Wide range of concerns discussed during Thompson, Huffman Santa Rosa town hall

A Wednesday night town hall featuring Sonoma County’s two congressmen, U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman, was animated by a broad range of constituent concerns that ranged from gun violence to the war in Ukraine, the health of the salmon fishery to tax relief for victims of wildfires.

On the topic of gun control, one person in the audience asked the Democrats to “get a little stronger to get automatic weapons off our streets.”

“It’s an absolute epidemic and you’re correct, there’s a lot more that we could do to deal with it,” Thompson, a St. Helena Democrat who has pushed for universal background checks for gun purchases for a decade, said.

“Problem is there’s a big math problem in the U.S. Senate,” he said, noting that it would take nine GOP votes to get Thompson’s background check bill onto the Senate floor for a vote.

Asked about how to improve the region’s coastal economy — with a backdrop of a salmon season shutdown due to historically low salmon forecasts — Huffman criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom for suspending environmental laws and pushing to waive state rules that require the releases of water to protect salmon and other endangered fish. That meant more water was sent to the cities and farmers that receive supplies from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta.

“He put his thumb on the scale politically for Central Valley irrigation interests and against salmon,” Huffman, D-San Rafael, said. “We’ve got to work on that longer term water management and the political state of play, as well.”

An audience member who criticized U.S. arms shipments in support of Ukraine said she was “looking for a hero” who would bring an end to that country’s war with Russia. Her comments sparked the event’s only pointed exchange, and elicited perhaps the most definitive statements from the two Democrats.

Thompson replied, “If we weren't helping them and their other allies (weren’t) helping them. Russia would have wiped out that country.”

In response the audience member, who also said she didn’t want her 22-year-old son involved in the wider war she fears will occur should the conflict continue, yelled: “I disagree.”

“On this one we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I believe it is incredibly important to support our allies in support of their democracy,” Thompson said to loud applause.

Huffman said, “You won’t find many members of Congress more liberal than me.” Then he likened Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s aggression leading up to World War II. “We're seeing echoes of that,” he said.

“We thought we were done with these types of wars of aggression and brutality and the atrocities and genocide and other things that go along with them,“ Huffman said. ”We're living through it again right now because of Putin and this Russian atrocity.”

That exchange aside, the meeting, held at the Cleveland Avenue offices of the Redwood Credit Union, was absent the vitriol and anger that can seem to characterize much of American politics today.

Thompson and Huffman took questions from a friendly crowd of more than 100 people.

“What I particularly love about the town halls ... it's just democracy in its best form, and that means respecting each other, having whatever dialogue you want to have,” Huffman said. “I always look forward to all sorts of political perspectives and interesting questions. I hope that there are people here that completely disagree with Mike and me on a thing or two. I'm sure there are, and I hope you will not be shy.”

One person asked about tax relief for victims of California wildfires. Fire victims are currently expected to pay federal taxes on payments they receive from the fund established out of the bankruptcy of Pacific, Gas & Electric Co. to compensate for homes, businesses and lives lost to wildfires sparked by the utility’s equipment.

But fire victims have had to reserve portions of their settlements for federal taxes both on the money they receive and on the attorneys fees they pay.

“I believe that is terribly wrong,” said Thompson, who with Huffman has co-authored a bill that would relieve fire victims of that tax burden. He said the bill is a “top priority” and work on pushing that bill forward goes on “daily.”

Huffman said that the taxation of those settlements came about under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed under former President Donald Trump.

“You kind of have to point to the source of the problem when it comes to why we're now scrambling to undo a really bad tax provision. Because our Republican colleagues wanted those tax cuts for big corporations and billionaires, and they paid for them by taking away your settlement funds, basically taxing them,” Huffman said.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jeremyhay