While California consistently pays a premium over the national average, major price spikes have generally occurred during global supply disruptions and geopolitical crises.<\/p>\n
National and California gasoline prices surged following the start of the Iraq War, climbed to record levels during the 2008 global oil shock, collapsed during the Great Recession, fell sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic and spiked again following Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. More recent volatility has coincided with tensions involving Iran and concerns about disruptions to oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
The dual-line comparison shows California\u2019s prices generally rise and fall alongside national trends, though at a consistently higher baseline because of state taxes, environmental regulations, refinery constraints and fuel formulation requirements.<\/p>\n
Kiley also criticized Pan\u2019s role during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming he \u201cled the charge\u201d to keep California schools closed longer than those in other states.<\/p>\n
Pan, a physician who chaired legislative health committees during portions of the pandemic, was a prominent advocate for vaccination and public health measures. California did experience some of the nation\u2019s longest periods of distance learning, although decisions regarding school closures and reopenings were made through a combination of state and local executive actions rather than by individual legislators.<\/p>\n
Kiley further highlighted what he described as instances where he broke with both Democratic and Republican leadership, citing his support for preserving AmeriCorps funding, extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, supporting aid to Ukraine and opposing certain tariff and immigration proposals.<\/p>\n
Pan\u2019s campaign responded by embracing the prospect of debate while attacking Kiley\u2019s voting record in Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Pan looks forward to debating \u2018MAGA champion\u2019 Kevin Kiley and holding him accountable for voting with Donald Trump 98% of the time,\u201d Daisy Stein, spokesperson for Pan\u2019s campaign, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The \u201cMAGA champion\u201d label references a 2022 endorsement in which President Trump described Kiley as a future \u201cMAGA champion\u201d in Congress. Pan\u2019s campaign and allied Democratic groups repeatedly have cited congressional vote analyses showing Kiley has voted with Trump-backed positions in the overwhelming majority of votes where the president\u2019s position was known publicly.<\/p>\n
Neither campaign announced specific debate dates or locations, and Pan\u2019s campaign did not indicate whether it would accept Kiley\u2019s proposal to hold five of them.<\/p>\n
If accepted, the debates would provide voters their first extended opportunity to see the candidates directly confront one another over issues ranging from taxes and energy costs to health care, education and the future direction of California\u2019s newest congressional district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While California consistently pays a premium over the national average, major price spikes have generally occurred during global…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,400,22331,989,9739,1694],"class_list":["post-387688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-education-policy","tag-elections","tag-print","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}