California Republican mayor enters race for Adam Gray’s congressional seat
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FIRST REPUBLICAN CHALLENGER JUMPS IN RACE TO REPLACE ADAM GRAY
Less than three weeks ago, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced U.S. Rep Adam Gray, D-Merced, was on their list of Congressional seats to target in the 2026 election. Now, a challenger has jumped into the race: Ceres Mayor Javier Lopez.
“I personally don’t feel like he’s doing a good job at the moment,” said Lopez, who was first elected mayor of the city, near Modesto, in 2020. He was re-elected in November.
Lopez, 42, said he has lived in Ceres since he was five years old and has had a “great time” leading the community, but he believes “there’s an opportunity for voices of the valley to be heard.” His parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico.
He said he has been a Republican since he was 18 years old.
He disagreed with Gray’s decision not to vote for a bill earlier this year to ban transgender people from competing in female sports through every level of school and college. It passed the House of Representatives.
Gray said he voted against the bill because it was overly broad and would rip funds away from school districts, The Sacramento Bee previously reported, not because he believes trans female athletes should be able to compete with cisgender women.
Lopez said he believed Gray voted for his party, not on principal. Lopez believes voters will support him because of his values.
If elected, he plans to support farmers and water storage, bring money for transportation projects back to the district and focus on fire prevention. He said he worked as a fire technician before running for mayor.
The election is more than a year and a half away, but the 13th U.S. Congressional District has been one of the closest and most consequential U.S. House races in recent years.
PADILLA CALLS FOR TARIFF DISCLOSURE
Via David Lightman ...
Democrats — and a lot of economists — say that the tariffs President Donald Trump is imposing are a tax increase on American consumers.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., sees the tariffs that way. He introduced a measure requiring the Senate’s budget bill to explicitly say if any tariff is used to offset tax cuts for the wealthy.
The Senate is considering a budget plan this week that is expected to be a vehicle for massive Republican-authored tax cuts. But the bill itself does not get that specific; it provides an outline of where money could be raised and spent, but it’s up to committees to provide the details later this year.
Trump on Wednesday announced a sweeping set of tariffs.
Padilla’s proposal went nowhere when he introduced it Wednesday night. He’s expected to offer it as an amendment to the budget bill, but it’s opposed by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.
“If Republicans want to increase prices on hardworking Americans to give handouts to billionaires, then own it,” Padilla said on the Senate floor.
WHAT HAPPENS TO ESSAYLI’S BILLS?
Former Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona, is no longer in the Legislature. But his bills didn’t immediately die when he was appointed the new U.S. Attorney for California’s Central District.
As Chris Micheli, a longtime lobbyist and professor at University of the Pacific, pointed out in a recent email to followers, the Assembly has rules on what happens next.
“Whenever the author of a bill in the Assembly is no longer a member of the Legislature, upon a request of a committee or current member of the house in which the bill was introduced, the Assembly Committee on Rules may authorize that committee or member to be the author of that bill.”
Without that permission, though, no action can be taken on Essayli’s bills. One would overturn a decision by the California Coastal Commission to bar Elon Musk’s SpaceX from future launches as the Vandenberg Space Force Base. He also wanted to require schools to have at least one armed officer on site, force law enforcement officers to cooperate with immigration authorities in certain circumstances and make young people compete on sports teams based on their sex, not gender identity. That last measure, Assembly Bill 844, was part of a high profile hearing earlier this week.
Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, of East Nicolaus, said in a statement that members were reviewing Essayli’s bills to identify any that they would like to take over.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Via Lia Russell ...
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that four firefighters from the Office of Emergency Services’ Urban Search and Rescue team have deployed to Kentucky after the Federal Emergency Management Agency asked for help battling a series of severe storms that have damaged businesses and homes and are expected to last through the weekend.
The firefighters are from task force teams in Oakland, Orange County, and San Diego. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency and told residents to expect extreme flooding and tornadoes.
“California understands the threat extreme weather poses and stands with Kentucky ahead of the storms set to impact their state,” Newsom said in a statement.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom and the country is going to boom.”
- President Donald Trump, as he left the White House Thursday, on the stock market’s large drop after his tariff announcement, according to the Associated Press.
Best of The Bee:
How consumers can survive the Trump tariff turmoil without panicking, via David Lightman
What’s next for A’s after 0-3 start in Sacramento? A tough stretch awaits, via Michael McGough
Kevin Kiley takes aim at Gavin Newsom’s California EV mandates, via David Lightman and Lia Russell
California AG Rob Bonta sues Trump over election laws executive order, via William Melhado
California lawmakers want reform for women in prison facing ‘double punishment’, via William Melhado
This wine is making a comeback in California — and Clarksburg has plenty, via Benjy Egel
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 4:55 AM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that Gray served the 13th U.S. Congressional District for 10 years. Gray was in the California Assembly for 10 years, not Congress.
