Laura Wells

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Laura Wells

Green Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

June 7, 2022

Education

Bachelor's

Wayne State University, 1969

Graduate

Antioch University, 1977

Personal

Birthplace

Traverse City, Mich.

Religion

Interfaith

Profession

Financial systems analyst

Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Twitter

Personal Facebook

Personal LinkedIn

Laura Wells (Green Party) ran for election for California Controller. She lost in the primary on June 7, 2022.

Wells completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Wells was a Green Party candidate for California Controller in the 2014 elections. She also ran as a Green Party candidate for the governor of California in 2010. In 2002 she garnered nearly a half million votes in her run for California State Controller.

Biography

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Wells was born in Traverse City, Michigan. She earned her B.A. from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1969, where she was a scholarship student, majored in foreign languages, and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa society. Wells earned a master's degree from Antioch University in 1977 and later worked in finance, business analysis, and computer programming. Wells has one daughter, Natalia, who was born in Oakland.

Political career

Wells has served in numerous county and state-level leadership positions in the Green Party of California since she registered with the Green Party in 1992. She was a founding member of the Green Party County Council in Alameda County (1992-94; 2002-04), a co-founder and managing editor of the Green Party newspaper, Green Focus (2002-2004), and a campaign steering committee member for Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in Oakland, an effort that achieved 69% voter approval (2006).

In 2002 and 2006, Wells ran campaigns for State Controller, receiving 419,873 votes in 2002, the most ever for a Green Party candidate in a statewide partisan race in California. In 2009, Wells appeared on the Fox News program “Your World” several times to discuss tax fairness in California.

Wells has also participated in five international delegations to Canada and South America to study innovations in participatory democracy and new constitutions, and has broadly worked in a range of volunteer and professional capacities for community and labor organizations, including Pesticide Action Network (North America), Women’s Economic Agenda Project, and SEIU United Healthcare Workers (West).

Elections

2022

See also: California Controller election, 2022

General election

General election for California Controller

Malia Cohen defeated Lanhee Chen in the general election for California Controller on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Malia Cohen (D)	55.3	5,936,856
		Lanhee Chen (R)	44.7	4,789,345

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 10,726,201
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for California Controller

The following candidates ran in the primary for California Controller on June 7, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Lanhee Chen (R)	37.2	2,533,305
✔		Malia Cohen (D)	22.7	1,542,397
		Yvonne Yiu (D)	15.1	1,024,707
		Steve Glazer (D)	11.1	756,518
		Ron Galperin (D)	10.1	690,484
		Laura Wells (G)	3.8	258,053

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 6,805,464
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

2018

See also: California's 13th Congressional District election, 2018

General election

General election for U.S. House California District 13

Incumbent Barbara Lee defeated Laura Wells in the general election for U.S. House California District 13 on November 6, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Barbara Lee (D)	88.4	260,580
		Laura Wells (G)	11.6	34,257

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 294,837
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House California District 13

Incumbent Barbara Lee and Laura Wells advanced from the primary for U.S. House California District 13 on June 5, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Barbara Lee (D)	99.5	159,751
✔		Laura Wells (G)	0.5	832

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified.	Total votes: 160,583
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

2014

See also: California down ballot state executive elections, 2014

Wells ran for California Controller in the 2014 elections. She sought nomination in the primary on June 3. The general election took place on November 4, 2014.

California Controller, Blanket Primary, 2014
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Republican	Ashley Swearengin	24.8%	1,001,473
	Democratic	Betty Yee	21.7%	878,195
	Democratic	John Perez	21.7%	877,714
	Republican	David Evans	21%	850,109
	Green	Laura Wells	5.7%	231,352
	Democratic	Tammy D. Blair	5%	200,532
Total Votes				4,039,375
Election results via California Secretary of State

2010

See also: California gubernatorial election, 2010

Wells lost the general election to Democrat Jerry Brown.

2010 Race for Governor - General Election
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Democratic Party	a Jerry Brown	53.44%
	Republican Party	Meg Whitman	40.63%
	American Independent Party	Chelene Nightengale	1.64%
	Libertarian Party	Dale Ogden	1.49%
	Green Party	Laura Wells	1.89%
	Peace and Freedom Party	Carlos Alvarez	0.91%
	write-in	Hugh Bagley	>0.01%
	write-in	Rakesh Kumar Christian	>0.01%
Total Votes			10,158,139

Race background

In January of 2010, Laura Wells announced her candidacy for governor of California in the 2010 election. If elected, Wells would have become both the first female and the first Green party governor of California.

Wells’ campaign emphasized the California budget and tax issues, particularly Proposition 13, which she said must be changed, in part because it primarily benefits corporations over individuals. In a position paper on Proposition 13, Wells wrote:

”Proposition 13, in 1978, was promoted to California voters as a way to reduce taxes and to stop fixed-income seniors and others from losing their homes due to escalating property taxes. Since then, the bulk of the "tax relief" goes places the voters never intended--giant corporations. Corporate properties are rarely re-assessed since corporations don't die and seldom sell.”

Wells also favored lowering the margin needed to pass a budget and raise taxes in the state from two-thirds to a simple majority. She supported increasing funding for education, and the use of a ‘split-roll tax’ to keep cap residential property taxes while allowing higher property taxes for businesses. In a January 2010 interview with The Sacramento Bee discussing her views on taxes and the budget in California, Wells stated:

"The two parties, the Democrat and Republican parties, do not address the root causes of the problem," Wells said. "That's off the table for them. ... To get what we want and to have the revenue that pays for it we need to have a budget that makes sense."

Wells also addressed the difficulty that third parties have in running candidates for state elections:

”. . . she says [the difficulty for third parties] is a result of the "locked-down" system the Democrats and Republicans have put in place. As a case in point, she said she had to pay $6,000 for a 300-word ballot statement when she ran for state controller in 2006, a fee she said blocks minor-party candidates from running.”

Wells supported a Single Payer Universal Healthcare solution for California, and if given the opportunity, said that she would gladly sign SB 840 (the Single Payer bill introduced by State Senator Sheila Kuehl) into law. Wells also supports the use of clean, sustainable, local energy, including publicly-owned utilities, Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) and localized (distributed) electricity generation, instead of nuclear power or carbon sequestration. Wells also opposed government bailouts of large corporations and banks.

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Laura Wells completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Wells' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am Laura Wells, running as a Green Party candidate for California Controller. I learned at a very young age that where you put your money points to what your values are. In California, the office that can "follow the money" and track whether it reflects California values is the office of Controller.

I grew up in Michigan and learned that huge corporations do not take care of their customers, employees or communities. I moved to California after Prop 13 passed in 1978, and I saw clearly that some bills have good parts, and also unintended destructive consequences, in this case locally and around the country. After 1978, the middle class and opportunities for ordinary people, especially youth, began to shrink, while billionaires began to increase.

I’ve been with the Green Party since it began in 1992. The Green Party’s values are the values of California and America: justice, ecology, peace and real democracy. These values are highly interconnected, just like the problems we face, and the solutions. Green candidates and the entire Green Party refuse corporate money, and so we are committed, not conflicted, in working toward better health, safety, justice and sustainability for California, and beyond.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• Implement Public Banking at all levels -- state, regional, and municipal -- so we can invest in California, not Wall Street. Partner with community banks to make good loans to homeowners, students, and small businesses. Use our own capital for infrastructure projects. Interest will be lower, and interest will be folded back into California, not out-of-state private banks. mplement Public Banking at all levels -- state, regional, and municipal -- so we can invest in California, not Wall Street. Partner with community banks to make good loans to homeowners, students, and small businesses. Use our own capital for infrastructure projects. Interest will be lower, and interest will be folded back into the state, not out-of-state private banks.
• Tax the super rich, individuals and corporations, the way they used to be taxed. The highest federal income tax bracket rate, now 37%, was 91% when Republican president Eisenhower’s left in 1961. The rich still got richer but not obscenely so. Stop billionaires from being able to buy power in the form of politicians and media. The rest of us, the 99%, have been paying higher taxes, especially in the form of regressive sales taxes, parcel taxes, and fees for everything from parking to parks to universities. Stop being the only state that doesn’t impose a significant severance tax on big oil. Hire back tax auditors, and don’t assign them to small businesses and ordinary taxpayers, assign them to the wealthiest corporations and individuals.
• Implement an improved statewide Medicare for All system now in order to both save lives and save public and household money. Such a system should have passed this year with all the elements in place: budget surplus, campaign promises, a "super-trifecta" in state government, a bill to implement and a bill to finance, plus a pandemic in which many people lost both their jobs and their healthcare. Nations smaller and less wealthy than California have taken such systems for granted for decades. California could lead the country toward better healthcare at lower cost.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

One part the Controller’s job that is very compelling is the audit. I believe the basic job of the Controller is to "follow the money and report to the boss" and the boss is the people. California needs the big audits, with answers to the following questions. "What happened to California’s public school and university system, that went from being the best in the nation to being among the worst in terms of per-pupil funding?" Another audit question is, "Why was healthcare not enacted in 2022, when there were bills to implement and to fund, a budget surplus, a pandemic in which people lost jobs and healthcare, and campaign promises by the holders of a "super-trifecta": the governorship and super-majorities in both houses?" Another big question involving both money and life, "Why after years of drought is water being used for fracking, to bring up oil, rather than to sustain life?"

I also feel passionate about the many boards that the Controller’s office sits on. This participation is an opportunity to push strongly for public banking, to save money so that we can re-invest in our state. Also the Controller can advocate for fair tax policy, and advocate for the many ways that we can address problems more effectively with less cost, such as less money for prisons and militarized policing, and more money for education, mental health programs, and restorative justice.

What qualities does this office possess that makes it a unique and important part of the state government and legal system?

The way money is spent reflects values, and so Controller is a great office for a Green Party candidate to win. Neither Green Party candidates nor the political party itself takes corporate money, and that means that we are not conflicted about who we serve. We serve real people and not corporations, we serve ordinary people and not billionaires. If the money is off track, forget what politicians say, see the results. The Controller's office does audits, to follow the money and see if it truly reflects the values and the intentions of the voters. How do we know what the voters want? We look at the campaign promises of those who get elected. The following is a very important example during these pandemic times. If it were not for campaign contributions taken by our elected officials from insurance, pharmaceutical ,and other big medical industry corporations, California would now be leading the country in implementing the type of healthcare system that other nation-states have taken for granted for generations. This failure needs to be audited, and widely known so that we can vote differently and organize to change things for the better.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

Eleanor Roosevelt left a large legacy, and the impact of her tireless work toward a better world has affected everyone. She was First Lady during the Great Depression and also a citizen of the world. There would be more peace, justice, well-being and opportunity in the world today if the United States truly implemented the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Eleanor played an instrumental role in drafting. She never stopped, despite criticisms that were aimed at her. Nothing seemed to deter her from championing civil rights and social activism. She’s a great role model, and even though she’s no longer with us, we can still draw on her wisdom and energy.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

I highly recommend reading Rutger Bregman, a young Dutch historian who has written two important books. In Utopia for Realists, Bregman provides many real life examples, taking place in the United States and in other countries, of experiments with three ideas that are pertinent and gaining familiarity in our times. One idea is universal basic income (UBI); a second is a 15-hour work week; and a third idea is about open borders, and how they have worked. In his book Humankind, his extensive research makes the point that — unlike what we’ve been led to believe — most people are pretty decent, and life could be much better. This realization can help us all connect more with each other and build the large social movement that, along with electing no-corporate-money candidates, could make a big difference in our world. In Humankind, Rutger Bregman uncovers heartening facts about some familiar stories we’ve been told about the downside of humanity, everything from the Lord of the Flies, to the Stanford Prison Experiment, to Kitty Genovese, and Stanley Milgram. Bregman’s 15-minute TED talk is at https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash.

What legacy would you like to leave?

California is a place that has such great potential to be a beacon of light for solving the tremendous challenges that we face on this planet. I am glad I live in this state. The legacy I would like to leave is to have been someone who never gave up on advancing toward a better world, and who made a difference in matching the values we hold dear, with our actions and our results.

What is your favorite book? Why?

Recently, it's Rutger Bregman's Humankind, because of the hope it brings to me about humanity.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

It's a melody that I cannot remember where I heard it, and it doesn't sound familiar to anyone I hum it to! I don't know whether I heard it on Spanish radio, or in a Latin American country, or in a film that hardly anyone else saw. It's a mystery to me, but it is a beautiful melody.

What responsibilities of this office do you personally consider the most important?

California needs the following audits to be performed by the researchers and solid numbers people in the Controller’s office, in addition to the healthcare audit described above. Why is funding being increased for police departments, which are more heavily militarized, when health professionals can deal with drug abuse prevention and treatment for less money? Why have we built more prisons and not more universities -- what future are we anticipating for our youth? Why are we wasting the precious resource of water when it is needed for life, while fracking is a use of water that we should never have even dreamed up, let along continue practicing? Why are we still using the capital of Wall Street Banks to build our infrastructure projects, with their interest making up 40% of the total cost, when we could use the capital of our own state to fund projects at lower cost, and then re-invest the money in the state itself, not Wall Street? And why do we not learn everything we can about the successful model of Social Housing in Vienna, Austria, where quality public housing competes favorably with private housing, improving both types, and providing good housing for the people of the city? These AUDIT and advocacy responsibilities need to be recognized, and taken up by the Controller of California.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for holders of this office to have previous experience in government or politics?

No, not given the results that we see all around us. At this point in California, the U.S. and the world, we and our next generations face multiple problems that are hard to even confront. It is time to realize that we need elected officials who have not become experienced in the way things have been run so far. There are two Titanic political parties that have run things for as long as most people have been alive, and we have watched the prospects for ourselves and our children go downhill. So I believe that at long last we need new people and certainly new political parties, that do not take corporate money, and that have not already gone along with the program of fewer schools and more prisons, or with outrageous inequality of income and wealth, or with a defense industry that reaps profit in times of war, or with environmental polices regarding food, fuel, and water that are continuing to worsen the climate crisis rather than changing direction. No, I do not believe that the holders of, or the other candidates for, the Controller's office have shown, in their prior experience in government or politics, the leadership needed to begin to direct public money in constructive rather than destructive ways, in order to turn things around toward better peace, justice and environment.

Tell us your favorite joke.

Don't ask me to tell a joke. I'm bad at that. Usually I say, "Did you hear the joke about ..." and then I say the punch line, and I don't realize it until I start telling the joke. Not good!

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary

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Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

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Laura Wells campaign contribution history

Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2022	California Controller	Lost primary	$14,386	$14,206
2018	U.S. House California District 13	Lost general	$9,439	$8,195
2014	California Controller	Lost	$7,791	N/A**
Grand total			$31,616	$22,401
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
** Data on expenditures is not available for this election cycle
Note: Totals above reflect only available data.

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