interest, I can't be with you.

Yeah.

And so that I think is an example of what we need in the next governor.

Someone who's willing to say to their friends to a reporter who's covered them and done a really nice job say, "I disagree with you.

You're wrong."

That's frankly what a proven problem solver, somebody who's done this kind of thing before.

If you notice everybody else in this race, everything they say is in agreement with these people.

And you know what?

When you agree with somebody on everything, something's a-miss.

Well, here's one thing you didn't agree about, which is who was invited to this debate recently at USC.

Uh you and Xavier Becerra and the other lower polling folks were not invited.

Matt Mahan, who's actually polling below you, did get invited and raised less money by about three million.

Yeah.

And so there was a big protest led by you and legislative leaders up in Sacramento.

The debate got cancelled.

It's not happening.

Are voters better off, do you think?

Absolutely.

With no debate?

No.

They're better off that first of all there's an old maxim you can't change the rules in the middle of the game.

Initially they had said it was polling and fundraising.

Then they added this new formula that who's raised the money the fastest.

And from my vantage point you have the majority of people on the Democratic side are undecided.

And so to winnow the election in the way that they were trying to do was a disservice to the voters.

People haven't been watching this election.

Why?

Because they're struggling every day to make ends meet because Trump has sucked the air out of all the news.

Nobody's covering this election.

You mentioned I've done this before.

You know, we we have a stronger field this time around, but you know, you hear some people say, "Well, they're not excited by the candidates."

Just not true.

They're struggling every day and they're not focused on it.

So, they shouldn't have canceled it, but let me put the onus not on SC.

Uh, let me put the onus on ABC and Univision.

SC last week tried to get them to do the right thing.

They wouldn't do it and in the end SC canceled it.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the president because you cite standing up to him as your number one priority on your campaign website.

I'm curious like what do you think that looks like as somebody with the long career you've had.

How would you be different in the governor's office than any other Democrat in this field?

Well, first of all, what I've said is um we have a lot of problems that have nothing to do with Donald Trump.

Starting with the affordability problem.

At the Democratic convention I said, I laid out highest gas prices, second highest utility costs, second highest home prices.

I said this happened under our watch and I'm going to take responsibility and fix it.

But we can chew gum and uh rub our tummy at the same time.

Donald Trump is coming at us.

He's coming at us with these Trump raids, ICE raids.

I have an ICE plan to address that.

He's coming at us with these tariffs that disproportionately impact California because we export more than any state except for Texas except that they only export oil.

We export everything.

And finally, he's coming at us.

You know, they still haven't given us the FEMA money for, for well for the Palisades and Altadena, and that's absolutely unacceptable.

He's targeting us in every way.

And I will push back.

I tell people, we'll push back in the courts, at the ballot box, and we got to build a movement.

I started out in the, you know, in the Chicano movement, in the Civil Rights movement as a labor leader.

Who better to take on Donald Trump than someone who comes from a history of organizing?

And make no mistake, the cancellation, you know, I'm an organizer.

We organized and we pushed back.

And by the way, Democrat, Republican, and independent said, "Hold it.

This is not the right way to go."

You were listing the problems that are not Donald Trump's fault.

And you mentioned gas prices, which have been high in California for a long time.

My brother was just here from New Hampshire.

He couldn't believe how high the prices were.

So what would you do?

Like you say you're going to tackle that problem.

Just take that one problem.

What are you going to do?

Because those the reason one reason the taxes, you know, the taxes are higher.

We want cleaner air out here.

There's a, you know, a cleaner blend.

So what would you do?

What you have to sacrifice something.

You can't just say we're going to charge less for gas.

First of all, one one candidate said they'll cut the gas price, uh, the gas tax.

That's about 51 cents, right?

Uh what I've said instead, we'll have a a rebate from the state uh on a monthly basis whenever gas prices go over $5.50 a gallon.

I have a more comprehensive look.

I know why gas prices are so high.

They're on average $2 a gallon more than the rest of the country.

We produce in this state the cleanest fuel in the United States.

Some say the cleanest fuel in the world.

We over rely on foreign oil.

And I've been saying that since I first got in this race.

So what do we need to do?

We need to slow down the overregulation of refineries because if we close one more one more USC says gas prices are going to $8.75 a gallon.

If we want everybody to abandon the climate fight, pick up gas prices to $8.75 a gallon.

So, what's what are some other things we need to do real clearly?

Uh we need to make sure that those refineries are operating even cleaner.

There are carbon sequestration and other technologies that they can employ.

So I'm saying we ought to fasttrack those technologies or the approval of those technologies so that we can have even cleaner refineries.

I've said as well that if you look at Norway, one of the greenest countries in the world, they produce their own oil and gas.

That's how they pay for the greening of Norway.

We we've, in our zeal to get to all net zero, we're missing the forest for the trees everybody.

We need an all of the above energy solution that doesn't rely over rely on foreign oil, which we're seeing is only going to pick up gas prices even further.

I mean, this is all happening as the state not only faces projected ongoing deficits, structural deficits, but a lot of attacks from the Trump administration, you know, through their big policy bill, the cuts to Medicaid, you mean the big ugly bill, right?

Uh, you can characterize it and he can characterize I'll just call it his big policy bill.

I mean, how are you thinking about bringing revenue in line with expenditures?

like what would you cut?

Especially given again the ongoing attacks we're seeing.

I mean the state has filed dozens of lawsuits to try to claw back a lot of that money.

Marisa, you asked why me?

I have a record.

I balanced two budgets with a surplus.

How many times have we've done that?

I did that in the '90s.

I took when Wall Street said LA was going bankrupt.

I said not under my watch.

I took on my friends and I made a lot of tough calls.

The next governor is going to have to live within our means the way Jerry Brown did.

Jerry Brown left us with a $300 million surplus.

Uh we're looking at, according to the LAO, multiple years of an $18 to 35 billion surplus.

Most of my colleagues are saying the answer is a billionaire tax.

They're just going to go.

They're already leaving.

I tell people if you want a billionaire tax, they should pay more than we do.

I think we all agree on that.

It should be done at the federal level, not at the state level.

Secondly, they're saying, "Let's make permanent the 13%."

It's the highest income tax in the United States."

I said, "I could maybe do that, but only if like Brown did when he first proposed it, we put out a spending plan that demonstrates we're going to live within our means."

Who better to do that than someone who's done it before?

Mhm.

Everybody's going to say they're going to do that.

Finally, if you want more revenue, let's free up small business.

You know, one thing is saying we're going to go after major corporations and, you know, close tax loopholes.

Why don't we support small business, which is the motor force of the California economy.

Let's get behind them.

Let's free up the innovations in the state, the entrepreneurial spirit of those things.

That's a way to grow it.

In the middle of that recession, I cut the gross receipts tax.

Everybody said, "Why are you doing that?"

I brought more businesses into LA.

I came up with innovative financing to bring those 25% of the you know cranes into LA.

And as governor, we'll build again.

We'll invest in the way I did in LA.

We're almost out of time, but we're asking all the candidates for governor this one last question, which is where do you take an out of state visitor to give them a taste of California?

And taste can be literal or otherwise.

Yeah.

Food, but yeah.

The Watts Towers.

Say more.

Never been.

The Watts Towers, was built by Simon Rodia in the 1920s, an Italian immigrant who pieced together throwaway objects he got and salvaged that he found on the streets.

shards of glass, metal, and built this tower of hope and promise.

Uh, a dream of what LA could look like and, you know, a dream for him of what his life could look like.

Discarded shards of glass and everything else that became a symbol of hope.

And so, I take them there because people aren't expecting for me to take them to Watts.

And by the way, in my time, Watts went without a homicide for 18 months for the first time since 1951.

Antonio Villaraigosa, thank you so much for coming up today.

All right, that is going to do it for today.

Before we go, a few notes.

Do you have any thoughts or feedback on our governor series or the podcast in general?

Send us an email.

We're at politicalbreakdown@kqed.org.

You can also find all our interviews for governor in our podcast feed in the coming weeks.

and you can watch them on the KQED News YouTube channel.

For now, that is a wrap for Thursday, March 26.

Political Breakdown is a production of KQED.

Our engineer today is Christopher Beale.

Our producer is Emiko Oda.

Our video team includes Matt Morales, Alex Tran, Jim McKee, and Vivian Morales.

I'm Scott Shafer, and I'm Marisa Lagos.

See you next time.