Steve Hilton Unveils California Build-First Plan

Steve Hilton’s California build-first plan took center stage Monday as the Republican gubernatorial candidate called for a decade-long reset of the state’s rules, costs, and permitting system in an effort to revive development. Speaking in a prepared address for the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Hilton said California should make building its top priority for 10 years and move faster on projects he says the state has made too difficult for too long.

Hilton said his proposal would begin with a special legislative session in his first week as governor. He wants lawmakers to approve a 10-year suspension of regulations, government-imposed costs, and bureaucratic steps he argues are pushing businesses and construction out of California. His plan targets the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA, along with PAGA lawsuits, Vehicle Miles Traveled rules, and taxes on investment. He said clean air and water standards would stay in place, but permits and legal challenges would be sharply streamlined. “California will have clear deadlines. One decision. One appeal. Then build,” he said.

In his speech, Hilton cast the fight as one over the state’s future and warned against what he called a further rise of socialism in California. He pointed to recent election results in other Democrat-led states such as Michigan and New York as a reason, in his view, to resist that path. He also said California workers face a bigger threat from what he described as an entrenched left-leaning bureaucracy than from wealthy elites, arguing that progressive policies have worn down job opportunities, incomes, and day-to-day quality of life.

Hilton also focused on younger Californians, saying the state has the nation’s second-highest youth unemployment rate even though it has embraced many policies that appeal to young, college-educated voters in other places. He framed his campaign as a direct challenge to the forces he says are blocking growth. “This is not left versus right,” Hilton said. “It is builders versus blockers. Creativity versus bureaucracy. Growth versus decline.”