Max Hsia on Fiscal Reform, Public Safety, and Housing Costs

Max Hsia enters the District 24 race as a political newcomer and local entrepreneur.

Written by Michael Qin

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Max Hsia enters the District 24 race as a political newcomer, leveraging a career as a local small business owner who operated a retail food establishment in the region for over a decade. A Bay Area resident for over 30 years, Hsia transitioned into politics through grassroots activism, first getting in touch by organizing local campaigns against regional sales tax increases.

Running as a moderate Republican, Hsia frames his lack of prior public office experience as an asset rather than a liability, positioning himself as a fiscal pragmatist who intends to apply private-sector business metrics, cost-management strategies, and performance-based oversight to state governance.

Break legislative supermajority

Hsia’s primary structural goal is flipping enough state assembly seats to dismantle the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento. In 2024, almost 40% of Californians voted Republican during the presidential election, while currently 75% of California Assemblymembers are Democrat-affiliated. He contends that this partisan imbalance eliminates legislative compromise and public accountability. “There is no compromise, no moderation, no renegotiation. To break that supermajority, we only need to flip seven seats statewide. Once we have that leverage, we can start forcing renegotiation on bills like the mileage tax study, property tax reassessment on inherited homes, and the withholding of school funding,” Hsia stated to The Municipal Journal, recounting his Republican stance. 

Fiscal accountability and infrastructure reform

Echoing concerns over California’s projected $18 billion budget deficit, Hsia argues that the state continues to suffer from a mismanagement of spending. He points critically to major cost overruns in California’s high-speed rail development and homelessness initiatives that have returned varying satisfaction levels, while also contributing to California’s deficit. To curb project delays, he advocates for a “One Milestone at a Time” policy, which would legally require government-contracted infrastructure projects to demonstrate verified, functioning proof of concept before receiving subsequent tax allocations. For example, this proposed legislation mandates building a single working mile between two high-speed rail stations before more tax dollars are invested. 

“A business cannot run in debt indefinitely. You have to make payroll, manage costs, evaluate whether your employees are performing, and maintain quality standards. Those are the same metrics I would bring to Sacramento … Right now, California’s legislature is so lopsided that there is no balance, and people across party lines feel it,” Hsia said.

Affordability

On housing affordability, Hsia’s approach centers on three priorities: cutting regulatory barriers, protecting long-term residents, and expanding pathways to homeownership. Overregulation, he argues, is one of the single biggest drivers of unaffordable housing in California — excessive developer fees and bureaucratic delays get passed directly down to home buyers, and streamlining that process would meaningfully lower construction costs.

For first-time buyers, Hsia proposes down payment assistance and deferred interest rates, with priority given to teachers, nurses, and blue-collar workers. He also wants to protect Proposition 13 and oppose the property tax reassessment clause in Proposition 19, which forces children who inherit their parents’ homes to be reassessed at current market rates — turning a $3,000 to $5,000 annual property tax bill into $15,000 to $20,000 overnight, leaving many families no choice but to sell and leave.

Education

After door-knocking and speaking with over 2,000 community residents, many of whom were teachers themselves, Hsia envisions new education reform. Since teachers are the core of California public education, Hsia wants to introduce greater incentives for teachers to elevate their classrooms, as measured by improved student test scores. He also wants to invest in better curriculum quality and raise the bar for incoming teachers, arguing that higher qualifications paired with better compensation would make the profession more attractive to high-achieving candidates. 

Hsia is also opposed to Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7, a form of race-based affirmative action that he argues would effectively penalize Asian students for scoring higher on standardized tests by requiring them to clear an even higher bar to offset a demographic curve. “Academic performance is often cultural and the result of hard work. Students should not be penalized for excelling — merit-based advancement should be the standard,” Hsia said.

Public safety and security enforcement

Crime deterrence is a key measure Hsia will take to keep our communities safe. He fully supports funding Proposition 36, which allows prosecutors to charge repeat drug and theft offenders with felonies. Although already enacted in state law, Proposition 36 still needs a structured funding and revenue mechanism before thorough implementation. Hsia envisions installing more license plate readers and CCTV cameras at high-crime intersections. Additionally, Hsia proposes establishing the MAX Unit, Maximized Accountability of Execution, to serve as a liaison between the community and law enforcement, specifically for nonviolent crimes, such as broken windows or store break-ins, where no one was hurt but still suffered financial damage. 

Want to learn more? Read our full profiles on the other District 24 candidates: Alex Lee and Dr. Yang Shao. For a full overview of the race and voting guide, click here.