Already a ripe target for Democrats in the next election, Central Valley Rep. David Valadao put his political future in deeper peril this week by voting in favor of legislation that slashes the Medicaid coverage essential to roughly two-thirds of his constituents.

The Republican dairy farmer from Hanford said that despite his concerns about President Trump’s megabill, he voted to support it because of concessions he helped negotiate that will help his district, such as an additional $25 billion for rural hospitals, $1 billion for Western water infrastructure and agricultural investments.

More than a half-million residents in Valadao’s district are covered by the program known in California as Medi-Cal — the most of any district in the state — according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. While preserving tax breaks benefiting the wealthy, the bill passed by a narrow Republican majorities in both the House and Senate would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $1.04 trillion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates.

Valadao said his constituents would directly benefit from several provisions in the legislation, including the extension of the tax breaks, the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime, and the expansion of the child tax credit.

“These are real wins that will put more money back in the pockets of hardworking families throughout the Valley,” he said. “No piece of legislation is perfect, but this bill ultimately reflects the priorities of [my district] — lower taxes, stronger farms, better infrastructure, and a commitment to protecting access to healthcare for Valley residents.”

Democrats vowed to use Valadao’s vote to oust him from office in the 2026 election. His district, which includes swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, is among the most competitive in the nation.

Valadao has repeatedly vowed to oppose legislation that would cut healthcare for his constituents, most recently on Monday, when he posted on the social media platform X: “I’ve been clear from the start that I will not support a final reconciliation bill that makes harmful cuts to Medicaid, puts critical funding at risk, or threatens the stability of healthcare providers across” his district.

After his vote on Thursday, Valadao said that he voted for the bill because it preserves Medicaid “for its intended recipients — children, pregnant women, the disabled, and elderly.”

“David Valadao just sealed his fate by voting for a bill that will rip health care away from tens of thousands in his district, where more than two-thirds of his constituents rely on the very program he’s gutting,” said Anna Elsasser, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in a statement. “He lied to their faces, and then tried to sweep it under the rug. We all knew he’d fold when it mattered most. It’s spineless, it’s dishonest, and next November, it will cost him his seat.”

A billboard proclaiming “David Valadao Lied. He voted to gut Medi-Cal, giving CEOs a tax break. We’ll pay with our lives” was erected Thursday near the 99 Freeway in Valadao’s district by Fight for Our Health, a nonprofit coalition of health, labor, senior, disability and other groups.

Democrats also plan on targeting Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) and Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) for their support of the bill. Hundreds of protesters descended on Kim’s Anaheim field office on Tuesday to urge the congresswoman to oppose the legislation.

Trump’s proposal narrowly passed the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance casting a tie-breaking vote because of the defection of three GOP senators who joined every Democrat in voting against it.

The legislation will dramatically overhaul the nation’s tax code by making tax cuts approved during the president’s first term permanent, a major benefit to corporations and the nation’s wealthy, while slashing funding for historic federal safety-net programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps provide food to low-income Americans.

A CBO analysis released Sunday estimated that the Senate version of the proposal would increase the national deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034 and would result in 11.8 million Americans losing health insurance in less than a decade.

The legislation created a rift among Republicans, with some opposing the amount of money it would add to the deficit while others expressing concerns about how it would impact their constituents. But ultimately, GOP members of Congress put aside their differences to get the bill on the president’s desk by Independence Day, as Trump desired.

In a marathon session that ended early Thursday morning, members of the House of Representatives voted 220-212 largely along party lines to approve a procedural rule that allows the legislation to be considered by the full body Thursday, a victory for Trump and GOP legislative leaders.

Valadao’s vote in support of the procedural vote before midnight Wednesday raised eyebrows, given the number of his constituents who rely on Medicaid, his previous willingness to oppose Trump and GOP concerns about holding onto control of his seat.

More than 40% of the district’s voters are Democrats, while 28.3% are Republicans and 23.3% registered as having no party preference, according to the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps congressional races.

Valadao, 48, served one term in the state Assembly prior to being elected to Congress in 2012. He was reelected twice before narrowly losing reelection in 2018. He retook the seat in 2020.

He drew the ire of fellow Republicans as one of 10 GOP members of congress who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 after a violent mob of the president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in the aftermath of the president’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. However, Valadao did not face the same retribution from Trump that the others did, reportedly because of the congressman’s long-standing relationship with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday told reporters that Valadao should leave office if he votes for the bill.

“It’s the ultimate betrayal,” he said during a news conference in Burbank. “This is one of the most calamitous and devastating bills of our lifetime.”

Newsom predicted that if the bill passes, hospitals will close, Californians will lose access to healthcare and food stamps, and student loans will increase.

Valadao “might as well resign early and I can call a special election, if he supports it,” Newsom said. “What basis do you have of trust in your own district if you would betray your own constituency to such an extraordinary, extraordinary degree. It’s one of the poorest districts in the country.”

Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport a group of migrants with criminal records held at a U.S. naval base in Djibouti, clarifying the scope of its earlier order that lifted restrictions on removals to countries that are not deportees’ places of origin.

Shortly after the ruling, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin announced, “these sickos will be in South Sudan by Independence Day,” calling it a “win for the rule of law.”

In a social media post Thursday evening in response to the ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote, “Yet another rogue district court judge has been rebuked by the Supreme Court thanks to the tireless work of dedicated DOJ attorneys. @POTUS will continue to exercise his full authority to remove killers and violent criminal illegal aliens from our country.”

The high court’s follow-up ruling came after it paused a federal judge’s April injunction that prevented the Trump administration from deporting migrants to so-called third countries without first giving them notice of the destination and a chance to contest their deportation there by raising fears of torture, persecution or death.

Soon after that order by the Supreme Court last month, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said that a decision he issued in May requiring the Trump administration to provide interviews with U.S. asylum officers to the men detained in Djibouti before removing them to South Sudan remained “in full force and effect.” 

Those men — who hail from Latin America and Asia, and have been convicted of serious crimes in the U.S. — have been held at the Djibouti base for weeks after Murphy ordered the Department of Homeland Security to retain custody of them. The Trump administration has described deplorable and dangerous conditions faced by the personnel sent to guard the men in Djibouti, including concerns about malaria, rocket attacks, inadequate security protocols and triple-digit outdoor temperatures.

Murphy issued his order in May after finding that the Trump administration violated his initial injunction when it attempted to swiftly remove the migrants to South Sudan with less than 24 hours’ notice and no chance to raise fear-based claims. The world’s youngest country, South Sudan remains plagued by violence and political instability, with the State Department warning Americans not to travel there. 

According to the Justice Department, the State Department has received “credible diplomatic assurances” from South Sudan that the migrants will not be subject to torture. 

The Supreme Court on Thursday said Murphy’s May order “cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable,” referring to the April injunction from Murphy that the high court paused last month. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a concurring statement that, while she opposed the Supreme Court’s initial pause, “I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”

In a dissent that was joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the high court’s majority was effectively allowing the Trump administration to pursue “unlawful ends,” expressing concern about the safety of the deportees.

“What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,” Sotomayor wrote.

The legal fight

The Supreme Court’s original order last month was a significant legal victory for President Trump and his mass deportation campaign. As part of that effort, administration officials have sought to convince countries around the globe, including in far-flung parts of Africa, to accept deportees who are not their citizens. Several countries — including El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Kosovo — have already agreed to host migrants from other nations who have been deported from the U.S.

The high court’s decision in June was unsigned and did not contain any reasoning, prompting questions as to whether the Trump administration could move to deport the migrants being held in Djibouti to South Sudan, as it was initially trying to do. The three liberal justices — Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented.

After Murphy clarified that the Department of Homeland Security could not yet remove the men without first providing them additional process, Solicitor General D. John Sauer sought further word from the justices.

Sauer, who represents the government before the court, argued that the justice’s decision meant there is no injunction in place barring the deportation of the migrants in Djibouti. Murphy’s ruling, he wrote, “is a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals.”

“This court should immediately make clear that the district court’s enforcement order has no effect, and put a swift end to the ongoing irreparable harm to the executive branch and its agents, who remain under baseless threat of contempt as they are forced to house dangerous criminal aliens at a military base in the Horn of Africa that now lies on the borders of a regional conflict,” Sauer said.

Immigration attorneys disagreed and told the Supreme Court in a filing that Murphy’s May order “is the only shield that preserves and protects their statutory, regulatory, and due process rights to seek protection from torture in South Sudan.”

They said that the judge’s order requiring the government to retain custody of the eight deportees and provide them reasonable-fear interviews was simply a remedy that was issued to address the Trump administration’s violation of his injunction.

Plus, the immigration attorneys said that when the Justice Department first sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to resume third-country deportations, it did not seek relief from that follow-up order regarding the attempted removals to South Sudan.

“Because the district court’s remedial order is not before the court, it remains in effect,” they argued. “Any other conclusion would reward the government’s defiance of the district court’s orders.” 

The back-and-forth over the third country removals before the Supreme Court has played out on its emergency docket, where the Trump administration has requested relief while legal proceedings play out. Decisions on those requests are typically made only with written briefing and no oral argument, and the court’s decisions often do not include its reasoning or how its members voted.

The Trump administration has filed more than a dozen emergency appeals with the Supreme Court, many arising from its efforts to curtail illegal immigration into the U.S. The high court has allowed the government to end two programs protecting nearly 1 million migrants from deportation while the challenges move forward.

But it has also said that migrants facing swift deportation under a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act must receive notice and an opportunity to challenge their removals in court.

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