San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is giving Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California woeful marks on homelessness, drugs and crime, saying the state has failed miserably on the issues voters care most about.
“Let’s just grade government in California. It’s definitely not an A — we’d be lucky to get a C right now,” Mahan told Fox40’s Nikki Laurenzo. “We’ve got to do better.”
The law-and-order Dem knocked Newsom for odd decisions on public safety and homelessness during an interview on Inside California Politics.
“We have a pretty big debate apparently on things like Prop. 36 and recovery housing,” he said.
The mayor, a frequent Newsom critic, knocked the governor for vetoing a bill that could have made it easier for local governments to use state housing funds for badly needed sober living homes.
The bill, AB 255, would have tweaked California’s controversial “Housing First” policy — which requires homeless people to be granted permanent housing regardless of drug use or addiction. Supporters say that addicts need housing first to kick bad habits, but critics argue that the policy has turned state-funded housing into drug dens and made it harder for well-intentioned tenants to stay clean.
“I just want to know, practically, why that isn’t a good idea because we’re funding a Salvation Army site here that’s getting amazing results and I think the state ought to help us in offering that as an option,” Mahan told the outlet.
Newsom, in his veto message, claimed the sober housing bill would be costly and duplicative.
Mahan has flirted with a run for governor, telling Laurenzo he hasn’t “ruled it out” amid a lackluster Democratic field that includes Rep. Eric Swalwell, Rep. Katie Porter, former attorney general Xavier Becerra, ex-LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.
Asked if he and Newsom have “beef,” Mahan — who’s slammed Newsom in the past for grandstanding social media antics — called him a talented political leader.
But the San Jose mayor also hit Newsom for initially refusing to fund Prop. 36, an anti-crime measure that passed with 68% of the vote in November 2024.
The proposition gives prosecutors more leeway to charge drug and theft-related crimes as felonies, but Newsom — who opposed Prop. 36 — did not include any direct funding for it in his May 2025 budget proposal.
State legislators pushed back and partial funding was included in the final bill.
Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
