Congress
Christina Gagnier’s bid for Congress is about standing up to bullies
Democrat hopes to flip her seat to help her party re-take control of the House
For several election cycles, Democrats have been gunning for California’s 40th Congressional District, a purplish area encompassing inland Orange County and neighboring San Bernardino and Riverside Counties that could help deliver the party control of the House if Republican U.S. Rep. Young Kim is ousted.
Privacy lawyer and former Chino Valley school board member Christina Gagnier spoke with the Washington Blade recently about her campaign for the seat, which draws from years of experience “standing up to bullies” throughout her life and career.
In 2021, she lost her school board seat by voting to defend the LGBTQ community against attacks by groups like Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys, as well as a policy of forced outing in the district.
At the same time, “despite all the culture war-laden headlines, we created dual immersion programs. We worked on STEM education. We opened new schools. We opened a bioscience academy. We did all these wonderful things that unfortunately didn’t make the headlines, but [it was] the things that parents care about.”
Likewise, she told the Blade, “the issues in this campaign are kitchen table issues. Through Our Schools, USA,” a group that she founded to advance public education, “I’m talking to public school parents every day, and they are worried about being able to buy groceries.”
Gagnier continued, “I just spoke with a mom who took out a loan to buy groceries and supplies for a month because of how they’re getting hit. I’ve talked to business owners who have just lost government contracts and might be going into debt because the government just cut off the contract.”
Here is where the rubber meets the road in terms of how the new administration’s work in Washington is harming the lives of everyday people, she said.
“People are realizing that while Young Kim masquerades as a moderate, she’s voting 100% in lockstep with Mike Johnson’s MAGA majority,” Gagnier said, referring to the Republican House speaker.
“We see families in this district suffering, and they’re contacting their representative, and she’s not doing anything,” she said, adding that constituents are likely to continue suffering as “Donald Trump is cutting funding and doing things that are impacting their day-to-day lives.”
The president and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill are bullying people, Gagnier stressed. About 82,000 people in CA-40 will be harmed by proposed cuts to Medicaid, she said. “The issues in this campaign are kitchen table issues.”
Represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Young Kim since 2021, the district is home to small businesses that provide its “lifeblood,” she said, and the owners of these enterprises are “already feeling the impacts” of “the tariffs” as well as “the cuts coming out of D.C.”
“I speak to veterans who are also business owners, and you know, they’re losing opportunities and support left and right,” Gagnier added.
Additionally, she said, “the other thing that is getting attacked is choice: Families being able to make their own private medical decisions, women being able to have the rights that they should have.”
“I’m putting in the work to make sure that we have the resources and the message and we’re reaching voters so that we can actually flip the seat,” Gagnier said. “So, you know, I think this is absolutely doable.”
CA-40 is the GOP-held seat in California that Donald Trump won by the smallest margin in 2024, and last year Kim defended her seat with 1.5 points less than the margin she won in 2022, despite the rest of the country moving toward the right during that time period.
Looking ahead to the Democratic primary election, “There’s a couple other candidates that have thrown their hat in the ring, but, you know, I’m 100% laser-focused on my campaign, making sure that I’m communicating with our families, our business owners, our veterans, and our seniors, and that I’m doing the work I need to do,” Gagnier said.
Trump is “destroying the Department of Education,” Gagnier said, and he selected a nominee to lead the agency, Linda McMahon, who represents “chaos and destruction.”
The newly confirmed secretary was picked not to “reform the Department of Education,” not to “fix things that might be issues at the Department of Education,” but rather is “coming in to destroy” the agency.
Gagnier said “Trump and Musk are already inside of the Department of Education, gutting it, and the end result of that is already being felt by public school families.” For example, she said, “We work with a lot of special education parents. I have parents that are frightened that their children are no longer going to be able to go to public school because they won’t have resources. That’s not okay.”
“We have teachers that are getting fired already because the grants and programs that come from Department of Education are being taken away,” she continued. “We have really talented educators who love kids, who love helping kids, getting unemployed.”
Returning to her election, Gagnier stressed “this is why this race is so important. We have to flip the house. We have to get in there and make sure that these cuts are stopped and we restore all these valuable funding sources that are impacting families.”
“In flipping the house, what that means is we’re able to restore these programs,” she said. “We’re able to make sure that these protections and funding that’s in place to support America’s families, that they’re reinstituted.”
“Donald Trump is a bully. Donald Trump is not going to stop being a bully. He’s going to keep going in and cutting things that America’s families, that the families of CA-40, rely on,” Gagnier said.
Asked what the Democratic Party writ large should do following last year’s electoral defeat, she said “we need a reset on generally as a party is the way we communicate with everyday people,” which will involve being “better listeners” rather than doing “one-way communication.”
“We need to start listening to voters, not tweeting at them,” Gagnier explained. “We need to make it clear to voters that we respect them, and that’s what I’m doing. I respect them, no matter who they voted for [as] president, I respect them. I’m listening to them. I’m here to advocate for them.”
This focus deviates from the tactics used by her Republican opponent who, Gagnier said, “can’t even take simple votes like supporting same-sex marriage” and whose voting record is no different from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.).
“Young Kim has taken an oppositional stance to protecting basic rights, like whether it’s for the LGBTQIA+ community or a woman’s right to choice and to make their own healthcare decisions, she literally has taken an oppositional stance to protecting basic rights,” she added. “We’re going to communicate that, but I think that people need to be aware that her voting record is no different than the rest of the MAGA majority.”
Standing up to bullies
“What keeps parents up at night, families up at night, are prices at the grocery store, not culture wars,” Gagnier said. “And so I’m going to do my part in this campaign to gear my messaging back toward those kitchen table issues.”
By contrast, Republicans like Kim have prioritized trans issues that most parents and constituents in CA-40 do not really care about, she said. “They’re worried about their kids having access to college and career opportunities. When they’re going home at night after working all day, commuting, pick up and drop off, [trans issues] are not the issues that they’re concerned about.”
“I lost a school board seat,” Gagnier said. “And I would do it again and again and again, because I’m going to stand up to bullies, and I was not going to allow those students to be bullied in the school district I represented.”
Nor do other parents approve of kids being bullied in schools, neither theirs nor anyone else’s, she said. “They don’t like kids getting singled out. They don’t like schools being less safe.”
Gagnier added, “we see a lot of noise out there but parents love their public schools, and I think that we need to focus on school safety. And part of this is school safety. If kids at school don’t feel safe going to school, don’t feel safe while they’re at school, and they’re being targeted, that makes the school unsafe for every other kid, too.”
The bioscience academy she helped to spearhead as a school board member is a “four-year program for high school students” that — “in addition to the regular things high school kids have in the classroom” — affords them the opportunity to explore “careers in bioscience, biotechnology, the medical field, engineering.”
Gagnier continued, “So it just really gives these kids this very career-technical education focused exposure to these fields. And I’m very proud that we launched that program while I was on the school board, and families love the program, and so I’m just so blessed that we were able to provide that for the students and their families.”
Congress
Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office
Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections
In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.
The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.
Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).
Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.
“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”
Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.
“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”
“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”
Congress
Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation
California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.
The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.
“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.
The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”
“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.
“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.
Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.
Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.
“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”
Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.
“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”
The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.
“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.
The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.
“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”
Congress
Goodlander endorses Pappas’s Senate bid
Announcement puts gay congressman on the path to securing his party’s nomination
U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.) on Thursday announced she will not run to represent her state in the U.S. Senate, endorsing gay U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas’s (D-N.H.) bid for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, putting him on the path to secure the Democratic nomination.
“We are in the fight of our lifetimes right now, of a moment of real crisis and challenge,” she said. “I feel humbled and grateful to so many people across our state who have encouraged me to take a look at the U.S. Senate, and after a lot of thought and conversations with people I love and people I respect and people who I had never met before, who I work for in this role right now, I’ve decided that I’m running for re election in the House of Representatives.”
When asked by a reporter from the ABC affiliate station in New Hampshire whether she would endorse Pappas, Goodlander said, “Yes. Chris Pappas has been amazing partner to me in this work and for many years. And I really admire him. I have a lot of confidence in him.”
She continued, “He and I come to this work, I think with a similar set of values, we also have really similar family stories. Our families both came to New Hampshire over 100 years ago from the very same part of northern Greece. And the values that he brings to this work are ones that that I really, really admire. So I’m proud to support him, and I’m really excited to be working with him right now because we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Today in Salem @MaggieG603 tells @WMUR9 she is not running for U.S. Senate & endorses @ChrisPappasNH #NHPolitics #NHSen #NH02 #WMUR pic.twitter.com/W2CMrhRuIC
— Adam Sexton (@AdamSextonWMUR) April 17, 2025
“Maggie Goodlander has dedicated her career to service, and we can always count on her to stand up to powerful interests and put people first,” Pappas said in a post on X. “I’m so grateful to call her my friend and teammate, and I’m proud to support her re-election and stand with her in the fights ahead.”
Earlier this month, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, announced he would not enter the Senate race, strengthening the odds that Democrats will retain control of Shaheen’s seat.
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