Devin Nunes' Central Valley district went from R+6 to D+7 and Nunes ran for his life, landing a make-believe job with Trump's make-believe media company. Good riddance. The DCCC is pushing a pointless conservative Democrat from the Manchin/Sinema wing of the party Phil Arballo. He spent $5,062,185, and lost by nearly 10 points, unable to inspire people to get out and vote, even in a presidential year.
Today Blue America is endorsing Lourin Hubbard and we want to ask you to consider contributing to his campaign by clicking here or on the 2022 congressional thermometer on the left. I've invited him to tell us why he's in this race and as you read about that below please do think about making a contribution to his campaign. In way of introduction, let me tell you that he's the son of a single, working-class mother who held multiple jobs simultaneously, but still needed food stamps to get by. He told me that eventually, she went to work in administration, and the future seemed promising for their family. Lourin was accepted into college, and they were on the path to living the American dream. However, everything changed when his mother started to get sick, and that American dream turned into "a living nightmare." Lourin recalls seeing her crying when she had to decide between trying to afford her prescriptions, keeping up with the PG&E bill, and falling further and further behind on paying the rent. His mother, as you can imagine, was one of the many who people who have health insurance, but with such high deductibles that the cost becomes a barrier that prevents them from using it. She made the choice to stop taking her prescriptions, and put that money into paying other bills. It was a decision that would ultimately cost her her life.
Lourin was in his junior year at Fresno State when his mom passed away in 2011. He told me he still remembers getting that medical bill less than 30 days after she died. Feeling lost and confused about how the American healthcare system could be so broken, he began thinking about what he could do about it. He decided to dedicate his life to public service and began a career at the Department of Social Services after graduation. Soon he transitioned to the State of California where he worked as a pensions and health plans analyst for California Public Employees Retirement System. Currently he's serves his community as an operations manager and racial equity working group member at the California Water Resources Control Board with a focus on serving the rural, disadvantaged communities in his area in getting an adequate supply of clean water, and to lead on frontline conservation efforts.
Flint, Michigan Isn't The Only Community With Drinking Water Problems
-by Lourin Hubbard
I love the Central Valley. It has been my home all of my life. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to have a great career in public service here. I grew up here, I am raising my family here. You get the picture. I know the people here in this district well and as such I know the hardships that they have faced, because I have experienced them while living here too. While there are lots of big ticket items that I certainly would like to address such as our lack of healthcare, the increasing cost of living, and the shrinking number of affordable housing options, one of the main pillars of our campaign is focused on an issue that is more important than any other, securing clean water for our minority communities.
It’s no secret that California, indeed, the western United States is in severe drought. Our water quantity problems are well documented, however very few people are talking about our water quality problems here in the Valley. Many towns across the Valley are unable to drink the water that flows from their faucets without the fear of getting sick. Nitrates have left the local water systems with toxic, contaminated water. In what would be California’s 22nd Congressional district, where I am running to represent communities like Seville, Cutler and East Orosi where people have been struggling to get clean drinking water due to historic, racist land use policies that led to a lack of investment in places where residents are primarily people of color. An estimated 1 million people in the Central Valley are affected by toxic water and it has real world consequences as mothers in our district are at an increased risk giving birth to babies with birth defects. Many people living in rural Valley towns are forced to buy bottled water to protect themselves and their children from contaminants like nitrates, which also can cause a potentially fatal blood disease in infants.
Put yourself in these people’s shoes, imagine having to use your farm worker’s salary, which is already low pay, to pay for both bottled water while still being charged to use suspect tap water. The work we do at the Water Resources control board is to develop mitigation plans that clean the water in these communities and ensure they don’t happen again. In part of my role at the Water Board I helped foster the development of a racial equity resolution for the state to formally acknowledge the role systemic racism has played in these outcomes. There are opportunities for the federal government to act and we must. California has written legislation to treat clean water as a human right; now it is time for our elected officials to make it a reality.
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