WASHINGTON — Sen. Alex Padilla said he’s doing his best to “drink through the fire hose.”
The new California senator took his oath of office two weeks ago amid a pending impeachment trial, a Congress struggling to deal with the riot that drove lawmakers from their chambers, a heavy National Guard presence and a global pandemic.
He now has a temporary office in the basement of a Senate office building, but he doesn’t yet have place to live. He’s planning to split his time between Washington and his home in Los Angeles, where his wife and three children live.
“I’m staying at a temporary place while I look for either a studio or one-bedroom apartment somewhere,” Padilla said in an interview with McClatchy on Monday. “(Democratic Rep.) Zoe Lofgren advised getting a home as close to the Capitol as I can afford.”
Padilla, the state’s first Latino senator, doesn’t have time to spare.
He had just one month to plan his move to the Senate after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his appointment to fill the former Senate seat of Vice President Kamala Harris.
His seat will be on the ballot in 2022, giving him just two years to make a case to California voters and raise money for a campaign. A number of Democrats jockeyed for Newsom’s appointment before Padilla got the nod and any one of them could make a run should Padilla come up short in California voters’ estimations.
“It’s never easy to run statewide in the state of California. No one makes it easy to hold down an incredibly powerful, important Senate seat,” said Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Los Angeles, a longtime friend of Padilla’s, adding that he still thought Padilla would be able to win in 2022.
Padilla said he’s mostly leaned on Cárdenas in his first weeks as a senator.
They’ve known each other from almost 30 years. Padilla was Cárdenas’ campaign manager when Cárdenas ran for a California assembly seat in 1996, before Padilla had any political experience, Cárdenas noted. The two both grew up in Pacoima and both pushed for more Latino representatives in state and national government.
Now, the two talk “at least once a day,” and “probably to the point that I’m a pain to him,” Cárdenas said with a laugh. Padilla stayed with Cárdenas for a few days when he first came to D.C., Cárdenas said.
They talk about politics and their personal lives. For example, Padilla asked if he should invite his wife and three children to his swearing in, due to the dangers surrounding both Inauguration Day and the pandemic. Padilla’s family ended up not attending his first swearing in, but did attend a second ceremonial one on Friday. Cárdenas was at the official one to support his friend.
On politics, Cárdenas said he had a warning for Padilla about trying to work with Republicans.
“I honestly warned him, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the House, they don’t play. They’re not like Republicans in the state Legislature — they play for keeps,” Cárdenas said. “So I told him, ‘When you want to play in a bipartisan way, you have to walk and talk. Don’t put off your plans, don’t be hoodwinked into giving a few weeks to have a meeting, and then another few weeks. It’s a trick, and months are gone before you know it.’”
“Far too often, it’s a good-hearted individual who gets hoodwinked, and Alex is an amazingly good-hearted individual,” Cárdenas added.
Padilla also has spoken with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., multiple times, both before and after his swearing in. She indicated the two of them were approaching their roles as a partnership. Padilla worked in a field office for Feinstein early in his political career.
“My advice was to put his head down and really dig into the material, especially for his committee assignments,” Feinstein said in a statement to McClatchy. “His background as a former Secretary of State will serve him well on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and being on the Environment and Public Works Committee is important for California, particularly as we work to address climate change.”
Padilla is taking a spot on the high-profile Judiciary Committee, which Vice President Harris just vacated. He also has spots on the committees on Budget, Rules and Administration, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Environment and Public Works.
Padilla isn’t troubling himself on bipartisanship much so far.
He supports abolishing the filibuster, has called for removing some Republican senators for their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and said the Republican proposal on COVID-19 relief was a “nonstarter.”
He also wants to use California as an example for how the U.S. should handle climate change, when Republicans typically use the state’s climate policies as a political punching bag.
Padilla supports President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan, which includes $1,400 checks for most Americans and continuing increased unemployment payments. He refers to the stimulus payments as “survival checks,” and said Congress should be prepared to send out more until “COVID is under control” and “a majority of people are vaccinated.”
He did not specify how often Congress should send those checks. But he said all COVID relief has to be centered on “families struggling across the country, by small business owners trying to keep businesses, by state and local governments trying to keep up infrastructure by and large.”
He also wants to ensure communities that are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus — namely, minority communities — have access to vaccines. He said his view on this is “personal,” as the son of Mexican immigrants and someone who grew up in the largely Latino city of Pacoima.
“My dad is 80 years old and lives in the house where I grew up, he’s in the vulnerable age population. Thankfully he got his first vaccine last week, but for weeks it was frustrating,” Padilla said. “He would call me every week, and he wasn’t able to quickly get an appointment.”
Padilla’s father was a short-order cook, and his mother, who has passed away, was a domestic worker who cleaned homes. Those are the types of people who are on the front lines of the pandemic, Padilla said, and need the most help.
“Restaurant employees have been highly impacted during COVID. You’ve either lost your job, or lost your wages, or you’re disproportionately exposed to the virus,” Padilla said. “So yeah, it’s personal to me.”
COVID-19 relief is on track to pass sometime in March. In the more immediate future, Padilla will be sworn in as a juror to the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. Padilla has indicated he plans to find Trump guilty on the impeachment charges of encouraging the riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Further, Padilla wants to see Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas removed from the Senate because Padilla believes they encouraged the mob when they announced their intent to object to election results from swing states Biden won.
He wasn’t overly concerned with some of his positions being controversial with Republicans.
“In an ideal world, we can make progress on a bipartisan basis,” Padilla said. “But knowing the urgency of the work near term, we can’t let it get in the way of COVID, of health care — which is a right — of immigration reform that is long overdue, and so much more.”
———
