Quotes from Kevin de Leon

Dependence on oil from volatile foreign markets undermines our economic security and threatens our national security. Moreover, that addiction is producing toxic air and a public-health epidemic.

I wouldn't have voted for the war in Iraq, which has cost us trillions we could have been spending on a carbon-free economy, affordable college, and single-payer health care.

Seniority means nothing if you don't do anything with it.

California is the greatest beacon of opportunity the world has ever known. But we didn't get here through years of political seniority - we built it through acts of audacity.

When you have a president who mocks our inclusivity, who demonizes our diversity... you can't ask for patience.

As Democrats, we will never be fooled into believing that if we are patient enough, that Donald Trump could be a good president.

President Trump's threat to weaponize federal funding is not only unconstitutional but emblematic of the cruelty he seeks to impose on our most vulnerable communities.

From education to the environment, from high wages to health care to human rights, California is proof that progressive policies put into action improve the human condition of all individuals.

I know - firsthand - that California works best when everyone has the opportunity to succeed. It's a lesson that's hard to learn from the back of a limousine, or behind gated walls. And it's a lesson that guided me every day as the president of the California State Senate - the most productive and progressive policymaking body in America.

I don't believe the federal government should be snooping into American citizens' cell phones without a warrant issued by a federal judge. You cannot give the federal government extraordinary powers to eavesdrop without a warrant. It's simply un-American.

I think that many Californians have been accustomed to, have normalized, that being good sometimes is good enough.

I wouldn't have supported invoking Taft-Hartley to help George Bush end a strike.

Drafting local police into Trump's immigration crackdown undermines public safety and is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.

Yes, we absolutely need to eliminate the single-use plastic bag, but we don't have to eliminate the jobs of hardworking Californians to accomplish this goal.

California continues to pass the most ambitious laws in the world to expand clean energy and combat climate change.

I've been surrounded by strong, hardworking women like my mother all my life.

I try to deal with the poverty gap - to do policies for all of us rather than only for the wealthy.

I believe that every family - it doesn't make a difference who you are or where you come from - deserves to have quality healthcare. It is a universal right. It's not the exclusive privilege of the elite and the wealthy.

Thanks to policies mandating clean energy development, California's electric grid is one of the least carbon-intensive in the world.

Equity and economic justice are now hardwired into all of our climate policies.

California's university system is one of the premier higher education systems in the world, and we should require that non-resident students pay a premium to attend it. The revenue generated from these fees can be used to increase affordability and access for more Californians.

Addressing budget issues is usually a balancing act in which cuts are weighed against revenue increases to find the best solution for the state.

I would never call our country the welfare system for Mexico.

I am not just a defender of the California Dream. I am a product of it.