Supervisor defended family after daughter was sued
Nick Gerda
is an accountability reporter who has covered local government in Southern California for more than a decade.
Published August 25, 2024 7:30 AM
O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do at an Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 23, 2024.
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Nick Gerda
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LAist
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Topline:
Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, whose home was searched by FBI and IRS agents last week, directed millions of tax dollars that the county alleges were fraudulently diverted. He has declined to comment to English-language news outlets for months. But he did speak recently on a Vietnamese language radio broadcast, which LAist commissioned a translation of.
What did he say? In an Aug. 15 broadcast, a few hours after the county filed a fraud lawsuit against his daughter, Do spoke for 17 minutes criticizing what he called slander against his “whole family” and defending the nonprofit Viet America Society (VAS), and the group’s founder Peter Pham from allegations they misused millions of dollars meant to feed vulnerable seniors.
The backstory: Viet America Society is at the center of the lawsuit filed by Orange County, which followed months of investigative articles from LAist. Those articles were the first to report Do’s funding of VAS via several contracts he awarded to the nonprofit, including money earmarked for feeding seniors during the pandemic and building a Vietnam War memorial in Fountain Valley. Public records and the nonprofit’s filings with the state, county and federal government show that Supervisor Do’s daughter, Rhiannon Do, was listed in leading roles at Viet America Society on and off during the time her father directed millions to the group.
Were other homes searched? A Tustin home owned by Rhiannon Do was also searched this week by the IRS. Federal agents also searched the homes of other people with ties to VAS who the county has accused of involvement in the alleged fraud.
Keep reading… for full details on what Supervisor Do said during his radio broadcast.
Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, the central figure in an unfolding corruption scandal that saw his home searched by FBI and IRS agents last week, has for months declined to comment to English-language news outlets.
Last week, he spoke out on Vietnamese-language radio, according to a recording of the remarks that LAist had translated. The broadcast took place a few hours after LAist broke the news on Aug. 15 that county officials filed a fraud lawsuit against his daughter, Rhiannon Do, and others involved in a nonprofit she helped lead, according to two people who said they spoke with others who heard the broadcast live.
Supervisor Do directed more than $10 million in public funds to the nonprofit, Viet America Society (VAS), that have gone unaccounted for, despite O.C. officials’ repeated demands for answers about what happened to the money since February.
LAist reached out to Supervisor Do on Friday and Saturday and did not get a response. A county spokesperson declined to comment on the broadcast.
Supervisor Do has declined or not responded to dozens of LAist’s requests for comment since LAist first reported on millions in public funds he’d directed Viet America Society outside of public view.
The Aug. 15 broadcast on VietLink Radio is Supervisor Do’s first — and so far only — known public response to the controversy since the county filed suit alleging that millions of taxpayer dollars were misspent. It is being reported here in English for the first time.
VietLink Radio is owned by Supervisor Do’s former deputy chief of staff Nick Lecong, and broadcasts a few hours per week on 1480 AM from a transmitter in Santa Ana.
Supervisor Do calls recent allegations ‘a slander’
Supervisor Do spoke for 17 minutes on the VietLink Radio segment. He criticized fellow O.C. Republican Janet Nguyen, a state senator currently running for Do's seat, the media and others for what he called slander against his “whole family.” Supervisor Do also defended the Viet America Society, and Peter Pham, the nonprofit group’s founder, from allegations they misused millions of dollars meant to feed vulnerable seniors. He spoke on his own and was not interviewed.
State Sen. Janet Nguyen, a Huntington Beach Republican, votes during session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 30, 2022.
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Rahul Lal
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CalMatters
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During his broadcast, Supervisor Do pointed to a financial review that he described as showing Viet America Society “is complying with the law,” according to the translation. He appeared to be referring to a financial review released last week by VAS’ new attorney, Mark Rosen.
Allegations that laws were broken are “just a wrongful accusation, a slander,” Supervisor Do added.
The number of people who have received meals from the group “is very high,” he said, adding that 400,000 meals have been served. Supervisor Do said that number was provided by Rosen.
Rosen first emerged publicly as VAS’ lawyer in an Aug. 12 letter to the county. VAS’ previous attorney, Sterling Scott Winchell, told the Orange County Register he no longer represented the group as of Aug. 13.
County officials recently issued findings that Viet America Society's meal numbers were “questionable” and that the nonprofit failed to prove it served the number of meals required in county contracts. It filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court on Aug. 15 — a few hours before Supervisor Do’s radio segment that night — based in large part on those findings. The case has been transferred to San Diego County Superior Court.
In his broadcast, Supervisor Do said that many people were helped by VAS.
“People came to Phước Lộc Thọ to eat every day, to be helped by Peter Pham's Society,” Supervisor Do said about VAS. Phước Lộc Thọ is the Vietnamese name for the Asian Garden Mall, where Pham’s restaurant Perfume River is located.
An LAist review of VAS’ internal financial ledgers provided to the county and obtained by a public records request, found that VAS paid $1.7 million to Perfume River, the majority of money it received from the county to provide meals to needy seniors in 2021 and 2022.
The payments to Perfume River are labeled as “Food Supplies,” with no further information.
In early April, LAist sent questions to the county and to Viet America Society leaders about those large-scale transfers of funds from the nonprofit to the restaurant. Neither entity has provided answers. A county spokesperson told LAist that the county has not received any details or invoices it has requested from VAS about the restaurant payments.
County officials now say it’s unclear what happened to the taxpayer money that was forwarded to the restaurant. They issued findings, cited in their lawsuit against VAS, that the nonprofit has refused to provide the county with an explanation or documentation about what the funds were used for.
In his Aug. 15 broadcast on VietLink Radio, Supervisor Do said he and his family are victims of a smear campaign by the media and Janet Nguyen, the state senator and a former longtime ally turned political foe. Nguyen, a Republican, had mentored Supervisor Do, a fellow Republican. He served as her chief of staff when she was a county supervisor before they had a bitter falling out. She is currently a candidate to replace him as supervisor in the Nov. 5 election. (Do was termed out of office.)
Supervisor Do also said during the broadcast that slander from the media and “factions that follow” Nguyen are why his wife Cheri Pham — the number two judge in Orange County Superior Court — recently decided not to seek the top judgeship.
“They kept insinuating that there is something dark, something that discredits us and our families, not only is related to us but even with my wife. It slanders our whole family and therefore my wife no longer wants to be the…chief justice of Orange County,” Supervisor Do said on the broadcast.
“Our community has lost an opportunity [for] the first time in the history of the United States since the Vietnamese were refugees, a Chief Justice of such ability, prestige and dignity as my wife has to turn down that position because of a completely unacceptable manner of conduct in our community.”
O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do (center left) in December 2023 with his daughter Rhiannon Do (right) and wife Cheri Pham (between them). Pham is the assistant presiding judge of Orange County Superior Court.
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Screenshot of a public video posted by Do’s official YouTube channel
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Through a court spokesperson, Cheri Pham declined to comment on her husband’s description of why she decided not to seek the presiding judge position.
She is currently the assistant presiding judge for a two-year period ending in December. Typically, people in that position run for presiding judge for the next term and win the election among the court’s judges, according to an LAist review of court announcements for the last 14 years.
In the Aug. 15 radio broadcast, Supervisor Do also said he believes there are people who want to make sure he doesn’t try for elective office again.
“They want to make sure that they have to defame Andrew Do so that he can’t become a candidate who they must fear in the future,” Do said in his broadcast.
Asked for her response, Nguyen, the state senator, said Do has only himself to blame for his troubles. She also reiterated calls she has made for him to resign.
“This is classic Andrew Do, lying to the Vietnamese community in their own language to create divide. Meanwhile, he has been completely silent to the rest of our community,” Nguyen wrote in a statement.
“The reality is that Andrew is solely responsible for ruining his wife’s, Judge Cheri [Pham’s], career. Andrew is solely responsible for his daughter’s [alleged] fraudulent activities. Most importantly, he single-handedly stripped resources for our most vulnerable communities to benefit himself,” she added.
“It’s time he looks in the mirror and takes accountability for his actions.”
Nguyen is running against Frances Marquez, a city council member in Cypress and Democrat for Orange County’s first supervisorial district.
Marquez called for Supervisor Do to resign in a statement to LAist on Saturday.
“Anyone who violates the principles of ethics and betrays the public trust is not fit for holding office,” she wrote. “He had a duty to be honest and transparent with the residents of District 1 and failed us.”
Earlier this year, Supervisor Do endorsed his then co-chief of staff, Van Tran, for his seat, but Tran placed third in the March primary and did not make it to the runoff.
As a two-term supervisor, Do, himself, cannot run for supervisor again.
About the county’s lawsuit
The county’s lawsuit, which followed months of investigative articles from LAist on Supervisor Do’s funding of VAS, alleges his daughter and other leaders of the nonprofit “brazenly plundered” up to $10.4 million Supervisor Do had given them between early 2021 and fall 2023 to build a Vietnam War memorial and feed seniors and people with disabilities during the pandemic.
The lawsuit claims Rhiannon Do and her associates at the nonprofit refused to show how they spent those millions of dollars in public funds, which the county received from the federal government to help respond to the public’s needs during the coronavirus pandemic.
The county’s lawsuit accuses them of spending part of the money to buy million-dollar properties for themselves — but does not cite proof. Three of the six properties cited in the county’s lawsuit were among those that federal agents searched this week.
Rosen, the lawyer for VAS, has disputed the county’s allegations, saying the lawsuit is riddled with errors, “a disgrace” and a “hatchet job.”
FBI officers and Craig Wilke, who identified as O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do's lawyer, at Supervisor Do's house in Orange County the day it was searched.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
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LAist
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On Thursday, a little less than a week after the radio broadcast, Supervisor Do and Cheri Pham’s house was searched by the FBI. Federal officials also searched a house purchased by Rhiannon Do; another purchased by Peter Pham, who is often listed in public records as the chief executive of VAS; other properties owned by people connected to VAS; and the Perfume River restaurant.
Rhiannon Do and Peter Pham deny wrongdoing
Rhiannon Do and Peter Pham have denied doing anything wrong.
In an April email replying to LAist’s inquiries about the county’s payments to VAS, Rhiannon Do said there was nothing improper about how Viet America Society’s funding was used.
Rhiannon Do in a YouTube video posted in August 2021 by the Steinberg Institute where she was an intern.
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Screenshot via YouTube
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The “insinuation that there was something untoward with the use of VAS funds is fabricated” and a “false narrative,” she wrote. A lawyer who said he’s representing Rhiannon Do told LAist on Friday that she’s a "very honest, law-abiding, hardworking young woman."
Following the federal search on his house, Peter Pham told the Los Angeles Times that the situation was a "misunderstanding" and that he "didn't do anything wrong."
About VietLink Radio
Nick Lecong, VietLink Radio’s owner, worked for Supervisor Do as his deputy chief of staff from February 2015 to September 2017.
He was then hired as a translation contractor for Do’s county office through his company T&T Consulting, and was paid $72,000 per year for several years through contracts that did not go through a competitive bidding process.
According to county records, VietLink Radio directly received $89,000 in county funds for public service announcements during the pandemic, plus an unknown portion of $150,000 the county paid vendors that have close ties to VAS leaders.
That money made its way to ads on VietLink through private firms associated with VAS leaders Peter Pham, Le Dan Hua, Dinh Mai, and a woman who has lived at the same address as Peter Pham — Thu Thao Thi Vu — according to county invoice records obtained by LAist.
In the second half of 2020, the county paid $75,000 each to Aloha Financial Investment and Hua Development — two companies that have shared leaders with VAS — to fund COVID-19 public service ads on broadcast outlets that included “Vietlink Radio and Vietlink Television,” according to the invoices.
Aloha Financial Investment described itself as an “investments” business in a state filing last year. Hua Development is Peter Pham and Hua’s building contractor business.
The ad payments were in addition to $60,000 the county directly paid VietLink Radio during the same period — also for pandemic public service ads, according to a county contract obtained by LAist. Those ads were supposed to run in newspapers, according to the contract.
County spokesperson Molly Nichelson, who is listed in county records as requesting the Aloha Financial Investment and Hua Development purchase orders, said Friday she was looking into LAist’s questions about the ad payments.
Lecong's ties to earlier investigation of Supervisor Do
Lecong was mentioned in a previous investigation of Supervisor Do by the state Fair Political Practices Commission. That investigation found that Supervisor Do and Lecong used a different nonprofit as a “holding company” to pay for construction of statues of war heroes and former President Ronald Reagan at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley in 2015 and 2016.
A statue of General Tran Hung Dao in Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley. The statue was cited in an investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
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Mary Plummer
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LAist
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State investigators concluded that he and Lecong controlled that foundation even though they were not its named leaders.
The foundation used donated funds, raised by Supervisor Do, to pay two men who would later become involved with VAS. The two men — VAS founder Peter Pham and Hua, his partner in a general contracting business — were described by the Orange County Register at the time as project managers for the statues’ construction, and were paid $20,800.
Peter Pham went on to found VAS in June 2020, days after Supervisor Do and other county supervisors voted to create the pandemic meals program. Hua — Peter Pham’s business partner — has served as VAS’ president on and off since its founding, according to tax filings and other government documents. Rhiannon Do also has appeared on contracts and other government filings, variously as the group’s president, vice president, executive director, officer and director.
She told LAist, via email in April, that she never served in those roles. Rhiannon Do never responded to follow-up questions about why her name appears in at least nine public titles in top leadership roles at the nonprofit.
Catch up on LAist's investigation
In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered over $13 million in public money was approved to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon Do, the now 23-year-old daughter of Supervisor Do. Most of that money was directed to the group by Supervisor Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties.
Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.
Since we started reporting, we’ve also uncovered the group was two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately.
And we found the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than initially known. It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist.
After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned it could be forced to repay the funds.
And, we found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
On Aug. 2, LAist reported O.C. officials were demanding the refund of more than $3 million in public funds awarded by Do to VAS and another nonprofit, Hand to Hand.
Six days later, LAist reported Orange County officials had expanded demands for refunds of millions in tax dollars from the nonprofits and threatened legal action.
Then, on Aug. 19, LAist reported O.C. officials had announced a second lawsuit against Hand to Hand and its CEO to recover millions of taxpayer dollars that were directed by Supervisor Do.
LAist broke the news on Aug. 22 that federal agents were searching Rhiannon Do's home in Tustin. Later that day, Supervisor Do's home, and other properties, were also raided.
How to watchdog local government
One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.
Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published November 30, 2025 7:22 AM
Afghan evacuees at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany in 2021.
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Armando Babani
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
The Trump administration’s sudden freeze on all visa and asylum decisions for Afghan immigrants has left many of them in Orange County — one of the country's largest hubs for Afghans — in limbo. Local groups are preparing to support the immigrants even as they await clarification from federal authorities.
Why it matters: California is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Afghan immigrants, many of them now grappling with the Trump administration’s abrupt visa and asylum freeze.
Read on ... to learn more about the Afghan population in Orange County and guidance from one O.C. immigration official on what could come next.
California is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Afghan immigrants, many of them now grappling with the Trump administration’s abrupt visa and asylum freeze.
Friday’s announcement by the White House followed the fatal shooting of a National Guard member in Washington, D.C. a couple days earlier by a suspect who had immigrated from Afghanistan.
In Orange County, where many Afghans have settled as their immigration applications pend, local officials are gearing up to help them navigate the change, even as guidance is scant from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Jose Serrano, director of Orange County's Office of Refugee and Immigrant Services, said the goal is to provide the “most up-to-date information so they can continue on towards their pathway towards citizenship here in the United States.”
“The Afghan population in Southern California, specifically in Orange County, is one that is really important to the DNA of who we are,” Serrano said. “Let's continue to stay together and strong and reimagine a place for belonging for everyone.”
As they await more information, Serrano advised visa and asylum seekers to:
stay on top of updates from USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security
contact their local office of immigrant and refugee affairs
connect with organizations that work closely with immigrant and refugee populations such as resettlement agencies and legal aid groups
Hundreds of Afghan households have settled in Orange County, Serrano said, placing it alongside the San Diego and Sacramento areas as one of the state’s hubs for Afghan immigrants.
Serrano said a big draw for immigrants to Orange County is Little Arabia in Anaheim, a regional destination for Middle Eastern food, culture, and community life.
Serrano, who spent more than a decade working with immigrants at World Relief Southern California and the state's refugee programs bureau, said entering Afghan homes means being offered large meals. One family had prepared a whole feast for a Time Warner cable worker, he recalled.
“They didn't understand why that person couldn’t stay to dine with them,” he said. “That’s the type of people that are here in Orange County, folks who are so committed to being a part of civic engagement, to connecting alongside other communities.”
Visa applications in limbo
Serrano said many of the Afghans who resettled in the county are Special Immigrant Visa holders, a program created for Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. government during the war in their home country.
That program has now been frozen by the State Department.
Serrano said immigrants who entered the U.S. as refugees and have since become green card holders could see their cases reopened.
For Serrano, the current screening process is rigorous and involves multiple organizations aside from USCIS such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the F.B.I. and counterterrorist organizations.
Applicants undergo health screenings and multiple fingerprinting appointments, he said.
“They're constantly doing an assessment to verify that you are a good standing citizen,” Serrano said. ““One of the things that I think we should be very proud of within the United States is that there is an in-depth screening process for anyone who is seeking a protection.”
Four people were killed and 10 wounded in a shooting during a family gathering at a banquet hall in Stockton, sheriff's officials said Saturday.
Details: The victims included both children and adults, said Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff's office.
What's next: Early indications "suggest this may have been a targeted incident," Brent said during a news conference at the scene. Local officials said the suspected shooter has not been caught and pleaded with the public for help. Detectives were still working to identify a possible motive.
STOCKTON, Calif. — Four people were killed and 10 wounded in a shooting during a family gathering at a banquet hall in Stockton, sheriff's officials said Saturday.
The victims included both children and adults, said Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff's office. Early indications "suggest this may have been a targeted incident," Brent said during a news conference at the scene.
Local officials said the suspected shooter has not been caught and pleaded with the public for help. Detectives were still working to identify a possible motive.
"If you have any information as to this individual, reach out immediately. If you are this individual, turn yourself in immediately," San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas said during a news conference.
The shooting occurred just before 6 p.m. inside the banquet hall, which shares a parking lot with other businesses. Stockton is a city of 320,000 about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Sacramento.
"Families should be together instead of at the hospital, standing next to their loved one, praying that they survive," Mayor Christina Fugazzi said.
Authorities did not immediately provide additional information about the conditions of the victims. Officials said earlier that several were taken to hospitals.
In a handful of California’s deep blue districts, an intra-party battle over the future of the Democratic Party is brewing in the wake of grim losses during last year’s presidential race.
Why now: In Sacramento, Napa County and Los Angeles, three younger challengers are arguing that Democrats need to give voters fresh faces with bold new ideas to energize the party’s base, rather than aging incumbents who are entrenched more in Washington insider culture than in their districts.
The backstory: The recent retirements of Nancy Pelosi and other longtime House Democrats have led to more calls for aging members to pass the torch. Incumbents argue their experience is crucial as the executive branch is upending the balance of power in Washington.
California’s battleground House districts might get the lion’s share of national attention for their role in deciding which party rules Congress’s lower chamber.
But in a handful of California’s deep blue districts, an intra-party battle over the future of the Democratic Party is brewing in the wake of grim losses during last year’s presidential race.
In Sacramento, Napa County and Los Angeles, three younger challengers are arguing that Democrats need to give voters fresh faces with bold new ideas to energize the party’s base, rather than aging incumbents who are entrenched more in Washington insider culture than in their districts.
“Status quo politics isn’t going to protect our communities,” said Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang, 40, who is running against 10-term Rep. Doris Matsui, 81. “We need leaders who can meet the moment. And that’s why I decided to step into the ring.”
Vang is the first formidable primary challenge that Matsui has faced in the two decades since the congresswoman won her late husband’s seat in 2005. Former Rep. Bob Matsui held that seat for 26 years prior.
Two other senior California congressional Democrats have also attracted primary challengers. Rep. Mike Thompson, 74, of Napa County, a Vietnam veteran vying for his 15th term, faces a challenge from Eric Jones, 34, a former San Francisco venture capitalist.
And farther south, former Obama and Biden White House climate aide Jake Levine, 41, is challenging Rep. Brad Sherman, 71, of Los Angeles, who is seeking his 16th term. All three challengers have vowed not to take corporate PAC money as their incumbent opponents do.
Around California and across the country, younger challengers argue that Democratic incumbents in safe districts take their seats for granted since they so rarely receive serious challenges. That false sense of security, Vang said, results in out-of-touch members who have fewer incentives to show up in their districts and talk to voters.
Part of meeting the current moment, Vang argues, means taking “bold and courageous” positions on important issues, such as speaking out forcefully against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Vang said she wants Matsui to more strongly condemn immigration raids that have torn Sacramento families apart and violated residents’ due process rights. She was disappointed that Matsui’s denunciations centered around the unsanitary conditions of the John E. Moss federal building, where advocates said detainees were being held without access to proper hygiene, rather than on the separation of families and indiscriminate detentions.
“For the past several months we’ve had neighbors, people in our community that have been kidnapped by ICE, taken by ICE, and Doris hasn’t spoken up against that at all,” Vang said. “And especially as someone who was born in the internment camps, I would think she would be on the front lines to speak out on the issues.”
Matsui was born in the Poston War Relocation Center internment camp in Arizona, where her parents were incarcerated during World War II.
Matsui in October hosted a rare in-person forum only after constituents spent months calling on her to meet with them. Angry Sacramentans also hosted an empty-chair town hall in March to highlight Matsui’s absence, not even two weeks after House Democrats did a nationwide blitz of showing up in Republican districts to prove a similar point.
Some senior leaders are sticking around
Calls for generational change within the Democratic Party, while not new, have increased significantly as the party works to find its footing after 2024. The dynamic played out first in internal House leadership races earlier this year, where younger members like Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach leapfrogged more senior colleagues to lead powerful committees.
Rep. Thompson, Matsui’s congressional counterpart in neighboring Napa County, said his constituents have stopped him in public and asked him to run again.
“I can’t tell you how many times I had people tell me, ‘I sure hope you’re gonna stick around. We need you more now than ever,’” Thompson told CalMatters. “No one’s asked me to retire. No one has suggested that I’ve been there too long. And everyone knows that not only am I capable, but I’m in good shape.”
In Sacramento, Vang, the eldest of 16 children whose Hmong parents came to the United States as refugees, said she has the utmost respect for the Matsuis and their long history of service.
Still, she has called on Matsui to follow the examples of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — who announced last month that she would retire next year and not seek reelection to a 21st term in Congress — and Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York, who told The New York Times that “now is the right moment to step aside and allow a new generation of leaders to step forward.”
But Matsui remains steadfast that she has much more work to do in Congress, such as overseeing groundbreaking for Sacramento’s new I Street bridge and securing federal funds for flood prevention and wildfire recovery, and said she will stay in the race. She emphasized that the deep relationships she’s built over 20 years in Washington are critical to her ability to deliver on those projects.
“It’s important to not only have advocates, but have people who understand that once you’re in Congress, you have to learn how to govern, too,” Matsui said. “We cannot just throw everything out and start over again.”
As for Vang’s intra-party primary challenge, Matsui said anyone is “perfectly free” to run against her at any time. “I’m fine with that. This is our democracy. This is America.”
But she insisted that her record would reinforce to voters how hard she works.
“I show up every single day working for Sacramento,” Matsui said, “whether it’s in Sacramento or in D.C.”
The risk of Dem-on-Dem challenges
One risk of primarying veteran members of Congress is the loss of institutional wisdom, said Gale Kaufman, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist, particularly with the Trump administration testing the limits of the law and boundaries of power.
“Especially when you’re up against stuff like this, which we’re not familiar with, breaking every norm you could possibly imagine,” Kaufman said, “having some of those people around is not a bad thing.”
Even among younger Democrats, there’s not wide consensus that incumbents are out and young challengers are automatically in. Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats, echoed Kaufman’s point that a blanket policy of “vote out all incumbents over a certain age” could be counterproductive.
While the Young Democrats have yet to endorse anyone in the congressional races, Cragin said he is personally conflicted about who to support.
“I don’t know who I’m going to vote for,” Cragin said. “It’s nice to have a strong member at the moment, but also, there is part of me that wants to make sure we support our younger members. And Councilmember Mai Vang is a very strong challenger. She’s very community oriented.”
Those who support intra-Democratic challenges argue that they drive important dialogue and force candidates to clearly articulate their ideas and earn voters’ trust, rather than taking their support as a given. Incumbent Democrats across the country could benefit from primary challenges as the party soul searches, said Alex Niles, vice president of political affairs for the Sacramento County Young Democrats.
“We need to have a reckoning and figure out, ‘What does it mean to be a Democrat? What do we stand for? What do people want and who are we serving?’” Niles said.
Unsurprisingly, many incumbents and political strategists disagree, denouncing intra-party primaries as expensive distractions that deplete safe members’ fundraising that could otherwise support colleagues in more vulnerable districts.
“The circular firing squad in blue districts hurts our ability to win swing districts,” Rep. Sherman told CalMatters in an interview.
Candidates in safe districts often support their more vulnerable colleagues to gain clout within the party, whether through direct transfers of campaign cash or by urging their donors to channel their contributions to more contested races. Sherman argues that a competitive intra-Democratic primary forces a safe incumbent to invest more in their own reelection rather than helping flip battleground seats. He repeatedly mentioned tight races in Iowa and Ohio that he views as critical to Democrats reclaiming the House.
“What happens in swing seats may determine whether America’s a democracy,” Sherman said. “Democrats have got to win seats in Iowa, and we can’t do it unless the strong Democrats in Bel Air and Brentwood and Malibu are focused on Iowa.
“It’s hard to get people in Brentwood to focus on Iowa if there’s a real race in Brentwood.”
He added that while it matters which Democrat represents California’s 32nd Congressional District, the Los Angeles-area seat that he’s represented for almost 30 years, it’s “not life or death for our democracy.”
Sherman’s challenger Levine, who outraised the congressmember last quarter and appears to be the frontrunner in a crowded field, agrees that Democrats need to flip GOP-held seats to reclaim control of the House. But at the same time, if their party wants to retain the majority and win back disaffected voters, Democrats need to prove they’re focused on lowering the cost of living and improving their quality of life, in addition to preserving democracy.
After leaving Los Angeles to pursue a climate policy career in Washington, D.C., Levine moved back home earlier this year to help his mother after she lost her house — his childhood home — in the devastating Palisades Fire. He was frustrated by the disjointed local and state response to recovery, and he had hoped Sherman would step up and coordinate the response.
“The things that people want to hear about, and the things that I’m trying to talk about, are the issues in the district,” he said. “Those issues really are not about the composition of the House. They’re not about Washington inside-the-beltway questions of power.”
Instead, Levine wants to see his member of Congress answer the kinds of questions that families like his own think about every day — “Can I afford my rent? Can my kids stay in the same neighborhood where they grew up, and even in the same state, because it’s so prohibitively expensive?”
The Stahl House, otherwise known as Case Study House #22, is on the market for the first time in its 65 year history
Why it matters: The mid-century modern home in Hollywood Hills has come to embody the post-war Los Angeles good life. It is also one of the most recognizable examples of West Coast modernism.
Why now: The house has been with the same family since its completion. But after caring for it for more than 6 decades, the Stahl children are looking for the house's next steward.
Read on... For the fascinating history of the Stahl House, find out why its original moniker is Case Study House #22, and see the photographs that have made the hilltop home a revered landmark
A quintessential piece of Los Angeles history — a jaw-dropping mid-century modern of glass, steel and seemingly all skies soaring high above the Hollywood Hills — is up for sale.
Asking price: $25 million.
The Stahl House, designed and built by Pierre Koenig, photographed by Julius Shulman.
The Stahl House, otherwise known as Case Study House #22, has stayed with the same family since it was built in 1960.
"After 65 years, our family has made the heartfelt and very difficult decision to place the Stahl House on the market," wrote the Stahl children, Bruce Stahl and Shari Stahl Gronwald.
The 2,200 square foot home at 1635 Woods Drive has been preserved meticulously, funded in part by proceeds from open house tours of the space.
"This home has been the center of our lives for decades, but as we’ve gotten older, it has become increasingly challenging to care for it with the attention and energy it so richly deserves," the Stahl children continued.
And they are not just looking for a buyer — but a steward.
The kitchen of the Stahl House, photographed by Julius Shulman.
"It is a passing of responsibility," the listing for the house reads. "A search for the next custodian who will honor the house's history, respect its architectural purity, and ensure its preservation for generations to come."
Post-war housing shortage
The Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, was designed and built by Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills.
The futuristic house with its stunning panorama and a swimming pool perched at the edge of nothingness has become one of the most recognizable and prized expressions of mid-century modern architecture in L.A. — how it came to be built was fueled by a similar spirit of experimentation and audacity.
In 1945, the cutting edge Arts & Architecture magazine launched the "Case Study House" program to commission the era's biggest and most boundary pushing architects — Richard Neutra, Charles Eames and the like — to design and build within budget affordable, scalable homes for an exploding middle class after World World II.
"Each house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an 'individual' performance," editor John Entenza wrote in the announcement-slashed-manifesto.
By its terminus in 1966, the program gave rise to 36 designs, of which 25 prototypes were built — mostly in and around the city — forging L.A. into an epicenter of West Coast modernism.
Case Study Home #22
One of them was Case Study Home #22 by Pierre Koenig, who as an architecture student at USC in the early 1950s was already making a name for himself, particularly for his use of steel.
His student work caught the attention of Entenza, editor of Arts & Architecture, who later invited him to join the Case Study House program.
Architect Pierre Koenig was hired by former football player Buck Stahl and his wife Carlotta to build the Stahl House.
The Hollywood Hills home would be Koenig's second Case Study house — and his most well-known.
The story began with Hughes Aircraft purchasing agent and former football player Buck Stahl and his wife Carlotta, who bought a small hillside lot overlooking the city for $13,500.
The couple spent weekends putting up a wall around the property using broken concrete sourced from construction sites. Buck, the Stahl family said, had built a model of his dream house to take to architects — many of whom turned the job down because the lot was seen as undevelopable.
The Stahl House, part of the Case Study House program, was completed in 1960.
Enter Koenig, who signed on for the challenge in 1957. A month before construction began in 1959, the project was christened Case Study House #22. The Stahl house was completed a year later, according to the Los Angeles Times, at a cost of nearly $38,000.
The birth of cool
With its sleek lines and inviting airiness, Case Study House #22 has come to embody the good life in post-war Los Angeles, an idea reinforced by its countless appearances in movies, TV shows and magazine spreads over the decades.
But the photographs that started it all — elevating the home into the stuff of mythology — was taken by Julius Shulman, the man tapped to document the entire Arts & Architecture program, after charting an unlikely career photographing modernist architecture in L.A., starting with those designed by Neutra.
Julius Shulman was responsible for documenting houses in the Case Study House program. The Stahl House is among a number of houses he took photos of.
Shulman shot the Stahl House in May 1960 shortly after its completion. In the most iconic shot of the series, two young women in white party dresses are sitting in the glass living room, conversing leisurely as the house dissolves into the shimmering sprawl below.
"It was not an architectural quote-unquote 'photograph,'" said Shulman about the image in an interview for the Archives of American Art. "It is a picture of a mood.”
