California Congressional District 45 primary election voter guide

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Republican Rep. Michelle Steel is facing off with four Democratic challengers — Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, Derek Tran, Aditya Pai and Cheyenne Hunt — for the seat representing California’s 45th Congressional District.

The inland Orange County district, which includes a small slice of Los Angeles County, was drawn to empower Asian American voters and give them more influence in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In this district, Democrats have a 5.7-point voter registration advantage, but Steel has a strong base of support.

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Who are the candidates?

Michelle Steel, Republican, incumbent.

Steel was born in Seoul and raised in South Korea, Japan and the United States.

She’s been active for years in GOP politics, serving on the state Board of Equalization for eight years before being elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2014. She won a seat in Congress in 2020 to become one of the first three Korean American women elected to the House.

In Congress, Steel sponsored a bill known as the Deterrent Act, which would expand oversight and disclosure requirements related to foreign money and influence in higher education. The bill passed the House last year. She also sponsored the Hospital and ASC Price Transparency Act, which would require hospitals to publish prices for at least 300 services in a way that’s easy for consumers to find.

Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, Democrat, Garden Grove councilmember.

Nguyen-Penaloza, who is the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee father and a Mexican immigrant mother, became the first Latina and the youngest politician to be elected to the Garden Grove City Council in 2016. She ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2022. She works for a program manager at Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan.

Nguyen-Penaloza has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party. She says on her campaign website that she will “work to restore integrity and accountability to a broken Washington,” citing what she called her “proven record of bipartisanship” on the Garden Grove City Council. In an interview with the Daily Pilot, Nguyen-Penaloza said she strives to focus on housing, education and healthcare.

Derek Tran, Democrat, lawyer and workers’ rights advocate.

Tran, a worker’s rights attorney making his first run for elected office, said his background as the son of Vietnamese refugees and as an Army veteran makes him a good fit for the district.

Tran’s legislative priorities include protecting funding for Planned Parenthood and access to health services including birth control and cancer screenings. He supports maintaining Social Security and Medicare.

Cheyenne Hunt, Democrat, legislative policy analyst.

At 26, Hunt is the youngest candidate in the race and hopes to be the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress. The daughter of Syrian refugees is a lawyer with more than 90,000 followers on TikTok.

After earning a law degree from UC Irvine, Hunt served as a clerk for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Most recently, she worked at a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, Public Citizen, as an advocate for Big Tech accountability.

Hunt’s legislative priorities include increasing oversight on large technology companies, making the economy work for everyone, preserving abortion rights and improving infrastructure, according to her campaign website.

Aditya Pai, Democrat, affordable housing attorney.

Pai is a lawyer and an immigrant from India who came to Southern California at 8 years old. His legislative priorities include ending corruption in Washington and tackling “the crisis of affordability in Orange County,” according to his social media.

“As our community emerges from a global pandemic, we ought to elect leaders whose vision is fixed firmly forward to brighter days ahead — not the petty squabbles of the past,” Pai said in a statement announcing his campaign.

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Where is the district?

California’s 45th Congressional District is a C-shaped district that includes Little Saigon in Orange County and several inland cities, including Brea in the north, Artesia in the west, and Fountain Valley in the south.

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Affordability

Steel blamed rising costs in California on “high-tax, anti-small-business policies” in Sacramento that she says “are causing people to flee our state.” In Congress, she has supported legislation to cut taxes, including sponsoring the Permanent Tax Cuts for American Families Act of 2023, which would have permanently increased the standard deduction for taxpayers who don’t itemize their expenses.

Steel said she “first ran for public office to hold government accountable and to help working families by giving them back more of their money.”

Nguyen-Penaloza called for capping the prices of more prescription drugs, similar to what the Inflation Reduction Act did with the cost of insulin. In a news release, she pointed to her bipartisan efforts on the Garden Grove City Council to spur new economic development and infrastructure projects.

She said she is proud of her efforts to improve life for the unhoused community in Garden Grove during her time on the council. The city plans to open a homeless shelter early this year in partnership with Fountain Valley, Westminster and Orange County.

Tran said his background as a child of immigrants gives him a window into the lives of many people struggling with rising costs in the district. He supports increasing Californians’ access to programs such as WIC — Women, Infants and Children, which provides assistance to pregnant and breastfeeding women as well as babies and children under 5 — and holding corporations accountable for price gouging. He also supports reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil in an effort to bring down energy prices.

“My parents are immigrants who came to this country with nothing,” he said. “Through hard work, government programs, and the support of their community they built a store, a house, and a family. I am running to make sure that the people of [this district] can all achieve their American Dream, just as my parents did.”

Hunt has called for creating “a living wage standard” as well as tax credits for lower- and middle-income families “while ensuring the wealthiest pay their fair share.”

She also promotes reforming zoning laws and a comprehensive investment in affordable housing.

Pai wants to increase the supply of housing through zoning reforms and the embrace of mixed-use development.

He also called for offering tax incentives, grants and low-interest loans to help first-time home buyers subsidize their mortgages, and said he supports “fair rent-control measures.”

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Abortion

Steel said she supports the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson that left abortion laws up the states. She said she opposes abortion with exceptions in cases of rape or incest and to protect the life of the mother.

In 2021, Steel co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which declares that human life begins at the moment of fertilization and seeks to implement equal protection for fetuses under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Earlier this year, she supported similar legislation that does not allow exemptions for the procedure, including in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

Nguyen-Penaloza said she would vote to legalize abortion nationwide. She told the Orange County Register that she survived a rape about a decade ago and suffered a miscarriage in 2022, and that the the issue of abortion is “deeply personal” to her.

Hunt said she would vote for a law preventing states from banning abortion. She told Reuters in June that the Supreme Court decision allowing states to ban abortion prompted her to run for office earlier than she might have, calling the ruling “a dire sign and a wake-up call.”

Tran also said he would vote for nationwide abortion rights to prohibit states from outlawing the procedure.

Pai has called for codifying Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that protected abortion rights nationwide before it was overturned in 2022, as well as preserving women’s access to birth control. He supports expanding healthcare programs for women.

“Reproductive rights are human rights. Period,” Pai wrote on his campaign website.

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