Valuetainment - ＂They CONTROL The Politicians＂ - Steve Hilton EXPOSES Who’s REALLY Running California

00:00:00.000 I want to ask you a very open-ended question.

00:00:01.940 Who runs California?

00:00:03.680 Is it the governor? 0.95

00:00:05.060 Is it the unions?

00:00:06.440 Is it the money, the billionaires?

00:00:08.140 Is it the NGOs?

00:00:09.800 Who's the most powerful institution or individual in California when it comes down to politics?

00:00:15.020 What a great question.

00:00:15.840 I'm going to answer it with a story, which is almost the reason that I'm doing this.

00:00:20.580 It's the closest thing to an actual moment when I thought I'm going to go for it.

00:00:26.740 Many people know me from Fox News.

00:00:28.480 I hosted a show there for many years.

00:00:30.000 but most of my career before then was in business and I worked a little bit in the government as

00:00:36.460 well in the UK before moving here with my wife and my two sons in 2012. I was senior advisor

00:00:41.300 to David Cameron in 10 Downing Street, responsible for implementing our policy reform program along

00:00:47.720 with many other people in the team there. So the reason I'm saying that is most of my career has

00:00:52.700 actually been doing things like trying to make change happen in the private sector, in government

00:00:57.440 And so over the years of being on TV, it was an amazing opportunity.

00:01:01.720 I loved it.

00:01:02.520 But I had an itch to get back to doing stuff.

00:01:05.800 And so a few years ago, I got back involved in policy and politics in California.

00:01:11.720 And the first issue I looked at was housing.

00:01:14.520 You just mentioned it.

00:01:15.480 Housing costs actually is the number one reason people are leaving the state.

00:01:19.000 It's just impossible.

00:01:20.320 You know, like hardly anyone can even imagine owning a home now in California.

00:01:25.700 $906,000.

00:01:26.840 It's something like, you know, I mean, we have the lowest home ownership in the country.

00:01:29.880 Anyway, so I started working on the issue, really learning about what's been driving it and so on.

00:01:35.000 And it took me to try to get an initiative qualified for the ballot that would address two of the big drivers of this insane cost.

00:01:44.620 One of them is a hidden tax on housing called impact fees, the development impact fees.

00:01:50.840 The second is something that's talked about a lot, which is, by the way, this really does answer your question.

00:01:59.260 Please, I'm with you.

00:02:00.780 I'm getting there.

00:02:02.200 Something called CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, passed in 1970.

00:02:11.120 And it was all about, when it started out, regulating pollution from big factories and so on.

00:02:17.620 But over the years, it's basically turned into a nightmare that blocks anything and holds up everything.

00:02:24.220 And one of the main problems with CEQA, this law, is that they've given this what they call a private right of action.

00:02:30.480 It means that anyone can file a lawsuit to enforce this environmental law.

00:02:36.980 Normally with stuff like that, it's the DA or the Attorney General.

00:02:40.620 You've got this private right of action.

00:02:42.240 Anyone can file a lawsuit.

00:02:43.880 70 percent of sequel lawsuits are used to block housing most of those are filed by unions

00:02:52.120 in order to negotiate with developers what they call project labor agreements where you have

00:02:58.800 union workers only or what they call prevailing wage which is two or three times higher than

00:03:04.180 market rate wages etc yep so the second component of this ballot initiative was was ending this

00:03:09.640 private right of action. So at a stroke, you stop all these nuisance lawsuits that block housing.

00:03:15.020 Didn't raise the money to get it on the ballot. Then I started engaging with Sacramento. I thought

00:03:19.660 maybe we can make it happen through the regular political process. And that's when I ran into

00:03:24.980 the answer to your question, who runs California? I started having meetings with the legislators,

00:03:30.540 one particular person. They said, you've got to talk to this person. They're really good on housing.

00:03:35.800 You work with them.

00:03:37.100 You're going to make some progress.

00:03:38.140 We had a great meeting.

00:03:39.720 This person really, the Democrat member of the state legislature,

00:03:44.740 said, your plan is fantastic if we make this happen.

00:03:47.320 It's transformational.

00:03:48.340 That was the word.

00:03:49.220 I said, great.

00:03:50.140 Let's work together on it.

00:03:52.000 I'm a Republican.

00:03:52.900 This person was a Democrat.

00:03:54.140 Is this a heavyweight?

00:03:54.960 Is this a heavyweight person?

00:03:56.320 No, you wouldn't have heard their name.

00:03:57.600 And I'm not going to say their name because actually it was a private meeting.

00:03:59.860 But privately, is it a heavyweight person?

00:04:01.520 Not publicly?

00:04:02.020 Because there's a lot of heavyweight private people.

00:04:03.740 It's a midway.

00:04:04.320 I'm going to say midway.

00:04:04.800 Okay, fair.

00:04:05.080 But a legislator, an elected, but anyway, I said, let's work together.

00:04:09.760 Well, I couldn't support you publicly.

00:04:11.860 She's telling you this.

00:04:12.940 Why not? 0.94

00:04:14.260 Well, the unions would hate it.

00:04:17.180 I said, yeah, but you just told me it'd be transformational.

00:04:19.880 We were in an office overlooking the state capitol, like this with their arm, like this.

00:04:27.480 Well, the unions run this place.

00:04:29.840 That's an elected member of the legislature saying the unions run this place.

00:04:35.080 And you just think, what is this? It's ridiculous. And that's the most clear answer to your question, 0.98

00:04:43.460 the unions. And when people ask me, how did California get like this? How do we go from

00:04:48.940 having the most amazing opportunities anywhere, not just in America, but in the world? If we agree

00:04:55.640 that America is the greatest nation on earth, which is what I think, California is the greatest

00:04:59.660 state. There's something I always say, which is California means to America what America means to

00:05:04.500 the world it represents everything that's amazing about our country ambition and opportunity and

00:05:10.040 energy and hustle and all those things and yet it's been crushed that spirit's been crushed over

00:05:14.860 the years and people say well how did it get i wrote a book last year it came out last year just

00:05:19.940 before my campaign called caliphailia reversing the ruin of america's worst run state i tried to

00:05:24.520 trace it back and my conclusion was it all started when the unions were given collective bargaining

00:05:29.900 rights and over the years built up this incredible power this lock on policy it's the government

00:05:36.820 unions not just government unions non-government unions as well and so they do run so unions run

00:05:41.900 california basically specific give me a specific three unions is one going to be the teacher's

00:05:46.040 union which means that now the education so let's look at the outcomes we spend nearly the most of

00:05:51.480 any state um newsom brags about it he just did his budget last week 28 000 per student per year

00:05:58.960 one of the highest in the country for the worst results pretty much we have now 47 percent meet

00:06:05.220 basics of k-12 students meet basic standards in english with math it's 35 65 don't meet the 0.88

00:06:13.540 standards when you look at latino and black kids it's even worse most money worse results why

00:06:19.220 because the teacher unions have a lock on anything to do with education and they've completely

00:06:25.020 distorted the system so it's not about education it's about indoctrination and that's not some

00:06:30.100 exaggeration you go to their conferences and you see what their sessions are about and their

00:06:34.640 training and all the stuff they're pumping out it's it's ideological indoctrination it's it's

00:06:40.640 it's colonialism and gender extremism all this stuff meanwhile the kids don't get taught to read

00:06:48.180 you've got techniques for teaching kids to read that work that we've seen work elsewhere

00:06:54.420 the debate over that was settled decades ago.

00:06:56.520 Phonics, it's a technique for teaching kids to read,

00:06:58.920 barely used in California public schools

00:07:00.640 because the teachers don't like it

00:07:02.580 because they think it's racist or something.

00:07:04.460 You know, it really is, it's not every single thing,

00:07:07.720 but the best answer to your question is the unions.

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Valuetainment - May 25, 2026

＂They CONTROL The Politicians＂ - Steve Hilton EXPOSES Who’s REALLY Running California

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