Malia M. Cohen

Background

Malia M. Cohen served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, including as its president, and then on the State Board of Equalization, which she chaired. She told the San Francisco Examiner in October 2026 that she has held elected office for 16 years and has spent her career managing public resources, “from billion-dollar budgets to pension assets.” In 2022 she ran for Controller against Republican Lanhee Chen. During that race she called herself the only unequivocally pro-choice candidate and challenged Chen's record and his position on abortion. She won and took office on January 2, 2023. Her 2026 ballot designation is State Controller/Mother.

In office

When Cohen took office, the Controller's office had not finished the state's annual comprehensive financial report. Within about two years it released four of them, none on time, which Cohen acknowledged when asked. The San Francisco Examiner reports that the 2026 report was about six weeks late, the earliest the office had released it since 2018, and in time for the governor's May budget revision. In July 2026 the state adopted FI$Cal, a financial-reporting system long in progress, as its official accounting system. Cohen says she also secured more money for accounting and audit staff, formed a strike team to work with agencies late in sending data, and set a 25 percent contracting set-aside for minority- and women-owned businesses. She chairs the Franchise Tax Board.

Cohen told ABC7 that her office has returned about $2 billion in unclaimed property and cleared backlogs, that a charter school fraud case led to prosecution, clawbacks and a working group on school safeguards, and that she is building an AI pilot to flag irregular payments before they go out. She chaired the multi-agency task force formed after the A3 Education charter school fraud; its September 2024 report made 20 recommendations. She disputes that fraud is widespread in state government. Her ballot statement says she expanded public access to financial and payroll data, released monthly cash reports, returned unclaimed property to all 58 counties and advanced the modernization of the state payroll system.

On the ballot

Cohen seeks a second four-year term. She and Republican Herb W Morgan, whose ballot designation is Chief Investment Officer, advanced from the June 2 primary and meet on November 3, 2026. Morgan cites about 40 years in finance, says the state has a fraud problem rather than a spending problem, and proposes publishing state spending daily at the transaction level, with AI flagging unusual payments. He argues a Republican Controller would add a check on a state government led by Democrats. LAist lists the California Democratic Party, the California Labor Federation and Equality California among Cohen's endorsers, and the California Republican Party and California Republican Assembly among Morgan's. The next election for Controller after this one is November 5, 2030.

Herb Morgan, the opposing candidate, called for stricter controls and more audits, saying “We don't have a spending problem. We have a fraud problem” (ABC7 San Francisco, October 5, 2026).