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“In Washington, Michelle Steel has routinely put far-right partisan politics ahead of Orange County families – playing culture war games instead of supporting common-sense solutions to cut costs or grow the middle class. Look no further than Steel’s repeated efforts to ban reproductive care without exceptions nationwide, overturn the will of Californians who voted to protect those rights, and backpedal amid public backlash. It’s about time Orange County residents had a representative who understands the meaning of service and represents the best of Orange County – and that’s exactly what veteran, consumer rights attorney, and first-generation Vietnamese American Derek Tran embodies,” said DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene.
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To: Interested Parties
From: Dan Gottlieb
Date: March 28, 2024
Subject: The Case Against Michelle Steel
Michelle Steel is deeply out-of-touch with Orange County – voting the wrong way on nearly every issue that matters most to Southern California, and distracting voters with lies and division while enabling her party’s worst impulses. With each successive year in Washington, she’s only gotten worse.
Steel has been leading the charge in Congress to ban abortion nationwide with no exceptions– and is pulling out all the stops to mislead voters on her repeated support for restricting reproductive freedom. As a recent two-time co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, Steel has been actively pushing to roll back protections on reproductive care nationwide – undermining her constituents after they enshrined abortion rights into California’s state constitution, and putting women’s access to IVF services in peril. Now, Steel is running as fast as she can from the abortion-banning, IVF-restricting legislation she proudly championed just two months ago.
At the same time, Steel has taken more than half a million dollars from special interests while voting against lowering drug costs and gas prices, and has a long, shady history of greenlighting sweetheart deals beneficial to her wealthy campaign donors. At every turn, Steel has fought against legislation that would help middle-class Orange County and Los Angeles County families get ahead – and Southern California can’t afford her failed leadership any longer.
Luckily, California’s 45th has a champion for this district in Derek Tran – an Army veteran, small business owner, father of three, and son of Vietnamese refugees who wants to make sure everyone has the same opportunities his parents worked and sacrificed to provide for him. As a consumer rights attorney, Tran has fought for workers getting ripped off and discriminated against by corporations. He understands that Orange County families need a representative who will fight for living wages, protect a woman’s right to an abortion, and defend our democracy at all costs from MAGA extremists like Steel.
Far-right politicians like Michelle Steel have left Orange County families behind, and no one is better equipped to deliver that message to voters in this Democratic-leaning district than a Vietnamese-American veteran and attorney with a broad coalition of support, a robust fundraising operation, and a relatable story of the American Dream.
MICHELLE STEEL IS CALIFORNIA’S LEADING OPPONENT OF ABORTION RIGHTS
Michelle Steel’s record on women’s reproductive rights is deeply unpopular and dangerous. In January 2024, Steel chose, once again, to co-sponsor legislation that would result in a federal abortion ban with no exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the woman – even putting IVF services on the chopping block.
Steel decided to double down on banning access to reproductive health care after the New York Times notified her of a story documenting her doublespeak on outlawing abortion access. To make matters worse, her staff has maintained that Steel supports exceptions – even though the bill Steel just sponsored has none. Facing backlash from the Alabama Supreme Court ruling and widespread blowback to her voting record, Steel panicked, decried federal restrictions on IVF treatments, and desperately attempted to scrub her name off the bill she gladly sponsored that would effectively ban the procedure altogether.
Unfortunately for her, Steel can’t outrun the reproductive rights-restricting mess she just helped create – and she won’t be able to wash her hands of this damning voting record come November.
PUTTING WEALTHY DONORS FIRST AND ORANGE COUNTY VOTERS LAST
Michelle Steel has a long, shady history of greenlighting sweetheart deals on land sales and airport contracts for private jet use beneficial to her wealthy campaign donors. It’s no wonder that she’s consistently voted against the interests of middle-class families – taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from Big Pharma and Big Oil while voting against lowering drug costs and gas prices.
Steel has gladly supported the extremists in her own party, even when it means voting against common-sense legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – standing in the way of billions in long-term investments in California’s infrastructure, fixing roads and bridges, providing clean water across the state, and delivering more clean and affordable energy.
ENABLING EXTREMISM AND SOWING DIVISION
Steel has made a routine of enabling the worst impulses in the Republican Party – no matter how unpopular. Recently, Steel voted to elevate the likes of Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson to Speaker of the House. And just last year, when voters noticed that Steel was taking donations from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steel conveniently claimed she lost the extremist’s check in the mail “due to a staffing error.”
When it comes to standing up to China, Steel has attempted to paint herself as putting national security interests first. The problem? Steel voted against legislation to help America compete with Chinese manufacturing – and her husband notoriously toured known CCP agents around an invitation-only meeting with Republican leaders. Unfortunately, Steel also hasn’t lived up to her own standard of leaving xenophobia out of politics, facing backlash for invoking xenophobic imagery in campaign ads to slander political opponents of Asian descent and sowing fear among voters.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Politico: California Democrat makes cash splash in late entrance to competitive House race. [Politico, 10/3/23]
“Derek Tran jumped into one of California’s most competitive House races months later than his fellow Democratic contenders, but his first-day fundraising haul shows he is making up for lost time. Tran…raked in more than $250,000 in the 24 hours after he launched his campaign on Monday to oust Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.), according to that campaign. That’s more than what any of the four other Democrats in the race raised in the last quarter.”
The New Republic: GOP Congresswoman Shows Mind-Blowing Hypocrisy on Alabama IVF Ruling. [New Republic, 2/23/24]
“A Republican representative is outraged by the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling restricting IVF — despite supporting a federal bill that would have done just that. […] Steel’s solidarity with Alabaman IVF patients rings pretty hollow considering she co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act. […] Like the Alabama ruling, the Life at Conception Act would have severely restricted — if not effectively banned — IVF treatments as well.”
Orange County Register: In the race for Rep. Michelle Steel’s seat, how abortion is shaping up to be a key issue. [Orange County Register, 1/17/24]
“Abortion rights is, once again, shaping up to be a defining issue in the race for California’s 45th congressional district — and could shed light on how the matter could play an outsized role in 2024. The kerfuffle over how Rep. Michelle Steel has reaffirmed her support for anti-abortion legislation — and just who is qualified to speak about it — began when she added her name as a co-sponsor last week to legislation that’s nearly a year old.”
The New York Times: “In 2021, Representative Michelle Steel, a California Republican whose district President Biden won in 2020, cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill to recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protections under the 14th Amendment. […] Ms. Steel waited nearly a year to sign on — doing so on Friday morning, only after her Democratic challenger criticized her for flip-flopping on the issue for political gain and The New York Times notified her of a story documenting her change in position. Nearly three dozen other Republican lawmakers who supported it during the last Congress, including several who face tough re-election races in competitive districts, have yet to sign on again.” [New York Times, 1/12/24]
NBC News: “Michelle Steel just admitted she’s been lying to every one of her constituents about her abortion-banning, IVF-restricting legislation,” Tran said in a written statement. “She can try to explain this away all she wants, but Californians see her exactly for who she is — a reproductive right-dismantling extremist who has no business representing the interests of California’s 45th District. That’s why we’re going to defeat her this November.” [NBC News, 3/7/24]
Orange County Register: Orange County Republicans Kim and Steel choose MAGA over governing. [Orange County Register, 10/25/23]
“Nevertheless, Jordan and Johnson both secured the votes of two Orange County members who should have known better. U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel represents the 45th congressional district in the north-central county – a district where Democrats have a 6-percent voter-registration advantage. […] We endorsed Steel in 2022. […] And yet with the speaker vote, they both gave in to the most extreme form of Trumpism. We look forward to hearing their justifications as the congressional races get underway.”
The Los Angeles Times: Column: These California Republicans voted for Jim Jordan and against the good of the country. Remember their names. [Los Angeles Times, 10/17/23]
PATH TO VICTORY
California’s 45th is one of the only remaining majority-minority districts in the entire nation not represented by a Democrat in Congress and has the largest AANHPI population of any battleground district across the country. With AANHPI voter registration at approximately 37% – about half of which consists of Vietnamese Americans, constituting the largest Vietnamese community of any congressional district nationwide – and a candidate fluent in Vietnamese, Democrats have the right voice and choice in this race to connect with key voters and communicate across the aisle. National dynamics won’t help Steel either, as CA-45 voted for Biden by 6.8 points in 2020 and Democrats hold a 5.2-point registration advantage over Republicans.
Michelle Steel’s voting record and consistent enabling of her party’s most extreme elements have made the case against her clear. At every opportunity, Steel votes against the interests of middle-class families, from cutting the costs of prescription drugs to critical infrastructure investments, and sows division and fear in Orange County. But the xenophobic attacks Michelle Steel shamelessly launched in the past are bound to fail when levied against Derek Tran – the son of Vietnamese refugees whose parents fled a communist regime for the promise of the American Dream. As a first-generation American, an Army veteran, small business owner, and a consumer rights attorney, Tran understands what’s at stake for Southern California’s working-class families and is well-equipped to represent them. |
