With diminished clout, Californians in Congress struggle to counter Trump’s agenda
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- California has the largest delegation in Congress, the majority of whom are Democrats. But few hold the political sway the Golden State is accustomed to in the Republican-led chambers.
- Much of the California delegation’s attention has been consumed by the wildfires and disaster response in Los Angeles, rather than directly countering President Trump’s agenda.
WASHINGTON — California — the self-proclaimed liberal resistance to President Trump’s policies — has long had an outsize voice in the nation’s politics.
But now, with the Republican back in the White House, many of the state’s Democrats in Congress are bracing for another battle — to ensure robust wildfire recovery funding, safeguard former President Biden’s policies and advance their party’s broader social and fiscal ambitions in the nation’s deeply polarized capital.
“It gets harder, but it’s still doable and necessary,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, noting that one of his first major bipartisan pieces of legislation after joining the Senate four years ago was to partner with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an effort that ultimately provided billions of dollars of federal funding to fix the nation’s electrical grid after ice storms decimated swaths of Texas. Padilla said he drew upon his experience having chaired a state legislative committee on energy.
“I was able to speak knowledgeably about some of these issues, and we made progress, right? So that’s kind of been the model on a number of things I’ve tried to take on,” Padilla said in an interview earlier this month in his Senate office. “Admittedly, seniority can be helpful. I think, more importantly, it does come back down to the relationships and the knowledge.”
Still, the Porter Ranch resident concedes that he has concerns about the coming years.
“What my biggest frustration is is how many of my Republican colleagues have told me the right thing behind closed doors about ‘Dreamers’ and farmworkers and others, but haven’t been willing to say it publicly,” Padilla said, adding that he is heartened yet skeptical about Trump’s recent statements about young people who were brought into the country without legal authorization. “I have to be open to it, because I owe that to ‘Dreamers’ and owe that to my constituents, so I will never give up.”
Padilla was appointed to the Senate after Kamala Harris was elected vice president in 2020. With just four years in the office, he is emblematic of the state’s declining clout in the nation’s capital.
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For decades, California held sway in both chambers of Congress. Then Sen. Barbara Boxer retired and Sen. Dianne Feinstein died. Democrat Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Republican Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield are no longer House speakers.
With 52 House members, California still has the largest state delegation, including 43 Democrats who are adamant they must stand up for the voters’ ideals at a time when many of them staunchly oppose Trump’s policies on issues such as immigration and reproductive rights.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) decried the Trump administration’s move to eliminate birthright citizenship as “unconstitutional,” and derided the president’s decision to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government.
He applauded California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, a Democrat, who has taken a front-and-center role in pushing back against the Trump administration’s immigration policy rollbacks. But Khanna also acknowledged his limitations on curbing the Trump administration’s policy goals in Congress.
The California congressional delegation has to be “as vocal as we can on these issues, and expose what’s going on and tell the stories of what’s going on, so that people know how extreme some of these ideas are,” Khanna said.
Much of the California delegation’s attention has been consumed by the wildfires and disaster response in Los Angeles. Khanna, along with newly elected Rep. George Whitesides (D-Agua Dulce), are planning to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to commit arson or loot in wildfire-torn areas. Padilla introduced a package of bills recently that would boost pay for federal wildland firefighters and create affordable housing from temporary disaster shelters.
Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego), Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood) and Whitesides introduced legislation on Friday to require the leaders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to streamline and coordinate the bureaucracy involved in federal disaster response. Currently, more than 30 federal agencies are involved, resulting in fragmentation and delays that Jacobs said she saw firsthand last year after devastating flooding caused $90 million in damage in San Diego.
“After that disaster, I heard from so many constituents who didn’t know where to turn for help. They faced slow responses from federal agencies,” Jacobs said. “They finally got help, but it was too little, too late.”
Other California lawmakers have put forward a range of bills to address the disaster.
But even disaster aid has become hung up in Washington’s politics. Along with her Democratic colleagues from California, Rivas, whose district includes the areas burned in the Hurst fire, has been outspoken that any federal wildfire aid should not come with conditions, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Trump have suggested. Trump has said that the Southern California fires made pushing other parts of his political policy agenda “easier,” though on a visit to the region Friday, he said: “We have to work together to get this really worked out.”
“The Republicans are trying to use this as a way to get something else that has nothing to do with the response to this disaster,” Rivas said. “And so all of us are unified in that, making sure that doesn’t happen.”
Many of California’s elected Democrats in Washington who are now grappling with the deeply polarized Congress spent much of their political careers in Democrat-dominated bodies, such as the state Legislature.
Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine) is still getting used to his transition from being part of a supermajority in the state Senate to the minority party in the House after he won the Orange County seat Katie Porter vacated to run for U.S. Senate.
“I did not contemplate a universe in which I won and we were not a majority,” Min said.
Californian Reps. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) and Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) hold sway as the House Democratic Caucus’ chair and vice chair respectively. But without California’s usual cadre of Democratic heavyweights, the state’s representatives are fighting for influence. Republicans also hold power in every congressional committee.
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“Something that dominates our caucus discussions, my conversations with Democratic colleagues, particularly freshmen — what can we do in this environment?” Min said. “You know, because I can’t introduce bills that will go anywhere.”
Even if his legislation has little shot at succeeding, Min said he’ll continue to push his messaging — like a recent amendment he pitched that federal aid for California’s wildfire response should not contain conditions.
While he acclimates to the long days and exhausting pace of travel between California and Washington, Min said he was reaching out to his Republican colleagues across the aisle. He said he’s already befriended several on a recent new members’ retreat in Williamsburg, Va.
“I know there are good people on that side of the aisle. They are under a lot of pressure to vote with the MAGA Donald Trump agenda,” he said. “But at some point, the hope is that if we continue being the conscious conscience of Congress, that maybe some of them will peel off.”
Others are more used to Washington’s polarization.
California Sen. Adam Schiff, who took office in December, is optimistic that the Senate will be more collegial and resemble what the House was before the Trump era. He noted that, as a representative from Burbank, he had a close relationship with Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) because both of their districts had major space and science interests.
“The Houston Space Center was part of his history. I had JPL. We were so inseparable when it came to NASA and space funding and priorities,” Schiff said. “We didn’t talk about abortion, we didn’t talk about guns, we didn’t talk about the things that divide us, we focused on the thing we have in common. ... And my sense already, after being in the Senate for a month, is that the opportunity to form those kind of partnerships is much more prevalent here.”
Still, the elected leaders acknowledged uncertainty.
“I’m encouraged,” Padilla said. “But we’re just understanding the dynamics of this new Congress, majorities in the House and the Senate, and incoming President Trump.”
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