Steve Westly

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Steven Paul Westly (born August 27, 1956 in Arcadia, California) is an American businessman and politician, who is currently the State Controller of California and was one of the top two candidates in the Democratic primary for Governor of California in the 2006 election. He was defeated in the Democratic primary by California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, who later lost to incumbent Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the November 2006 elections.

1 Education and Family
2 Business
3 Political Career
- 3.1 Controller
4 Gubernatorial candidacy
5 External links

[edit] Education and Family

Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Westly received an A.B. in history from Stanford University in 1978, and served as student body co-president, running on the Stanford Chaparral slate. He received an M.B.A. in Public Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1983.

He married Anita Yu, an immigrant from Hong Kong, in 1997. They became parents to a daughter, Christina, born in 2000, and a son, Matthew, born in 2001.

A member of the Democratic Party, Westly worked for Congressman Leo Ryan in 1978 as his first job out of college. Later that year, after Ryan's death on foreign soil at the hands of the Peoples Temple cult, he worked in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Solar and Conservation under President Jimmy Carter until 1980. After working in the Carter Administration, he joined the California Public Utilities Commission as Assistant to the President.

[edit] Business

In 1983, Westly became the New Business Manager at Sprint Telecommunications. In 1986, he became an investment banker at Bridgemere Capital in San Francisco. In 1988, Westly became President of Codd & Date, a leading relational database consulting & services firm. In 1991, Westly became the Deputy Director of the City of San Jose Office of Economic Development and began teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a position he held for the next five years.

In 1994, he became the Director of Netcom, one of the early large Internet service providers and in 1995, became Vice President of WhoWhere?, then the largest Internet directory. In 1997, Westly joined eBay as one of their founding exectives. He began as Vice President and subsequently gained the title of Senior Vice President for Marketing, Business Development, and International. He retired from eBay in 2000 when he and his wife, Anita Yu, established the Steve and Anita Westly Foundation.

[edit] Political Career

In addition to his professional career, Westly has maintained a concurrent career in the Democratic Party. At age 23 in 1981, he was elected as Northern Treasurer of the California Democratic Party, the youngest party officer ever. He was subsequently elected State Controller of the California Democratic Party in 1983, Northern Chair of the California Democratic Party in 1985, and Vice Chair of the California Democratic Party in 1987. In 1989, he was defeated as State Chair of the California Democratic Party by former Governor Jerry Brown. Despite that loss, Westly continued his activism within the party by being elected to the Democratic National Committee in 1988, as the highest vote getter, and was reelected in 1992, 1996, and 2000.

Westly ran for California State Controller in 2002 against State Senator Tom McClintock and won by a margin of 22,730 votes (out of 7,258,758 votes cast). Westly garnered 3,289,839 (45.4%) votes while McClintock won the support of 3,273,028 (45.1%) people. Three other candidates won 695,891 (9.5%) votes. Westly had outspent McClintock by a 5-to-1 margin.

[edit] Controller

As Controller, Westly opposed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to change Proposition 98, which requires a certain amount of the state's budget to go towards funding public education and community colleges, [1] and in 2005, he created a tax amnesty plan that allowed individuals and corporations who owed back taxes to prevent facing criminal charges and increased penalties if they would immediately pay their back taxes. Westly's plan brought in a gross amount of $4 billion revenue for the State of California. The state's non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office states that after refunds and advance payments the net profit of the tax amnesty plan was $380 million [2]. [3]

Westly also introduced the ReadyReturn plan to simplify tax preparation by offering to send taxpayers a prefilled form from the state, and allowing them to sign and automatically file their tax refund in a pilot program started in 2005. Westly is also in favor of enforcing current laws requiring Californians to pay sales tax on Internet purchases. [4]

[edit] Gubernatorial candidacy

On June 19, 2005, Steve Westly announced his candidacy for the 2006 California gubernatorial election.

Despite entering the race long after his primary opponent, California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, Westly's campaign picked up considerable momentum, receiving endorsements from such figures as Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, Congressmembers Grace Napolitano, Diane Watson, and Brad Sherman, State Senators Carole Migden, Martha Escutia, and Nell Soto, County Supervisor Yvonne Burke, Assembly Members Judy Chu, Ted Lieu, Rudy Bermudez, and Nicole Parra, former Assembly Speaker and current Los Angeles City Councilman Herb Wesson, the majority of the Los Angeles City Council, and other elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels. Westly also gained the support of 85% of the major newspapers that endorsed in the race, including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Daily News, LA Weekly, Fresno Bee, and many others. Several organizations also endorsed Westly, such as the California Sierra Club, California Police Chiefs Association, California NOW, and the Orange County Professional Firefighters Association, just to name a few.

In the months leading up to the election, Westly overcame an early Angelides advantage and gained the edge in various polls, leading by as much as 13 points. Moreover, unlike Angelides, he consistently beat Governor Schwarzenegger in hypothetical general election matchups.

Despite Westly's momentum and resources, the California Democratic Party endorsed Angelides at the State Democratic Party Convention. The race turned extremely negative, highlighting environmental controversies surrounding Angelides' background as a real estate developer and Westly's broken pledge to keep his campaign clean. Westly's candidacy also was hurt by an unprecedented multi-million dollar independent expenditure by Sacramento real estate developer and longtime Angelides patron Angelo Tsakopoulos. As election day neared, Westly's momentum dissipated and the race tightened. A Field Poll held on June 2, 2006 had Westly leading Angelides by one percentage point, 35% to 34% with 26% undecided and an error size of +/- 4.5 points. [5]

The high number of undecided voters led to the lowest turnout in a California primary election in over half a century. Despite over $80 million spent on the race, including over $35 million of Westly's personal fortune, only 30.8% of California Democrats came out to vote, the lowest number in recent history. Angelides finished on election night with 48% of the vote compared to Westly's 44%. Westly endorsed Angelides' candidacy at a unity breakfast the morning after election night.

Angelides' Republican opponent, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has since used quotes from Westly's campaign to attack Angelides. Westly, who endorsed Angelides after the primary, countered, "Governor Schwarzenegger has shown great interest in what Steve Westly has to say about the governor’s race in 2006. He’s right to say that and I’m here to tell you we all need to vote for the Democratic candidate, Phil Angelides for Governor in November 2006."^[1]

Phil Angelides was defeated in a landslide by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during the general election held on November 7, 2006. [6]