There’s a lot of money being spent in the 45th Congressional District, as both Democrats and Republicans see it as critical to their hopes of controlling the House of Representatives. But as the partisans are busy duking it out and setting money on fire, we came to a surprisingly easy conclusion about who is best suited to represent the district.
Rep. Michelle Steel, a former Orange County supervisor, has proven herself a capable and thoughtful member of the House of Representatives.
Unsurprisingly, her voting record is overall a conservative one. She has amassed a fiscally conservative record, ever mindful of the massive national debt.
“The United States has a spending problem, and we should all be concerned with the recent announcement that we now have over $35 trillion in debt,” she argues. “Congress must work in a bipartisan way to reduce wasteful spending and work towards a balanced budget. Californians stay within their means, and so should elected officials.”
She has also cast a number of laudable votes. Earlier this year, she voted in support of a requiring federal agents to get a warrant before seeing the communications of Americans swept up under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Service Act. She voted to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq. And she voted against the corporate welfare bill known as the CHIPS Act.
In a recent interview with our editorial board, she also affirmed her support for ending federal marijuana prohibition and for a legislative solution for immigrants with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protection.
We also credit Steel for her willingness to change her mind, as she did with rescinding her sponsorship for the Life at Conception Act and her clear affirmation that she does not support federal legislation banning abortion, preferring to leave matters to the states. She also affirmed that she supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.
Now, this isn’t to say we agree with Steel on everything. She wrongly went along with her party’s sideshow impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas for carrying out the policies of the Biden administration, for example.
But in contrast, we don’t think her challenger is quite ready for prime time. Derek Tran entered this race relatively late in the game and with a lot of apparent fanfare. Democrats at the time were nervous about the then-frontrunner, Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Bernice Nguyen-Penaloza, who seriously lagged in fundraising. But then came Tran with major financial backing and he advanced over Nguyen-Penaloza in the primary.
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Member of our editorial board recently interviewed Tran and found him pleasant enough. He’s a lifelong Democrat who wants to help the less fortunate and thinks he can do a better job than Steel of representing the district.
That’s all well and good as a starting point, but Tran repeatedly struggled when asked a direct question about where he actually stood on the issues.
For instance, in the context of a discussion about the national debt, Tran was asked what he would cut. After initially floundering by saying he won’t know until he got elected, he replied he would look at America’s proxy wars. But when asked if he considered Ukraine a proxy war, he quickly backtracked and said he would support what’s currently going on there. When asked again which proxy war he was referring to, or if he had any in mind from the last decade, he expressed regret for having mentioned proxy wars at all and didn’t have any in mind.
So it went from there. In brief, Tran just isn’t ready to be a member of Congress. We don’t fault him for deciding to run, but there’s no real case to make for him unless you’re a Democratic partisan.
It’s a no-brainer. Re-elect Michelle Steel to the House of Representatives.
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