In the News
Written by Gabe Greschler
Days after admonishing Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer over his willingness to support a Republican bill in order to avoid a government shutdown, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi affirmed her party’s support for the minority leader, saying she has confidence in his leadership.
Written by Mark Alfred
California is being hit particularly hard by Department of Government Efficiency cuts.
It is home to more federal workers than any other state, many of them with the Department of Veterans Affairs, whose workforce is being slashed by thousands nationwide. Its national parks and reserves are facing staffing cuts, while its universities stand to lose millions in grants that support medical research.
Written by Austin Metzger
In a building filled with 150 people, U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon began her speech explaining how her aunt was one of two black women at San Francisco State University who in 1968 helped lead a historic student-led strike that demanded the creation of an ethnic studies department on the campus.
“It started here,” Simon said, “It started here when students and professors alike had to move against the administration to physically take space, and they shut San Francisco State down.”
Written by Shira Stein
WASHINGTON — Bay Area lawmakers have received an increase in calls from constituents in January and February, seven members told the Chronicle. Those who were in office at the start of the first Trump administration said the volume is similar to that time period. But the messages they’re getting have gotten more specific: Constituents are asking them to “do something” and not just make symbolic moves or release statements.
Written by Matthew Green & Natalia V Navarro
About halfway through President Donald Trump’s contentious address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Lateefah Simon decided she’d heard enough.
“I did decide to attend because my job as a new member of Congress is to deeply understand the institution,” the freshman Democratic representative from Oakland told KQED. “But you know, I was in there for about 45 minutes and there was only so much hatred that I could hear.”
Written by Joan Walsh
On Thursday morning we got to see the worst and the best of the House Democratic caucus. I won’t soon forget either.
Written by Joe Garofoli
Days before they return to Washington to cast votes on the GOP-crafted budget, two California House members toured the Innovative Genomics Institute research lab at UC Berkeley Friday morning, in order to get a look at the real-life impacts of Republicans’ goal to whack $4 billion from the National Health Institute.
UC Berkeley receives $169 million in NIH funding.
Written by Joe Garofoli
WASHINGTON - Before Rep. Lateefah Simon took office as the East Bay’s new representative in Congress, it would have been easy to imagine how her first term was likely to go. She would join The Squad, and become a go-to source on MSNBC and others drawn to her incredible biography: The legally blind MacArthur Fellowship “genius grant” winner grew up in public housing and is equal parts wonky and woke.
Written by Chase Hunter
Rep. Lateefah Simon thought she would be delivering a $2 million check to the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation this week — the first federal money she had secured for District 12 since being sworn in as a first-term member of Congress in January — but that was before the Trump administration issued a memo announcing a freeze on nearly all federal funding.
Written by Cynthia Laird