California leaders split over war in Iran | CA Politics 360
California lawmakers and leaders are divided over the war in Iran, now in its fifth month, as debates over funding and presidential authority continue in Washington D.C.
This week, California Democrats in Congress voted to end the war and limit the president’s powers, while the state’s eight House Republicans opposed the measure. Those Republicans also supported a $95 billion budget plan to provide additional funding for the war.
The House’s only independent, California Rep. Kevin Kiley, split his votes, siding with Republicans to reject the resolution to end the war but aligning with Democrats in opposing the budget plan.
“We’ve had these fits and starts, we’ve had this ad hoc approach that seemed kind of like a high-wire act,” Kiley said. “We have a framework, then not a framework. There’s a ceasefire and then there’s not a ceasefire. And so, a lot of Americans are asking how do we get this conflict wound down with the Strait of Hormuz opened? I’ve said the best way to do that is to have Congress centrally involved.”
Kiley also addressed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“There’s no doubt that Iran is an evil regime that that’s a grave risk to the region and the world and has attacked and killed Americans in the past and made no secret about its ambitions to do so on a much larger scale in the future,” he said. “There are significant national security imperatives when it comes to ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. That needs to be a paramount objective which I think is still shared on a bipartisan basis. But the way things have evolved I think is in a place people are rightfully not happy with.”
Governor Gavin Newsom criticized the war during an unrelated press conference this week, calling it “one of the worst mistakes in modern American history by a President who is way out of his league.”
Newsom condemned the Trump administration for freezing $1 billion in Medicaid funds for California over alleged fraud as the war persists.
“The fraud is the Trump administration, the waste is the jaw-dropping abuse to the taxpayers of this failed war in Iran,” Newsom said. “Want to talk about waste, fraud and abuse this is legendary status.”
Democratic Rep. John Garamendi, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, expressed concerns about the war’s impact. “Trump is engaged in an illegal war, he has stuck the United States in a quagmire,” he said.
“We’ve seen the death of American soldiers and hundreds have been wounded. This is a terrible, terrible mistake,” Garamendi added. “There is going to be long-term damage to the American economy and the economy of the world with the shutdown of the strait.”
The Pentagon has reported that the war has cost $37.5 billion so far.
The future of the funding bill remains uncertain in the Senate. Several California
Republican members of Congress, including Reps. James Gallagher, Ken Calvert, and Vince Fong, were unavailable for comment before the publication deadline.