‘Voice of the farmers’: Supporters, political brass remember Rep. Doug LaMalfa
The airplane known for chauffeuring the vice president of the United States touched down in Northern California after leaving Washington early Saturday morning.
Extreme cold and snow swept across the Midwest and East Coast while the plane flew west to shuttle a group from Congress to a small town and a sunny day.
“We had to arrange to get Air Force 2 to bring a plane full of members and staff out here to be a part of this,” said U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. “There’s very few people who could muster that kind of crowd under these conditions, but Doug did.”
By Doug, he meant U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Oroville, a congressional staple known for championing the values of north state conservatives.
“This went all the way to the top, my friends,” Johnson added, “because it’s Doug.”
Somehow, the D.C. politicians and delegates from Congress were not out of place Saturday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico amid an atmosphere of farmers and friends honoring LaMalfa, who earlier this month died unexpectedly at 65.
More than 1,500 people filed into the high-ceiling venue, with more seated at an open-air overflow area on the other side of the fairgrounds.
Among them were Johnson, Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff. The sea of folding chairs and bleachers faced a stage holding a casket adorned with a white cowboy hat stuffed with rice crop on one end, a folded American flag on the other.
Of those who attended, some knew LaMalfa from a time before his political career. But not everyone knew that his political career began when he was appointed an alternate member of the Butte County Republican Party central committee.
“An alternate, mind you,” said Mark Lavy, the congressman’s second cousin. “I’m not sure there’s a lower rung on the local political ladder.”
A rice farmer from Richvale, LaMalfa politicked as a man who epitomized the people and ethos of his community to whom he sought to give a national voice: farmers underappreciated by the urban masses they feed, and the government that regulates and misunderstands them.
“He was a voice of the farmers,” said Piara Gogal, a Live Oak farmer.
Remembering LaMalfa
The north state boundaries stretch from rice fields north of Sacramento, straddling both sides of Highway 99, north through the progressive college town of Chico, on to Redding, where the district opens into an expanse of mountains and wildlife stretching to the Oregon border.
The far reaches of the district include a collection of counties known for their political disconnect from California’s reputation as the nation’s progressive bellwether.
LaMalfa’s district boundaries changed throughout his political career. But it was and remains primarily conservative, with voters backing LaMalfa since his election to Congress in 2012. That followed successful bids at the California Assembly and state Senate that propelled his political career. He most recently cleared 65% of the vote in 2024, but faced an uphill climb to retain his district after its borders were reshaped to favor a Democratic candidate.
His constituents, many of whom attended his memorial, agreed with his reputation well enough to vote him back into his D.C. digs every two years since 2012. Until his unexpected death, he was known for his simple, plain-stated approach to matters of concern for people unused to their concerns mattering.
“He was the same his last day of Congress as he was on the very first day he was sworn into the statehouse in California, the day I met him,” said Kevin McCarthy. “He did not change.”
‘We are going to miss him’
McCarthy, a Republican who went on to become House Speaker in Congress, met LaMalfa in the early 2000s when they were both freshmen in the Assembly, before later reuniting in Congress.
Like each speaker Saturday, McCarthy choked up while talking about his former colleague.
But his spoke with joy when he recalled LaMalfa’s parking space at the Capitol in Sacramento. Its quality relative to others in the minority party epitomized the then-Assemblyman’s charm and agricultural connections.
As it goes, parking proved tight at the Capitol. Moreso, McCarthy said, for Republicans. So he asked around.
“‘They said, ‘Oh, Mr. LaMalfa. He brings us all those peaches in the pickup truck,’” McCarthy said.
Those peaches, of which LaMalfa was known to bring by the bin into the walls of the state Legislature, often came from Gurnam Singh Pamma, a farmer from Live Oak.
“Sometimes he’d take two bins,” Pamma said.
Pamma, with his long white beard and head wrapped in a traditional Sikh turban, smiled remembering the phone calls from LaMalfa asking which orchard to stop by on his drives through Sutter County en route to the capitol. The Butte County Republican would return the favor by answering calls from the Live Oak farmer throughout his years in state and federal positions of power.
“He’s like my family member,” Pamma said. “Whenever I need something, I’ll call him up and he responds right away, even though he’s in Washington, or here. He listens to our problems and tries to resolve them.”
Ajit Bains, a Yuba City farmer, said that LaMalfa also supported the Sikh community, which has a large presence in the Yuba-Sutter area, particularly in agriculture. LaMalfa would attend the Nagar Kirtan festival that draws thousands each year to the ag-centric city at the edge of the district.
“He personally got to know our culture, respected our culture and supported it,” Bains said.
LaMalfa also advocated for water rights, an issue dear to many in the north state, where water collects before flowing through the state’s convoluted infrastructure of reservoirs and dams on its way to drier parts of the state.
He had particular value as a liaison for advancing the Sites Reservoir project, a large-scale build estimated at more than $6 billion that involves local, state and federal partners. The Trump administration granted that project a key approval on the eve of LaMalfa’s memorial service.
“That was something that set him apart from some of the other folks who were representing the area,” said Jerry Brown, executive director for the Sites Reservoir project. “He could really relate to a lot of our participants, their needs and concerns.”
Fred Dastmalchi, congressional outreach coordinator with Iranian American Community of Northern California, said he met with LaMalfa twice in the past two months. He’ll miss the open ear and consistent support he found in the affable rice farmer.
“We are going to miss him, how much good he’s done for us,” Dastmalchi said. “And his realness, his heart, and interest to know what was going on.”
The future of the north state
LaMalfa represented values held by many of his people, enough to continue winning their support. But he faced an uphill climb with the passage of Proposition 50 in November, which abruptly reset the lines of his and other congressional districts to spread more Democratic voters into Republican strongholds, while diffusing conservatives into districts where they’re presumably outnumbered by Democrats.
With the special election results, north state voters, whether they stayed in LaMalfa’s territory post-redistricting, learned they may soon lose him as their representative. Then they lost him sooner than they could have known.
Vickie and Craig Compton, a distant cousin of LaMalfa’s who grew up in Richvale, were stopped by a group of people who knew them on their way into the service.
Craig worried about who would represent the district after redistricting was approved. LaMalfa’s death worsened that concern.
“We felt it was going to be a hard fight for any representation in our area,” he said. “Then losing him, it was not good timing for what we have coming.”
Despite approval by the majority of voters in California, Prop. 50 was shot down by most of the voters in the counties and cities represented by LaMalfa. Mark Spannagel, his longtime chief of staff, said LaMalfa was preparing to fight the odds stacked against him with the infusion of Democratic voters.
“He was itching to play the spoiler for Sacramento’s plans,” Spannagel said.
Assemblymember James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, received applause when he took the stage to talk about LaMalfa, whom he now seeks to replace through the duration of the latter’s term, which expires in January 2027.
“He never lost a race, and I can guarantee you this next race he was not going to lose,” Gallagher said.
The last time LaMalfa appeared publicly in Chico was a hot August day when he hosted a town hall. The brunt of the feedback he received he must have known to expect.
He had not hosted a town hall there in a while. That, mixed with federal policies flying out of D.C. through the first year of the second Trump administration, created a scene of shouts and jeers, with some supporters in the mix.
The tone could have hardly been more different Saturday.
“He stood for a rural America that feels unseen and unheard,” Spannagel said.
This story was originally published January 24, 2026 at 7:10 PM.
