{"id":53410,"date":"2025-11-14T20:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/53410\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T20:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:14:08","slug":"prop-50-means-huntington-beach-could-clash-with-rep-robert-garcia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/53410\/","title":{"rendered":"Prop. 50 means Huntington Beach could clash with Rep. Robert Garcia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Huntington Beach passed legislation in 2023 banning any flags<\/a> other than government and military flags, including the LGBTQ Pride flag, from being flown on city property.<\/p>\n

That was reinforced when Surf City voters passed Measure B<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

But now Huntington Beach could be represented in Congress by an openly gay progressive who formerly served as the mayor of Long Beach, a city that holds a massive Pride parade each year.<\/p>\n

The passage of Proposition 50 this month<\/a> means Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) will see his Congressional District 42 \u2014 which currently encompasses cities from Long Beach north into communities like Downey, Bell Gardens and Commerce \u2014 take a southern turn into Orange County as the 2026 election cycle approaches.<\/p>\n

Specifically, new district lines drawn to boost Democratic representation in Congress mean that Garcia, if reelected, would represent the conservative cities of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.<\/p>\n

Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns is wary of such an arrangement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope [Garcia] comes in with the intention to represent the people of Huntington Beach and not his leftist agenda,\u201d Burns said after a State of the City<\/a> breakfast Wednesday. \u201cHe\u2019s been very vocal with his kind of progressive-minded works. I hope he doesn\u2019t put agenda before people, his party before service.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe left has gone so radical, so crazy, with a leftist, progressive, party-first [ideology]. … Their overreach has made self-governance so difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although City Council seats are non-partisan, Huntington Beach\u2019s leadership in the past few years has taken a swing to the far right. In 2022, four conservatives were seated on the seven-member panel and, on regular 4-3 votes, began dismantling long-held practices they deemed too progressive. <\/p>\n

During the 2024 election cycle, conservatives running together on a slate \u2014 Don Kennedy, Butch Twining and Chad Williams \u2014 defeated the three progressive<\/a> incumbents, who\u2019d previously been at odds with their council colleagues, turning the dais into an all-MAGA panel.<\/p>\n

At last December\u2019s swearing-in ceremony at City Hall, all seven councilmembers posed together for pictures on stage, wearing red hats that read \u201cMake Huntington Beach Great Again.\u201d<\/p>\n

After President Donald Trump was sworn in the following month, Burns placed a bust of the president on the Huntington Beach City Council dais during the next council meeting. It was subsequently removed but resurfaced in March.<\/p>\n

\"Huntington <\/p>\n

Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns, with a bust of President Trump in front of him on the dais, listens to public comments during a March city council meeting.<\/p>\n

(James Carbone)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the city of Long Beach, Garcia served as mayor from 2014 to 2022, before running for Congress. He was the city\u2019s youngest and first openly gay mayor, as well as the first Latino to hold the office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very aware that we\u2019re not going to always agree or be on the same page on every political issue,\u201d the 47-year-old congressman told the Daily Pilot Thursday. \u201cWhen I was mayor, I worked with all sorts of people. At the end of the day … I have a lot of respect for [Burns] He\u2019s a [retired] Long Beach police officer. I have a great relationship with Long Beach PD. They supported me in every campaign I ever ran in, including when I ran for Congress. <\/p>\n

\u201cI honor his service. We may have disagreements, but I look forward to working with him.\u201d <\/p>\n

Garcia assured he would \u201cwork my ass off\u201d to bring back resources for all the communities he represents, including funding for infrastructure like sea walls and beach access as well as park resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s areas that we can work together, I look forward to that,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen there\u2019s areas where we\u2019ll disagree, that\u2019s OK too … Local government is hard. It\u2019s not an easy job. I\u2019ll have my relationship with the council, and I\u2019ll have a direct relationship with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many, Garcia will be watching the legal battle around the passage and implementation of Prop. 50 unfold. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice joined a lawsuit brought by California Republicans<\/a> seeking to block the new House of Representatives map from going into effect. <\/p>\n

\"Casey <\/p>\n

Casey McKeon, shown in 2023, is set to be Huntington Beach\u2019s next mayor in 2026. <\/p>\n

(File photo)<\/p>\n

Huntington Beach is also currently part of California\u2019s 47th Congressional District, represented by Dave Min (D-Irvine).<\/p>\n

According to Orange County Registrar of Voters numbers<\/a>, Huntington Beach comprises 56,736 registered Republicans and 41,192 Democrats among its more than 136,000 registered voters, with a bulk of the remaining 38,000 stating \u201cNo Party Preference.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the contest over redistricting, Surf City voters opposing Prop. 50 outnumbered supporters by more than 4,000 ballots.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a conservative tidal wave in the community,\u201d Garcia said Thursday of the Huntington Beach results. \u201cYou have hard-working folks, people who care about their city, and that\u2019s the way I\u2019m going to approach it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Republican advantage is more lopsided in Newport Beach, which also has conservative leadership on its city council. Newport Beach has 29,187 registered Republicans and 15,217 registered Democrats among its more than 61,000 registered voters, according to the county registrar.<\/p>\n

Garcia said he knows both Huntington Beach and Newport Beach well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the beach, I love spending time on the coast,\u201d he said. \u201cThis will be a coastal district, from Long Beach to Newport, and I think we\u2019ll be able to unify in a way that protects and focuses on the issues like protecting our coast, protecting our oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Burns said Huntington Beach is \u201ccompletely different\u201d from other coastal cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what makes our community, our society, so bitchin\u2019, the mayor said. \u201c[The fact that] you can move from town to town, state to state and live in a totally different world,\u201d he said. \u201c[Sacramento is] trying to take self-governance and local control away. To me, it\u2019s criminal and it\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor said he plans to run for reelection to the City Council next year.<\/p>\n

Casey McKeon, currently serving as the city\u2019s mayor pro tem, is expected to be sworn in as Huntington Beach\u2019s 88th mayor next month. He will be the last of the so-called \u201cFab Four\u201d conservatives, elected in 2022<\/a>, to serve as mayor.<\/p>\n

McKeon said Wednesday he is waiting to see what happens in the 2026 election and whether or not Garcia will be reelected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always looking to work with our Congress people,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s always going to be meetings of the mind on what projects we need help with, if they can help us on the federal side. It shouldn\u2019t matter what party they\u2019re in or if they have an issue with us. We want to work with people to better Huntington Beach. That\u2019s what\u2019s important, whether it\u2019s Dave Min or whoever the new congressperson is. <\/p>\n

\u201cI tell people that everything we\u2019ve done is just go back to the middle,\u201d McKeon said, \u201cbut it\u2019s abnormal in California for us to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Huntington Beach passed legislation in 2023 banning any flags other than government and military flags, including the LGBTQ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1409,179,1752,33653,14897,588,131,133,132,4415,5860,611,26866,592,1920,33654,2429],"class_list":{"0":"post-53410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-city","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-conservative-city","12":"tag-garcia","13":"tag-huntington-beach","14":"tag-long-beach","15":"tag-long-beach-headlines","16":"tag-long-beach-news","17":"tag-mayor","18":"tag-newport-beach","19":"tag-orange-county","20":"tag-passage","21":"tag-people","22":"tag-prop","23":"tag-rep-robert-garcia","24":"tag-thursday"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53410","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=53410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}