California 2026 Lieutenant Governor, Weak Choices Breakdown

Ken Gray May 6, 2026 0 Comments

My Vote: Gloria Romero

California’s 2026 lieutenant governor race offers voters a wide field of candidates, but on a constitutionalist or limited‑government scorecard the choices are surprisingly thin. None of the major contenders are full‑fledged originalists, and most lean toward an active, progressive state model—leaving voters who prioritize restrained government with only partial matches rather than a clear fit.

California 2026 Lieutenant Governor: Who Comes Closest to a Constitutionalist Vision?

California’s 2026 lieutenant governor race features a crowded field, but only one major candidate—Gloria Romero—shows a clear, if partial, alignment with constitutionalist‑leaning principles. As you sift through platforms, values, and past records, the question becomes: which candidate actually walks the talk when it comes to limited government, procedural fidelity, and respect for individual and local authority?

Below is a breakdown of the leading contenders, their voting records, and where they land on the constitutionalist spectrum.

The Constitutionalism Angle

“Constitutionalist” voters in 2026 are typically looking for a politician who:

Respects limits on state power.
Favors checks on bureaucratic overreach.
Supports local or parental control in education.
Prefers explicit consent around taxes and political dues.

On this spectrum, Gloria Romero stands out as the closest fit, while Democratic front‑runners like Fiona Ma, Josh Fryday, and Michael Tubbs lean toward a more expansive, activist‑state model.

Gloria Romero: Limited‑Government, Parent‑Trigger Leader

Romero served as a Democratic State Senator from 2001 to 2010, including time as Senate Majority Leader, before leaving the party and joining the Republican Party in 2024. That realignment itself signals growing discomfort with the Democratic establishment’s centralization of power—a theme that echoes in her policy choices.

Two key parts of her record most closely align with constitutionalist‑adjacent thinking:

Parent‑Trigger Law (AB 1340 / 277)
As chair of the Education Committee, Romero authored a parent‑trigger statute that allows a majority of parents in a low‑performing school to vote to restructure it—turning it into a charter, replacing the staff, or closing it outright. This law reflects a belief that local families and communities, not distant bureaucracies, should have a decisive voice in school governance. It’s a structural constraint on entrenched school‑district power, which resonates with constitutionalist skepticism of unchecked administrative authority.
Support for Proposition 32 (2012)
After leaving the Senate, Romero became a prominent face of Proposition 32, which sought to:
- Ban payroll‑deduction political contributions from unions and corporations.
- Require workers to opt‑in to union dues–based political giving instead of being automatically enrolled via payroll deductions.
  The measure lost, but the underlying principle is strongly constitutionalist‑adjacent: government should not automatically channel worker earnings into political activity without explicit, individual consent. This aligns with a view that taxes and dues must respect individual autonomy and due process, not just serve as tools for institutional power.

Romero’s broader record is not uniformly conservative—she supported several progressive social‑policy measures—but her education‑control and dues‑consent priorities mark the clearest constitutionalist‑leaning signals in the race.

Fiona Ma: Reform‑Minded, Not Restricted‑Government

Fiona Ma, the current California State Treasurer and former Assemblymember, is best known as a technocratic reformer rather than a limited‑government constitutionalist. Her record is more about restructuring and modernizing government than shrinking its scope.

Highlighted themes in her record:

As a legislator, she focused on consumer protection, environmental regulation, and family‑safety laws, including banning toxic chemicals in baby products and strengthening domestic‑violence protections.
As a candidate for lieutenant governor, she has proposed amending the California Constitution to abolish the Board of Equalization and restructure the governor–lieutenant governor ticketing system, arguing this would save money and increase efficiency.

These moves are structural and procedural, but they assume a robust, regulatory state. Ma wants to make the machinery of government more effective and accountable, not to sharply limit what government can do. That puts her firmly on the technocratic‑progressive side of the ledger, not the constitutionalist one.

Josh Fryday: Progressive Service‑State Advocate

Josh Fryday’s background is overwhelmingly oriented toward expanding state‑led civic and climate‑service programs. A former Navy officer and attorney, he now serves as California’s Chief Service Officer and director of California Volunteers, overseeing large‑scale AmeriCorps‑style service programs.

His key constitutionalist‑relevant traits:

His public work helped feed into the American Climate Corps model promoted by the Biden administration, which depends on broad federal and state executive authority.
He has framed his role as defending universities, communities, and environmental protections from federal rollbacks, signaling a preference for assertive, progressive government rather than tightly bounded constitutional constraints.

On a constitutionalist spectrum, Fryday leans strongly toward a “living Constitution”‑style, activist‑state model. His record and messaging contradict a strict‑constructionist, limited‑government orientation.

Michael Tubbs: Equity‑First Governing Philosophy

Michael Tubbs, former two‑term mayor of Stockton, is nationally known for piloting universal‑basic‑income experiments and advancing equity‑driven social‑policy programs. His platform centers on using government as a primary engine to address poverty, housing, and racial disparities.

His voting‑record and policy patterns:

As mayor, he championed expansive social‑safety‑net initiatives and cross‑jurisdictional partnerships to tackle systemic inequity.
There is no significant public record of him arguing for strict constitutional limits on legislative or executive power; instead, he leans toward empowering state and local governments to redistribute resources and reshape opportunity structures.

Tubbs is closer to a progressive‑statist model than to a constitutionalist one. His instinct is to use, not constrain, state authority.

Bottom Line for Constitutionalist Voters

If you are looking for a 2026 lieutenant governor candidate whose past voting record and policy choices most closely echo constitutionalist‑leaning principles—especially around local control, parental authority in education, and limits on automatic political‑dues extraction—then Gloria Romero is your strongest match.

However, her record is mixed: she backed some progressive social‑policy measures, and her constitutionalist‑adjacent positions are embedded in a broader career that was largely Democratic‑mainstream until 2024. The other leading candidates—Ma, Fryday, and Tubbs—are all clearly aligned with an expansive, activist‑state vision of government, which is conceptually at odds with a strict constitutionalist worldview.

For a constitutionalist‑leaning voter in California, the 2026 lieutenant governor race is less about finding a perfect ideological match and more about choosing the candidate whose key structural and education‑control positions come the closest to respecting limits on state power and the autonomy of individuals and communities. On that narrower metric, Gloria Romero is the standout.