Steve Hilton Has Plans to Solve California's Affordability Crisis

Steve Hilton at the Win-River Casino

Steve Hilton Visited Redding to Present His Vision for California and Wants to Win the Gubernatorial Race for His Friend Charlie Kirk

On September 13^th, Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Hilton, held a breakfast event at the Win-River Casino to introduce himself to those in attendance and present his plans for turning California’s cost of living crisis around.  First, however, the room was led in prayer by Turning Point USA local chapter leader, Evan Jones, who received a standing ovation when he was introduced.  Dressed in a black suit and poised, this young man prayed for Charlie Kirk’s family and for our nation. 

Steve Hilton then welcomed the crowd and began speaking about his love for California and how his family has visited the North State on family trips.  He lives in the Bay Area and joked that “People who reside there say they live in Northern California, but that’s really not Northern California. You need to travel further north to see the mountains, rivers, lakes, and forests.”  However, he then switched gears, emotionally explaining that this was his first public appearance since losing his good friend Charlie Kirk (who was cruelly assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10^th).  His friendship with Charlie started about 10 years ago when Charlie was just 22 years old and was one of the first guests on his show on Fox News called “The Next Revolution”, a weekly current affairs show.  Hilton was very impressed from the start with Charlie, describing him as “so smart, so clever, so well prepared; it was obvious he had read so much.”  Charlie Kirk was an entrepreneur, building his Turning Point USA organization out of nothing, into the force it is today.  Steve, himself, had started companies and said he knows how hard that is to do.  Early on, during the COVID pandemic, in March 2020, he and Charlie were communicating about their shared opinion that the lockdowns were ridiculous and needed to end immediately.  They called President Trump to try to convince him to end the lockdowns, but unfortunately, others in the White House had a different opinion that Trump ended up following.  About a year ago, Charlie had an event in California, but he had lost his voice, and asked Steve if he would speak for him.  There was a book signing and Steve witnessed the effect Charlie had on the people there.  Steve noticed the light in Charlie’s eyes and his smile.  Steve said that Charlie loved California and would say “I have a heart for California.”  He hated to see what the left had done to it.  When Steve mentioned to Charlie that he wanted to run for governor, Charlie wanted to help him make plans and Charlie endorsed Steve.  Steve also has endorsements from Pastor Jack Hibbs, and U.S. Representative Kevin Kiley among others. 

Steve was born in England, his parents were Hungarian, and they had fled Hungary to escape communism in search of freedom.  Steve worked hard and obtained a degree from Oxford University, which he said made his grandmother very proud.  He was then able to get a job with the Conservative Party in England and in a few years, worked his way up the political landscape to become a senior advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron.  In 2012, looking for new opportunities, he moved to California, and taught at Stanford University as well as hosting the show at Fox News.  Over the years, he has traveled throughout the state and met with many people.  He has been developing plans for how to bring back the California dream, to make the state more affordable for young people just starting out, wanting to marry and raise a family.   

Steve passionately spoke about wanting to improve election integrity by requiring voter ID, protecting free speech, cutting taxes, and cutting the burdensome regulations in California.  He said that if we allow the State to once again extract its vast oil resources, this will bring the price of gas down and reduce the environmental impact of having to ship Iraqi oil on tankers from half-way around the world.  The price of housing would come down if we cut the increasingly burdensome regulations and cut down our own timber rather than having to import it from Canada.  We said we need responsible forest management, which hasn’t been the case for quite a few years and this has led to catastrophic fires and higher insurance premiums, with many insurers fleeing the state.  Also, artificial premium rate caps were put in place which led to insurance companies refusing to do business in the State.   Steve stated that if you couple that with the high construction costs in our state, the insurers could no longer afford to do business here.

Steve has various ideas of how to turn the state around despite the legislature being heavily one-sided right now under Democratic control.  He will be fighting for parental rights, school choice, back-to-basics education and teacher accountability.  He said we can make changes through appointing common-sense-driven people to existing agencies and commissions, and by bringing lawsuits against unconstitutional laws.  He stated we need to defeat Proposition 50 which would further disenfranchise Republican voters who represent about 40% of the State’s electorate but only have 25% of the seats in the legislature due to Democrats gerrymandering the districts.  This disparity would be much worse with the political power-grabbing mid-cycle redistricting plan. 

Steve has filed a lawsuit against the redistricting plan in Federal District Court under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  Every vote should have equal value; however, he said that a Democratic vote will have three times the value of a Republican vote due to the unlawful way the districts are drawn.

Steve wants to end the inflated welfare for illegal immigrants, relating a story about an Afghani man driving a taxi and wanting to be paid in cash.  Upon further conversation with the man, he revealed that he was getting $7,000 per month in welfare from the State and getting his groceries delivered to his house for free.  This system is unfair to the hard-working people of the State.  One woman in the audience related her story of being a single mother on welfare, wanting to attend college to obtain a nursing degree.  She could have worked during the summer months but if she worked and earned too much money, she would lose her welfare check that she depended on the rest of the year. 

Steve says that he is more fired up now than ever to win the State’s highest office because he knows that is exactly what his friend Charlie Kirk would have wanted him to do.  He said we should fight for the ideals that Charlie stood for with a smile and joy in our hearts.  “We are going to win this for Charlie”.

Other Republican candidates in the race for Governor include Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, and Pastor Dr. Che´ Ahn who is known for successfully suing Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020 at the U.S. Supreme Court, defending the constitutional right of churches to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democratic candidates for Governor are:  former U.S. Congressional Representative Katie Porter, former Attorney General and President Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra, businessman Stephen Cloobeck, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate Toni Atkins, former State Controller Betty Yee, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.