Even though California voters have not elected a Republican to statewide office in 16 years, Lanhee Chen says an “‘R” next to his name is a benefit in the state controller’s race.
David Taub
Politics 101
“The controller should not have the same political interests, in my view, as every other elected state official. It would be like the person who writes the checks and the person who oversees the writing of the checks having the same political interest. You want a little bit of separation there,” Chen told Politics 101 during a stop in Fresno last week.
“Having a Republican who is going to be there to watch after taxpayer dollars, setting up that tension … with maybe other parts of the political system, I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Chen said.
The most recent registration statistics from January show that 47% of state voters registered as Democrats…
