Latest news with #AntonioVillaraigosa
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Villaraigosa, despite climate credentials, pivots toward oil industry in run for governor
As California positions itself as a leader on climate change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is pivoting away from his own track record as an environmental champion to defend the state's struggling oil industry. Villaraigosa's work to expand mass transit, plant trees and reduce carbon emissions made him a favorite of the environmental movement, but the former state Assembly speaker also accepted more than $1 million in campaign contributions and other financial support from oil companies and other donors tied to the industry over more than three decades in public life, according to city and state fundraising disclosures reviewed by The Times. Since entering the race last year to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, Villaraigosa has accepted more than $176,000 from donors with ties to the oil industry, including from a company that operates oil fields in the San Joaquin Valley and in Los Angeles County, the disclosures show. The clash between Villaraigosa's environmentalist credentials and oil-industry ties surfaced in the governor's race after Valero announced in late April that its Bay Area refinery would close next year, not long after Phillips 66 said its Wilmington refinery would close in 2025. Villaraigosa is now warning that California drivers could see gas prices soar, blasting as "absurd" policies that he said could have led to the refinery closures. "I'm not fighting for refineries," Villaraigosa said in an interview. "I'm fighting for the people who pay for gas in this state." The refineries are a sore spot for Newsom and for California Democrats, pitting their environmental goals against concerns about the rising cost of living and two of the state's most powerful interest groups — organized labor and environmentalists — against each other. Villaraigosa said Democrats are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in their approach to fighting climate change. He said he hoped no more refineries would close until the state hits more electrification milestones, including building more transmission lines, green-energy storage systems and charging stations for electric cars. The only way for the state to reach "net zero" emissions, he said, is an "all-of-the-above" approach that includes solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear power and oil and gas. "The notion that we're not going to do that is poppycock," Villaraigosa said. Villaraigosa's vocal support for the oil industry has upset some environmental groups that saw him as a longtime ally. "I'm honestly shocked at just how bad it is," said RL Miller, the president of Climate Hawks Vote and the chair of the California Democratic Party's environmental caucus, of the contributions Villaraigosa has accepted since entering the race in July. Miller said Villaraigosa signed a pledge during his unsuccessful run for governor in 2018 not to accept campaign contributions from oil companies and "named executives" at fossil-fuel entities. She said he took the pledge shortly after accepting the maximum allowable contributions from several oil donors in 2017. Miller said that more than $100,000 in donations that Villaraigosa has accepted in this gubernatorial cycle were clear violations of the pledge. That included contributions from the state's largest oil and gas producer, California Resources Corp. and its subsidiaries, as well as the founder of Rocky Mountain Resources, a leader of the oil company Berry Corp., and Excalibur Well Services. "This is bear-hugging the oil industry," she said. Environmental activists view the pledge as binding for future campaigns. Villaraigosa said he has not signed it for this campaign. The economy is dramatically different than it was in 2018, Villaraigosa said, and working-class Americans are being hammered, which he said was a major factor in recent Democratic losses. "We're losing working people, particularly working people who don't have a college education," he said. "Why are we losing them? The cost of living, the cost of gas, the cost of utilities, the cost of groceries." Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said such statements are consistent with Villaraigosa's messaging in recent years. "Villaraigosa is squarely in the moderate lane in the governor's race. That doomed him in 2018, when voters wanted to counterbalance President Trump and Villaraigosa was outflanked by Newsom," Kousser said. "But today, even some Democrats may want to counterbalance the direction that they see Sacramento taking, especially when it comes to cost-of-living issues and the price of gas." He added that the fossil-fuel donations may not be the basis for Villaraigosa's apparent embrace of oil and gas priorities. "When a politician takes campaign contributions from an industry and also takes positions that favor it, that raises the possibility of corruption, of money influencing votes," Kousser said. "But it is also possible that it was the politician's own approach to an issue that attracted the contributions, that their votes attracted money but were not in any way corrupted by it. That may be the case here, where Villaraigosa has held fairly consistent positions on this issue and consistently attracted support from an industry because of those positions." Other Democrats in the 2026 governor's race, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, have signed the pledge not to accept contributions from oil industry interests, Miller said. Former California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and businessman Stephen Cloobeck have not. (Cloobeck has never run for office before and has not been asked to sign.) Other gubernatorial candidates have also accepted fossil-fuel contributions, although in smaller numbers than Villaraigosa, state and federal filings show. Becerra accepted contributions from Chevron and California Resources Corp., formerly Occidental Petroleum, while running for attorney general. Atkins took donations from Chevron, Occidental and a trade group for oil companies while running for state Assembly and state Senate. And while running for lieutenant governor, Kounalakis took contributions from executives at oil and mining companies. Campaign representatives for the two main Republican candidates in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, said they welcomed oil-industry donations. Villaraigosa is a fierce defender of his environmental record dating back to his first years as an elected official in the California Assembly. As mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa set new goals to reduce emissions at the Port of Los Angeles, end the use of coal-burning power plants and shift the city's energy generation toward solar, wind and geothermal sources. The child of a woman who relied on Metro buses, he also branded himself the "transportation mayor." Villaraigosa was a vocal champion for the 2008 sales tax increase that provided the first funding for the extension of the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the Westside. But, he said, Democrats in 2025 have to be realistic that the refinery closures and their goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions could disproportionately affect low-income residents who are already struggling to make ends meet. Villaraigosa's comments underscore a broader divide among Democrats about how to fight climate change without making California even more expensive, or driving out more high-paying jobs that don't require a college education. Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who became the leader of the California Labor Federation in 2022, said that while climate change is a real threat, so is shutting down refineries. "That's a threat to those workers' jobs and lives, and it's also a threat to the price of gas," Gonzalez said. California is not currently positioned to end its reliance on fossil fuels, she said. If the state reduces its refining capacity, she said, it will have to rely on exports from nations that have less environmental and labor safeguards. 'Anyone running for governor has to acknowledge that,' Gonzalez said. Villaraigosa said that while the loss of union jobs at Valero's Bay Area refinery worried him, his primary concern was over the cost of gasoline and household budgets. His comments come as California prepares to square off yet again against the Trump administration over its environmental policies. The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to revoke a federal waiver that allowed California to set its own vehicle emission standards, including a rule that would have ultimately banned the sale of new gas-fueled cars in 2035. Villaraigosa denounced the vote, but said that efforts to fight climate change can't come at the expense of working-class Americans. President Trump has also declared a national energy emergency, calling for increased fossil-fuel production, eliminating environmental reviews and the fast-tracking of projects in potentially sensitive ecosystems and habitats. The Trump administration is also targeting California's environmental standards. Villaraigosa, an Eastside native, started his career as a labor organizer and rose to speaker of the state Assembly before becoming the mayor of Los Angeles. Now 72, Villaraigosa has not held elected office for more than a decade; he finished a distant third in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. Over the years, donors affiliated with the fossil-fuel industry have contributed more than $1 million to Villaraigosa's political campaigns and his nonprofit causes, including an after-school program, the city's sports and entertainment commission and an effort to reduce violence by providing programming at city parks during summer nights, according to city and state disclosures. More than half of the contributions and support for Villaraigosa's pet causes, over $582,000, came during his years at Los Angeles City Hall as a council member and mayor. In 2008, billionaire oil and gas magnate T. Boone Pickens donated $150,000 to a city proposition backed by Villaraigosa that levied a new tax on phone and internet use. Pickens made the donation as his company was vying for business at the port of Los Angeles, which is overseen by mayoral appointees and was seeking to reduce emissions by replacing diesel-powered trucks with vehicles fueled by liquid natural gas. The rest of the contributions and other financial support flowed to Villaraigosa's campaign accounts and affiliated committees while he served in the Assembly and during his two gubernatorial runs. These figures do not include donations to independent expenditure committees, since candidates cannot legally be involved in those efforts. Villaraigosa said that while such voters don't subscribe to Republicans' "drill, baby, drill" ethos, he slammed the Democratic Party's focus on such matters and Trump instead of kitchen-table issues. "The cost of everything we're doing is on the backs of the people who work the hardest and who make the least, and that's why so many of them — even when we were saying Trump is a threat to democracy — they were saying, yeah, but what about my gas prices, grocery prices, the cost of eggs?" he said. Times staff writer Sandra McDonald in Sacramento contributed to this report. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
26-05-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Villaraigosa, despite climate credentials, pivots toward oil industry in run for governor
As California positions itself as a leader on climate change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is pivoting away from his own track record as an environmental champion to defend the state's struggling oil industry. Villaraigosa's work to expand mass transit, plant trees and reduce carbon emissions made him a favorite of the environmental movement, but the former state Assembly speaker also accepted more than $1 million in campaign contributions and other financial support from oil companies and other donors tied to the industry over more than three decades in public life, according to city and state fundraising disclosures reviewed by The Times. Since entering the race last year to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, Villaraigosa has accepted more than $176,000 from donors with ties to the oil industry, including from a company that operates oil fields in the San Joaquin Valley and in Los Angeles County, the disclosures show. The clash between Villaraigosa's environmentalist credentials and oil-industry ties surfaced in the governor's race after Valero announced in late April that its Bay Area refinery would close next year, not long after Phillips 66 said its Wilmington refinery would close in 2025. Villaraigosa is now warning that California drivers could see gas prices soar, blasting as 'absurd' policies that he said could have led to the refinery closures. 'I'm not fighting for refineries,' Villaraigosa said in an interview. 'I'm fighting for the people who pay for gas in this state.' The refineries are a sore spot for Newsom and for California Democrats, pitting their environmental goals against concerns about the rising cost of living and two of the state's most powerful interest groups — organized labor and environmentalists — against each other. Villaraigosa said Democrats are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in their approach to fighting climate change. He said he hoped no more refineries would close until the state hits more electrification milestones, including building more transmission lines, green-energy storage systems and charging stations for electric cars. The only way for the state to reach 'net zero' emissions, he said, is an 'all-of-the-above' approach that includes solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear power and oil and gas. 'The notion that we're not going to do that is poppycock,' Villaraigosa said. Villaraigosa's vocal support for the oil industry has upset some environmental groups that saw him as a longtime ally. 'I'm honestly shocked at just how bad it is,' said RL Miller, the president of Climate Hawks Vote and the chair of the California Democratic Party's environmental caucus, of the contributions Villaraigosa has accepted since entering the race in July. Miller said Villaraigosa signed a pledge during his unsuccessful run for governor in 2018 not to accept campaign contributions from oil companies and 'named executives' at fossil-fuel entities. She said he took the pledge shortly after accepting the maximum allowable contributions from several oil donors in 2017. Miller said that more than $100,000 in donations that Villaraigosa has accepted in this gubernatorial cycle were clear violations of the pledge. That included contributions from the state's largest oil and gas producer, California Resources Corp. and its subsidiaries, as well as the founder of Rocky Mountain Resources, a leader of the oil company Berry Corp., and Excalibur Well Services. 'This is bear-hugging the oil industry,' she said. Environmental activists view the pledge as binding for future campaigns. Villaraigosa said he has not signed it for this campaign. The economy is dramatically different than it was in 2018, Villaraigosa said, and working-class Americans are being hammered, which he said was a major factor in recent Democratic losses. 'We're losing working people, particularly working people who don't have a college education,' he said. 'Why are we losing them? The cost of living, the cost of gas, the cost of utilities, the cost of groceries.' Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said such statements are consistent with Villaraigosa's messaging in recent years. 'Villaraigosa is squarely in the moderate lane in the governor's race. That doomed him in 2018, when voters wanted to counterbalance President Trump and Villaraigosa was outflanked by Newsom,' Kousser said. 'But today, even some Democrats may want to counterbalance the direction that they see Sacramento taking, especially when it comes to cost-of-living issues and the price of gas.' He added that the fossil-fuel donations may not be the basis for Villaraigosa's apparent embrace of oil and gas priorities. 'When a politician takes campaign contributions from an industry and also takes positions that favor it, that raises the possibility of corruption, of money influencing votes,' Kousser said. 'But it is also possible that it was the politician's own approach to an issue that attracted the contributions, that their votes attracted money but were not in any way corrupted by it. That may be the case here, where Villaraigosa has held fairly consistent positions on this issue and consistently attracted support from an industry because of those positions.' Other Democrats in the 2026 governor's race, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, have signed the pledge not to accept contributions from oil industry interests, Miller said. Former California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and businessman Stephen Cloobeck have not. (Cloobeck has never run for office before and has not been asked to sign.) Other gubernatorial candidates have also accepted fossil-fuel contributions, although in smaller numbers than Villaraigosa, state and federal filings show. Becerra accepted contributions from Chevron and California Resources Corp., formerly Occidental Petroleum, while running for attorney general. Atkins took donations from Chevron, Occidental and a trade group for oil companies while running for state Assembly and state Senate. And while running for lieutenant governor, Kounalakis took contributions from executives at oil and mining companies. Campaign representatives for the two main Republican candidates in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, said they welcomed oil-industry donations. Villaraigosa is a fierce defender of his environmental record dating back to his first years as an elected official in the California Assembly. As mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa set new goals to reduce emissions at the Port of Los Angeles, end the use of coal-burning power plants and shift the city's energy generation toward solar, wind and geothermal sources. The child of a woman who relied on Metro buses, he also branded himself the 'transportation mayor.' Villaraigosa was a vocal champion for the 2008 sales tax increase that provided the first funding for the extension of the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the Westside. But, he said, Democrats in 2025 have to be realistic that the refinery closures and their goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions could disproportionately affect low-income residents who are already struggling to make ends meet. Villaraigosa's comments underscore a broader divide among Democrats about how to fight climate change without making California even more expensive, or driving out more high-paying jobs that don't require a college education. Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who became the leader of the California Labor Federation in 2022, said that while climate change is a real threat, so is shutting down refineries. 'That's a threat to those workers' jobs and lives, and it's also a threat to the price of gas,' Gonzalez said. California is not currently positioned to end its reliance on fossil fuels, she said. If the state reduces its refining capacity, she said, it will have to rely on exports from nations that have less environmental and labor safeguards. 'Anyone running for governor has to acknowledge that,' Gonzalez said. Villaraigosa said that while the loss of union jobs at Valero's Bay Area refinery worried him, his primary concern was over the cost of gasoline and household budgets. His comments come as California prepares to square off yet again against the Trump administration over its environmental policies. The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to revoke a federal waiver that allowed California to set its own vehicle emission standards, including a rule that would have ultimately banned the sale of new gas-fueled cars in 2035. Villaraigosa denounced the vote, but said that efforts to fight climate change can't come at the expense of working-class Americans. President Trump has also declared a national energy emergency, calling for increased fossil-fuel production, eliminating environmental reviews and the fast-tracking of projects in potentially sensitive ecosystems and habitats. The Trump administration is also targeting California's environmental standards. Villaraigosa, an Eastside native, started his career as a labor organizer and rose to speaker of the state Assembly before becoming the mayor of Los Angeles. Now 72, Villaraigosa has not held elected office for more than a decade; he finished a distant third in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. Over the years, donors affiliated with the fossil-fuel industry have contributed more than $1 million to Villaraigosa's political campaigns and his nonprofit causes, including an after-school program, the city's sports and entertainment commission and an effort to reduce violence by providing programming at city parks during summer nights, according to city and state disclosures. More than half of the contributions and support for Villaraigosa's pet causes, over $582,000, came during his years at Los Angeles City Hall as a council member and mayor. In 2008, billionaire oil and gas magnate T. Boone Pickens donated $150,000 to a city proposition backed by Villaraigosa that levied a new tax on phone and internet use. Pickens made the donation as his company was vying for business at the port of Los Angeles, which is overseen by mayoral appointees and was seeking to reduce emissions by replacing diesel-powered trucks with vehicles fueled by liquid natural gas. The rest of the contributions and other financial support flowed to Villaraigosa's campaign accounts and affiliated committees while he served in the Assembly and during his two gubernatorial runs. These figures do not include donations to independent expenditure committees, since candidates cannot legally be involved in those efforts. Villaraigosa said that while such voters don't subscribe to Republicans' 'drill, baby, drill' ethos, he slammed the Democratic Party's focus on such matters and Trump instead of kitchen-table issues. 'The cost of everything we're doing is on the backs of the people who work the hardest and who make the least, and that's why so many of them — even when we were saying Trump is a threat to democracy — they were saying, yeah, but what about my gas prices, grocery prices, the cost of eggs?' he said. Times staff writer Sandra McDonald in Sacramento contributed to this report.
New York Times
25-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
How the Ravages of Age Are Ravaging the Democratic Party
Now is the time for the Democratic Party to get serious about its oldsters problem. The furor over President Joe Biden's cognitive issues is not going away any time soon. On Tuesday it bubbled up in the California governor's race, when one candidate, Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles, accused two other Democrats eyeing the governor's mansion — former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra — of participating in a 'cover-up' of Mr. Biden's fading fitness in office. 'Voters deserve to know the truth. What did Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra know, when did they know it, and most importantly, why didn't either of them speak out?' Mr. Villaraigosa fumed in a statement, spurred by tidbits from the new book 'Original Sin,' which chronicles the efforts of Mr. Biden's inner circle to conceal his mental and physical decline. Mr. Villaraigosa called on Ms. Harris and Mr. Becerra to 'apologize to the American people.' Is Mr. Villaraigosa, who is 72 himself, exploiting the orgy of Biden recriminations for political ends? Probably. Does he have a point? Absolutely. Team Biden deserves much abuse for its sins. That said, last week also reminded us that the Democrats' flirtation with gerontocracy is not confined to a single office or branch of government when, on Wednesday, the House was shaken by the death of Representative Gerry Connolly. Mr. Connolly, a 75-year-old lawmaker from Northern Virginia, had been in poor health. On Nov. 7 last year, two days after his re-election to a ninth term, he announced he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and would undergo treatments. Even so, in December he won a high-profile contest against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. The race was seen as a struggle over the future of the seniority system that has long shaped how Democrats pick committee leaders. Despite concerns about his health, seniority carried the day. On April 28, he announced that his cancer had returned and that he would not seek re-election next year. Less than a month later, he was gone. Washington being Washington, his death was greeted with sadness but also with chatter about the political repercussions in the narrowly divided House. It was not lost on Beltway pundits that if Democrats had had one more 'no' vote in their deliberations over President Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' Republicans would have had to sway another of their holdouts to ram it through the House last week. Mr. Connolly was the third House Democrat to die in recent months, after the deaths in March of Raúl Grijalva and Sylvester Turner, both septuagenarians. All three seats are vacant for now. Axios pointed out that eight members of Congress have died in office since November 2022. All were Democrats, with an average age of 75. Cold political musings about the failing health or cognitive troubles of elected officials can feel heartless, if not aggressively ageist. And there is a difference, of course, between lawmakers who succumb to deadly illnesses and those who think they can simply defy the ravages of age. But time takes its toll on everyone, and even among Washington's hard-charging, well-maintained masters of the universe, precious few weather it as well as Nancy Pelosi or Bernie Sanders. Neither major party is immune to the practical challenges of aging leaders. (For Republican drama, see last year's long, mysterious absence of the now-retired representative Kay Granger.) But the problem has been extra-sticky for Democrats for years, in part because Ms. Pelosi and her equally senior lieutenants, Steny Hoyer, now 85, and Jim Clyburn, now 84, sat atop the caucus for so long that younger members started leaving in frustration — or plotted to oust them. It took a coup threat or two to get Ms. Pelosi et al. to relinquish their grip, and tensions between younger members and the old guard remain. The Ocasio-Cortez and Connolly struggle was just one of the generational matches to kick off this Congress, and the party has yet to find a good way to balance experience with energy. Among other challenges, Democrats do not put term limits on committee leaders, unlike Republicans, and plum assignments are doled out based heavily on length of service. Concerns about America's aging political leadership are longstanding. But the Biden debacle has given them new urgency — especially as the Democrats struggle to win back younger voters. If talking about age feels too icky, think of it more in terms of revivifying the party's ideas and approach to meet the moment. Among Democrats at all levels, there is much debate over rebranding and rebuilding and reconnecting with voters who feel alienated from the current system. Figuring out how to elevate new voices needs to be a part of the process. Last month, David Hogg, the 25-year-old recently elected as a vice chairman of the national party, announced that his group Leaders We Deserve would spend $20 million to get more young blood into the party — and to support primary challengers against the party's older incumbents — with an eye toward dismantling a 'culture of seniority politics.' The Democratic establishment is unamused, and it feels unlikely to be pure coincidence that the Democratic National Committee will vote next month on whether to redo the election of Mr. Hogg and his fellow vice chair, ostensibly because of questions about whether their original election adhered to the committee's complex gender requirements. Whatever happens with Mr. Hogg, young Democrats are increasingly in the mood to tussle. If the Democratic establishment doesn't want to face a generational attack from within its ranks, it needs to convey that it understands there is a problem. Obviously, there is no easy fix. But that makes it all the more vital to tackle this issue now. If the sorry state in which the party currently finds itself isn't enough to jolt it into action, it is hard to imagine what it would take.
Fox News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Harris, Becerra covered up Biden mental decline, California Democratic candidate for governor says
Amid claims that President Joe Biden declined mentally while in office, Golden State gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa has suggested that former Vice President Kamala Harris and former Health And Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccerra were involved in a cover-up. Becerra is also running for governor, while the prospect of a potential Harris bid looms large over the field. Current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is not eligible to run again because he's currently serving his second term, and the state constitution stipulates that, "No Governor may serve more than 2 terms." "What I've seen in news coverage and excerpts from the new book 'Original Sin' is deeply troubling. At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden's mental decline from the public," Villaraigosa said in a statement. "Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General – one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor," he declared. Becerra and Harris have both previously served as California state attorney general. "Those who were complicit in the cover up should take responsibility for the part they played in this debacle, hold themselves accountable, and apologize to the American people. I call on Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra to do just that – and make themselves available to voters and the free press because there's a lot of questions that need to be answered," Villaraigosa declared in another portion of his statement. Fox News Digital reached out to the office of Kamala Harris and the Office of Joe and Jill Biden but did not receive responses from either office by the time of publication. "It's clear the President was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic. And we delivered," Becerra noted in a statement, according to reports. During an appearance on "The View" earlier this month, Biden rejected the notion that he suffered significant decline in his cognitive abilities during his last year in office. Biden has been "diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone," a statement from his personal office recently noted.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Antonio Villaraigosa keeps Volvo, last name and Netflix account in divorce settlement
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struck numerous deals while at City Hall, but his latest score is personal. In the divorce settlement ending his seven-year marriage, Villaraigosa secured a Volvo and a home in Beverly Hills and gets to keep his Netflix account. The terms of the 72-year-old Villaraigosa's divorce settlement with 52-year-old Patricia Villaraigosa were finalized in L.A. County Superior Court earlier this week. As part of the settlement, Villaraigosa agreed to pay his soon-to-be ex-wife $500,000 in lieu of spousal support and $100,000 for her "attorney's and forensic accounting fees and costs," according to court records. The pair also agreed that she will drop the Villaraigosa surname and revert to her maiden name, Govea, and will update her information with the Department of Motor Vehicles and other state and federal agencies. As part of the settlement, she agreed to not use the Villaraigosa name for any social, marketing or business purposes, according to court documents. The terms of the settlement agreement were first reported by In Touch Weekly. Read more: Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joins cryptocurrency company Coinbase as advisor The settlement was filed in court on Monday and allows Patricia Villaraigosa to keep two properties in Mexico and a 2016 Range Rover, along with bank accounts and all furniture, artwork and jewelry in her possession. Antonio Villaraigosa will keep a 2024 Volvo XC60, his last name, bank accounts, his pension, a home in Beverly Hills and all streaming services, including the Netflix account. A spokesperson for Villaraigosa did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the divorce agreement. The settlement comes after Villaraigosa announced he plans to run for California governor next year, marking his second attempt to lead the Golden State. When he left City Hall in 2013, Villaraigosa said he had "no job, no house, no car.' But in 2017 as a gubernatorial candidate, his tax returns showed that he made more than $4 million as a consultant to various businesses, including multilevel marketing company Herbalife, Banc of California, water company Cadiz, global public relations firm Edelman and the AltaMed chain of health clinics. He also began teaching at the USC Price School of Public Policy when he left City Hall. He ended up finishing third in the governor's race behind Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox. Antonio Villar became Antonio Villaraigosa in 1987, when he married Corina Raigosa and they merged their last names. The couple divorced in 2007 and Villaraigosa married Patricia Govea in August 2016. Villaraigosa filed for divorce from Patricia Villaraigosa in 2022, according to court records. That case was dismissed the following year, but he filed again in January 2024 and asked that neither party be awarded spousal support. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
