(Wealthy Pedroncelli / Related Press)
High job: California controller
Greatest splash: Throughout Yee’s tenure as controller, her company uncovered tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of native authorities misspending and questionable monetary practices at state businesses.
Particulars: Yee, 66, was born to Chinese language immigrant dad and mom and grew up in San Francisco, the place the household lived in a one-room residence behind their dry cleansing enterprise. Yee lives within the Bay Space along with her husband, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs. She is a Democrat.
Marketing campaign launch: March 2024
Yee served as state funds director beneath former Gov. Davis earlier than successful a seat on the California State Board of Equalization in 2006 and once more in 2010. She was elected state controller in 2014. Her audits and investigations from the controller’s workplace, she stated, discovered greater than $4 billion in misused funds. She gained reelection in 2018, and her second time period resulted in January 2023.
Yee has emphasised her monetary background and funds expertise, each of which may enchantment to California voters because the state grapples with a historic shortfall. Finances projections counsel the subsequent governor may stroll right into a difficult fiscal setting if state income doesn’t rebound.
When she introduced her marketing campaign, Yee spoke about how her modest beginnings crystallized her deal with the significance of economic well being. As a younger woman, she managed the books of the household enterprise and noticed firsthand how a foul week meant reducing again on groceries and different important spending for her and her 5 siblings, she stated.
A 2022 Occasions report detailed how Yee gave behind-the-scenes recommendation to a politically linked firm searching for a $600-million no-bid authorities contract to supply COVID-19 masks and raised questions on her involvement. Yee has stated that she had no monetary curiosity within the contract and that the recommendation was the identical she would supply any enterprise house owners.
Yee serves as a vice chair of the California Democratic Get together.
