BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Three candidates are vying for California's 22nd Congressional District seat ahead of the June primary. Incumbent Rep. David Valadao, challenger Randy Villegas and Assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains each sat down to discuss the issues they say matter most to Central Valley voters.
Healthcare and Medicaid
Healthcare is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of the race, with all three candidates weighing in on Medicaid, fraud and the future of the healthcare system in the Central Valley.
Valadao defended his vote on what he called the "One Big Beautiful" bill, pushing back on Democratic criticism that the legislation amounted to Medicaid cuts.
"The cuts that they're talking about again are associated with the idea that we're gonna have people who can work, no dependents, so they're not at home taking care of their kids and aren't injured, so no disabilities, they should be able to put in at least 20 hours of work or volunteer or go to school," Valadao said.
Valadao said the characterization of the bill as stripping healthcare from constituents is dishonest.
"We're not taking it away. They're choosing not to get off the couch," Valadao said.
Bains, a physician and assemblywoman who said she continued seeing patients on weekends throughout her time in the state legislature, said she decided to run for Congress the day she saw Valadao vote for what she described as a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid.
"I have zero interest in being a career politician. I didn't jump in to run for Congress until the day I saw David Valadao vote for that cut," Bains said.
Bains said the impact of those cuts is already being felt in the Central Valley.
"We're seeing the implications of these cuts today. We don't need to wait a year or so," Bains said.
She pointed to a nurses' rally she attended to fight to keep a burn center open at Memorial Hospital as evidence that the consequences are immediate.
"Hospitals, we're seeing the implications of these cuts today," Bains said.
Villegas, a school board trustee for the Visalia Unified School District and small business owner from Bakersfield, said he supports universal healthcare and wants to reverse what he described as deep cuts to Medicaid.
"2 out of every 3 of our constituents relies on Medicaid," Villegas said.
Villegas said the United States spends twice as much on healthcare as other countries that offer universal coverage, yet produces worse health outcomes.
"Why is it that so many of our family members will drive 7 to 8 hours to Tijuana to go get cheaper dental work done and to get cheaper prescription drugs? That shouldn't be happening in the richest country in the history of the world," Villegas said.
All three candidates said they support addressing fraud and waste in the healthcare system, but Bains and Villegas drew a distinction between rooting out abuse and cutting coverage for vulnerable patients.
Bains said she is not excusing fraud but warned against using it as justification for broad cuts.
"The answer to fixing healthcare isn't ripping it away from vulnerable communities that rely on it for life and death and life saving medications," Bains said.
She said the removal of physician sign-off requirements during COVID-19 was a predictable driver of fraud that experts warned about at the time.
"Everybody in the physician world knew that this was going to open up a spider's web of fraud and abuse," Bains said.
Bains said the solution lies in implementation and expert oversight, not blunt cuts. She pointed to a $10 million fentanyl task force she secured for Kern County as an example of how targeted funding, when properly implemented, produces results.
"It's about the implementation. This is where we need experts, especially in health care, that aren't going to just say I brought money back but actually follow through with how they're gonna implement the funds," Bains said.
She said the task force created the first inpatient detox program for Medicaid patients in Kern County and that results from the first year cycle would be released soon.
Valadao also said he is concerned about the impact of fraud on Central Valley hospitals and called for transparency as a first step.
"We know that there are things going on there. We know that programs are being taken advantage of, and some of them are probably created for good reason, but transparency, I think would be our first thing we should be doing," Valadao said.
He said he is concerned about the impact of fraud on hospitals already struggling to stay open.
"We've got hospitals here in the Central Valley that are already struggling to keep their doors open. We want to make sure that they have the resources they need, but we can't protect them and at the same time continue to protect fraud," Valadao said.
Villegas echoed the call for accountability, saying the U.S. healthcare system's high costs are not translating into better care for patients.
"Why is it that we struggle to continue to afford to recruit nurses, doctors, healthcare workers here in the Central Valley, and yet these corporations are making record-breaking profits?" Villegas said.
On work requirements for Medicaid recipients, Bains said the proposal fails to account for the economic realities of the district.
"My district has some of the highest poverty levels in the state and country, some of the highest Medicaid patients, some of the increasingly inadequate access to jobs, we have some of the highest unemployment," Bains said.
She said Sacramento has contributed to job losses in the region, and that imposing work requirements without addressing unemployment is a failure of coordination between state and federal government.
"One hand is not talking to the other here. This is where a physician is necessary to help save the valley," Bains said.
Gas prices and California energy policy
On gas prices, Valadao said California's own policies are the primary driver of costs that run roughly $2 above the national average.
"The biggest problem is California," Valadao said.
He pointed to state legislation he said would shut down California refineries and criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom for suing to block offshore oil production.
"The state of California, instead of saying, ' Great, locally produced oil from local jobs, why not? They're suing to stop it," Valadao said.
Valadao said the conflict with Iran is also a factor.
"Moving oil, preventing any of it from flowing through the Strait of Hormuz is going to have an impact, even if it doesn't come directly here. It's going to affect the overall production of oil, the overall availability of oil," Valadao said.
Villegas tied gas prices directly to the war with Iran, saying the conflict is costing roughly a billion dollars a day and driving up prices at the pump.
"People are paying over $6 a gallon. That is ridiculous, and we need to have somebody who's gonna put the Central Valley first," Villegas said.
Villegas also raised concerns about a proposed mileage tax being discussed in Sacramento, saying it would disproportionately hurt Central Valley residents.
"We need to make sure that we're putting our working family first," Villegas said.
Bains said she was the only Democrat to vote against the mileage tax proposal and that her opposition came with consequences.
"I got kicked off of the BNP committee. I got publicly trolled by Governor Gavin Newsom, saying I was going to be alone and confused forever when I voted against his proposal to decimate oil and gas, so I didn't get a pass," Bains said.
Bains said she also fought within her own party to preserve oil and gas jobs in the region, and that her efforts eventually helped pass legislation to increase oil drilling permits in Kern County.
"We got a bill last year which passed to increase permits for oil drilling right here in Kern County, and you saw zero opposition in the legislature," Bains said.
Government spending and waste
Valadao said California's high-speed rail project is an example of government mismanagement that undermines the case for more state spending.
"What we've spent in the state of California for this high-speed rail is more than they spent on almost every other high-speed rail project combined," Valadao said.
He said California spends 10 times the national average per lane mile on road repairs and called on the state to better manage existing resources before seeking additional funding.
Valadao also said Gov. Newsom's veto of a state audit bill raises serious questions.
"If the governor's gonna veto a bill on an audit, that tells me he's not only aware of it, he's complicit in it, and he's playing a role in protecting it," Valadao said.
Drug crisis and public health
Bains said addressing the drug crisis in the Central Valley would be among her priorities if elected to Congress.
She said she sounded the alarm on fentanyl as early as 2017 and 2018 while working in Taft, and created the first Narcan distribution drive in Kern County at a time when the effort was met with skepticism.
"This is where we need experts that are not going to wait for it to hit headlines to bring solutions for communities," Bains said.
Bains said she is also pushing to regulate kratom, a synthetic opioid she said is being sold at gas stations and is increasingly showing up among young people in the valley.
"Why do we have to wait until it impacts the life and deaths of our children for it to be a problem?" Bains said.
She said a kratom regulation bill she authored is currently held in the state Senate Health Committee, and that she intends to pursue the issue at the federal level if elected.
Bains also said she wants to prioritize funding for a UC Kern Medical School to grow a local physician pipeline.
"Our kids need accessibility to higher educational opportunities. Our children are smart. Our children are amazing. They're not given those opportunities," Bains said.
Political division and the race ahead
Valadao said political division in the country predates the current administration and called for elected officials willing to work across the aisle.
"We just need to have people in office that are willing to talk to both sides and look for a solution," Valadao said.
On his reelection bid, Valadao said his record on appropriations is a key part of his case to voters.
"I brought home almost $50 million in resources to the community," Valadao said.
Bains said she views her role as keeping policy from swinging to either extreme, regardless of which party holds power.
"I'm not about pendulum swings. My responsibility to this community as a physician is to keep that pendulum in the middle and keep it fixed in the middle. I do not adhere to either extreme," Bains said.
She said extremism poses a particular threat to rural communities like those in the 22nd District.
"Extremism is what causes more issues, and it impacts rural areas like mine more than others," Bains said.
Villegas, who grew up in Bakersfield as the son of immigrants and worked at his family's auto repair shop before earning a PhD and becoming a professor at 25, said he is running to represent working families who are being left behind.
"I love the Central Valley where the farm workers who get up and feed the rest of the world every day, our oil and gas workers keep the lights on here in this room and all across our country and even though we work hard every single day, so many of us are struggling to get by," Villegas said.
Villegas said he wants to ban private corporations from owning single-family homes to address housing affordability and called for removing corporate PAC money from politics.
"Our families should be able to afford to live where they work. We should be able to afford the fruits and vegetables that we grow. We should be able to afford the energy that we produce here in Kern County," Villegas said.
On the war with Iran, Villegas said Congress has the authority to declare war and should exercise that power.
"Congress can declare war, not the president. We have checks and balances for a reason," Villegas said.
He said he opposes the conflict on moral and fiscal grounds.
"I'm not opposed to this war because the paperwork is incorrect. I'm opposed because it is morally wrong because we're spending billions of dollars every single day that could be supporting our homeless veterans here in Bakersfield, that could be supporting our crumbling infrastructure, that could be supporting healthcare, that could be supporting schools," Villegas said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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