Happy Monday and welcome to the AM Alert!<\/p>\n
PLANNED PARENTHOOD LEADER TO RUN IN NEW CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT<\/p>\n
A regional Planned Parenthood leader and new mom announced Monday she will run in California\u2019s 6th Congressional District, which currently does not have an incumbent after voters approved a redrawn map<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an interview ahead of her campaign launch, Democrat Lauren Babb Tomlinson told The Sacramento Bee that she wants to push back on Republican-led attacks on reproductive health care in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision and funding cuts in a major tax bill signed by President Donald Trump earlier this year.<\/p>\n But she plans to focus mainly on affordability issues. The 33-year-old and her husband welcomed their first child earlier this year and said the monthly child care bills are about the same as their housing costs.<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies like ours are really feeling the pain, whether it\u2019s groceries, whether it\u2019s health care. We really need to do a better job of thinking about how we can alleviate some of these stresses,\u201d she said, pointing to Trump\u2019s tariffs as one cause for price increases.<\/p>\n Originally from Michigan, Tomlinson moved to California after obtaining a political science degree and worked as a labor organizer for government employee unions before joining Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which covers clinics in Northern California and Nevada.<\/p>\n Five Northern California Planned Parenthood clinics closed after Trump signed a bill to strip federal funding from the health care organization, which Tomlinson called \u201cthe most devastating day of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a career politician,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve spent my life on the front lines really fighting for families, fighting for workers, fighting for health care.\u201d<\/p>\n The 6th District covers a swath of suburban communities in the Sacramento region, including West Sacramento, Natomas, East Sacramento, Citrus Heights, Roseville and Rocklin.<\/p>\n Democratic former state Sen. Richard Pan is also running in the district. Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley lives in and represents the Roseville\/Rocklin area but has not yet announced where he\u2019ll run after Proposition 50 sliced his sprawling district into six pieces.<\/p>\n WHY ADAM GRAY JOINED REPUBLICANS IN VOTING TO REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT<\/p>\n Via David Lightman in Washington, D.C. …<\/p>\n Help for health care premiums or money to help people afford food?<\/p>\n That\u2019s the sort of choice Rep. Adam Gray, D-Merced, saw as he considered how to vote on the House legislation that reopened the government Wednesday.<\/p>\n Gray was the only California Democrat, and one of six House Democrats<\/a> around the country, to vote for the bill.<\/p>\n Democrats protested the Republicans\u2019 refusal to include in the bill any extension of the enhanced health care premium credits that expire at the end of next month. Gray backs the extension.<\/p>\n But the bill has another feature important to Gray\u2019s district: It extends funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through September 30. An estimated 21% of the San Joaquin Valley district\u2019s families use the program.<\/p>\n \u201cSome critics have asked why I supported the bill when it did not include an immediate extension of the Affordable Care Act\u2019s enhanced premium tax credits. Here\u2019s why: Protecting families from hunger today does not prevent us from lowering health care costs tomorrow,\u201d he said after the vote in a Turlock Journal op-ed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has promised a vote on the subsidy extension next month. House leaders have not made any pledge.<\/p>\n Gray seemed confident.<\/p>\n \u201cRepublicans have already put their commitments to support extensions in writing. A group of House Republicans recently sent a letter to their leadership<\/a> saying, \u2018We will not take healthcare away from families who depend on it. This is our opportunity to demonstrate that commitment through action,\u2019\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are their words. Now they need to keep their promise.\u201d<\/p>\n Thirteen Republicans signed that letter, including Reps. David Valadao, R-Hanford, and Young Kim, R-Anaheim.<\/p>\n Gray\u2019s vote was consistent with the Gray style of independent, often unpredictable voting. It\u2019s a political necessity, because even with the redrawn lines of Proposition 50, independent analysts still see his re-election race as a toss-up.<\/p>\n He tries to stay in the political middle. \u201cI\u2019ve spent my first nine or 10 months now in Congress making every effort to achieve bipartisanship,\u201d he told The Sacramento Bee in an interview<\/a> as the shutdown began October 1.<\/p>\n Wednesday night, Gray explained why he joined 216 Republicans in voting to fund most of the government through January 30, and some agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, through September 30.<\/p>\n \u201cGoverning requires difficult choices. Congress could have rejected this deal, kept the government closed and watched families go hungry while we make a point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, I accepted an imperfect compromise that protects the most vulnerable for a whole year while we keep working to save health care.\u201d<\/p>\n REPUBLICAN NUANCE ON IMMIGRATION<\/p>\n Significant blocs of California Republican voters disagree with the Trump administration\u2019s immigration agenda, according to a report published Monday from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute.<\/p>\n Researchers analyzed crosstabs from a recent Berkeley IGS poll<\/a> that included 10 questions about immigration and enforcement. It found that while Democratic voters are uniformly opposed to Trump\u2019s immigration policies and enforcement, Republican voters have mixed views.<\/p>\n Younger Republicans, Latinos, women and self-described moderates in particular are more likely to break from their party on the topic.<\/p>\n For example, 51% of Latino Republicans said they support due process for all immigrants, compared to 36% of white and 43% of Asian Republican voters. The double-digit difference in opposition to Trump\u2019s immigration policies held across most questions.<\/p>\n There are also huge generational differences across questions about ICE raids, enforcement methods, deportation and fairness. Of those 65 and older, 18% said they disagree with ending birthright citizenship, which Trump moved to do<\/a> on his first day back in office, compared to 46% of GOP voters between 18-29.<\/p>\n \u201cThe poll data shows that California Republicans are not a monolith on immigration,\u201d said G. Cristina Mora, a sociology professor at UC Berkeley and one of the report\u2019s authors. \u201cSubstantial shares support measures that constrain or soften enforcement \u2014 particularly when those measures are linked to fairness, due process or limits on government reach.\u201d<\/p>\n A little more than 1,000 Republican voters were surveyed in the poll, which was conducted August 11-17.<\/p>\n QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n \u201cI concede, of course, you are not as bad as the Epstein abusers. But the nepotism, machine politics & corporate & lobbyist money in Sacramento is shafting working people. The indictment was embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n