Malia Cohen, a Democrat, is California State Controller, elected in November 2022 and sworn in the following January as the first Black woman to hold the office. Raised in San Francisco, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Fisk University and a master’s in public policy from Carnegie Mellon. She served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, including as Board President, from 2011 to 2019, then on the California State Board of Equalization from 2019 to 2022. As Controller, she serves as the state’s chief fiscal officer, independently auditing state-funded agencies and administering state and CSU payroll.
In 2022, California’s Fair Political Practices Commission issued Cohen a warning letter for failing to timely disclose a campaign-related “behested payment” as required under state disclosure law, an administrative finding rather than a criminal or civil penalty. A 2024 CalMatters investigation into campaign-finance enforcement across California’s constitutional officers noted that seven of the state’s eight statewide elected officials, Cohen included, have had past disclosure violations of varying severity.
