Saddleback ASG hosts Rep. Mike Levin in third “Meet Your Congressional Candidates” event

Rep. Mike Levin speaks to Saddleback students at third “Meet Your Congressional Candidates” event in SSC 212. Levin for Congress

Saddleback College Associated Student Government hosted Democratic Congressman Mike Levin Oct. 8th in the third “Meet Your Congressional Candidates” event.

Rep. Levin represents California’s 49th Congressional District, which includes North County San Diego and South Orange County.

The event gave students the opportunity to engage with Levin and learn about his positions and policies on various topics.

He shared his stances and ideas on affordability of higher education and housing, veteran assistance, the environment and clean energy, the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine and reproductive rights.

He also spoke on the upcoming presidential election, expressing support for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Levin, who is currently serving his sixth year in congress, began the event by sharing his positions on affordability of higher education and housing.

In regard to student loans, Levin has proposed legislation that would “dramatically expand public service loan forgiveness opportunities” and make it more widely available, adding that many people are unable to apply for and access the current public service loan forgiveness program.

Levin believes it’s necessary to drastically increase Pell Grants. 

“I have legislation that would double the Pell Grant to roughly $15,000 a year,” he said. “And when the Pell Grant was first created, it was designed to cover 80 percent of the cost of college. Today, obviously it does not. The Pell Grant today covers maybe 25 to 30 percent of the cost of college, if you’re lucky.”

Another focus of Levin’s has been to increase the availability of affordable housing locally, he said.

Levin sees an opportunity for this in Laguna Niguel. His focus is on the Ziggurat property.

Levin has been “aggressive with the general services administration that they need to get that sold to a developer that would build affordable housing,” he said. 

He added that he would like to see at least 2,000 affordable housing units built in Laguna Niguel.

Levin, a ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, hopes much of the affordable housing will go to veterans.

“A lot of that housing I hope will go to veterans, because for the six years I’ve been in Congress, I’ve been fighting very hard to eliminate veteran homelessness in San Diego and Orange County,” he said.

He pointed out that the city council and the county must first approve of the project.

Levin has previously supported legislation that provides healthcare and other benefits to veterans.

He supported the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, passed by Congress in 2022.

The act ensured that veterans who served in post 9/11 conflicts and “were exposed to burn pits and toxic substances, and as a result got respiratory conditions, cancers, and the rest, preemptively, presumptively, they are now eligible for VA healthcare,” Levin said. “And over 4,000 veterans in our district alone now have access to VA healthcare who did not have it before,” he said.

He has worked to improve transition assistance programs for veterans, he said, adding that veterans transitioning to civilian life often don’t receive adequate guidance on base. 

Levin has helped pass legislation to pilot an off base transition program for veterans, he said. The program provides transition assistance services to veterans that remain available when they’re off base. 

“They go into the communities where those services are most needed,” Levin said. 

Along with addressing affordability, another focus for Levin has been the environment.

Levin supported the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law Aug. 2022. The act aimed to foster clean energy development and fight climate change.

It’s necessary to address the climate crisis with the seriousness demanded by science, Levin said, adding that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut roughly in half by the end of the decade to reduce long term effects of the climate crisis.

“We need energy that is cheap, reliable, and clean,” Levin said.

Levin is in support of energy independence. 

“I want to have domestic manufacturing of renewables, and I want to make sure we do everything we can to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels that are subject to the volatility of global oil markets,” Levin said.

He added that dependency on fossil fuels poses a threat to national security due to the potential for other countries to influence American elections by influencing commodity pricing.

Levin would like to accelerate the transition into cleaner energy sources, he said.

“One of the big initiatives I have is to dramatically expand and modernize the electric grid,” he said. “If we want this transition towards more decarbonization and electrification, we’re going to need a lot more distribution and transmission of clean energy.”

To do that, the output of the electric grid must be roughly doubled within the next two decades, he said.

The Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration Act, legislation introduced by Levin and congressman Sean Casten, who serves Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, would do that.

The act “comprehensively addresses the primary permitting and transmission issues that are holding back the American clean energy transition,” according to a Levin press release.

Locally, he plans to address the issue of nuclear waste on the San Onofre coast.

This is a challenge because to fix the problem locally, it must be fixed nationally, he said, explaining that there are 73 sites across the country with spent nuclear fuel or nuclear waste, and no current solution to remove the waste.

He pointed out that when deciding where to store nuclear waste, an important element is obtaining consent of communities involved. Communities involved must also receive economic benefit from the operation of the site, he said.

To address the issue, Levin created a bipartisan caucus called Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus. The caucus’ consent based site initiative has received 140 million dollars of funding from the Department of Energy, he said. Levin hopes that through the caucus, sites willing to store the waste will be identified within the next five to ten years.

Levin’s bipartisan bill The Spent Nuclear Fuel Prioritization Act requires that nationally, waste from sites with the “highest population density, highest seismic hazard and highest national security risk” be removed first, meaning that local waste removal would be prioritized, he said.

No more legacy fission plants should be built in California until the nuclear waste storage issue has been addressed, Levin said. 

Along with addressing nuclear waste, Levin shared that he is against fracking in California. “I don’t think we should be given the additives and chemicals that you have to inject into the ground in order to do that,” he said. 

He added that he is against any drilling off the Southern California coast.

Along with local issues, Levin discussed international issues. He spoke on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.

There have been “unspeakable horrors on both sides of this conflict,” he said.

No human rights violation should be accepted in any nation, he added.

“What I will tell you is that Israel had the right to defend itself, they were attacked by terrorists on October the 7th, but the way that they responded matters, and the loss of civilian life in Gaza, also what we’re seeing in Lebanon is very very troubling to me.”

Levin added that a ceasefire deal is needed.

“We have to do all we can to exercise diplomacy,” he said. “I’m worried that the situation is spiraling out of control.”

As for the ultimate solution to the conflict, new leadership on both sides and a two state solution are needed, he said.

Levin spoke against American involvement in the Middle East unless completely necessary. He believes the United States would currently be directly involved in the conflict if former president Donald Trump were in office, he said.

Levin also spoke on abortion, referencing the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to an abortion nationally.

“What we need is the Women’s Health Protection Act,” Levin said. “That’s a federal bill that would codify Roe v. Wade into law, and would say that every state in the union would have to allow doctors to provide reproductive care.”

Levin added that he supports legislation that would protect the right to IVF and contraception.

He addressed what he sees as a potential threat to these protections. 

In the Project 2025 document, people who were involved in the previous Trump administration are “calling for a national abortion ban,” said Levin.

Ensuring rights for LGBTQ individuals is important to Levin as well, he said. He would like to pass the Equality Act.

The act would reduce discrimination by ensuring that “gender identity and sexual orientation is treated as a federally protected class,” he said.

During Levin’s previous congressional term, he helped pass the Respect for Marriage Act of 2022, which guarantees federal recognition for same-sex marriage. 

Levin discussed his stance on immigration and his support for nonpartisan legislation to address border security.

The issue is personal to him, due to the fact that his mother’s parents were Mexican immigrants, he said.

“Today, I worry about the mass deportation policies that are being drawn up, where you have people like dreamers who come at a young age who have been here most of their life, they know nothing but doing everything the right way, contributing positively to our economy, to our society,” Levin said. 

Such individuals should have a path to citizenship, he said.

“At the same time, we do need border security,” he said.

Levin visited the San Diego border in May, a month during which there were about 1400 border apprehensions each day between ports of entry. These apprehensions have prevented border patrol from giving their full attention to drug trafficking, human trafficking and potential terrorism, Levin said. 

Executive action taken by President Biden to improve the asylum process has led to a 54 percent reduction in border crossings between ports of entry, Levin said. San Clemente border patrol seized 105 pounds of fentanyl following this executive action, he added.

“What we ultimately need is a bipartisan deal and for politicians on both sides of the aisle to stop using this as a campaign ploy to try to score political points,” Levin said. 

Trump killed a bipartisan deal to address the border because he didn’t want the issue to be solved during an election year, Levin said.

“I see it as a nonpartisan matter of national security, being able to take care of the drugs, the human trafficking and potential risks of terrorists,” Levin said. “And a national imperative that if you come here, you play by the rules, you’re contributing positively to society and to our economy, that you have a path to stay.”

Levin believes gun safety is another bipartisan issue. He supports the second amendment, however the number of mass shootings nationwide is unacceptable, he said. He added that the issue is not mental health, but guns.

He is in support of an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and safe storage, he said.

Rates of accidental shootings by children were 78 percent lower in states requiring secure gun storage, according to the Brady campaign.

To address gun violence, Levin has bipartisan legislation that would allow people to receive free safe storage devices.

Levin spoke about preventing young people from entering the criminal justice system. He believes it’s important for the government to invest in young people to address this issue, he said.

Levin helped pass the refundable Child Tax Credit during the pandemic.

“What we saw from that is that the rate of childhood hunger and poverty went way down,” he said. “10,000 children in this district were lifted out of poverty. And what that means is that a lot fewer of them wind up in the criminal justice system in the first place, but contribute positively socially, economically and otherwise and thrive as opposed to, you know, winding up in that spot.”

One of Vice President Harris’ policy priorities is to expand the child tax credit, he said.

“She has an 82 page PDF that she put out with all of her economic policies,” he said. “Donald Trump has no PDF of any economic policies that I’ve seen.”

Levin gave final remarks on the economy and the implications of another Trump term.

“Right now the debt is roughly 35 trillion dollars, if we do nothing it will be 50 trillion dollars by the end of the decade,” he said.

He commented on how he believes Trump’s proposed tariffs, immigration policies and tax cuts for large corporations and millionaires would potentially affect national debt.

According to independent economic analysis, Trump’s policies would add 5 to 10 trillion dollars of additional deficit and debt, Levin said.

This was the third “Meet Your Congressional Candidates” event hosted by Saddleback. ASG hosted Democrat Joe Kerr of the 40th Congressional District Oct. 3rd.

“He wants to tie the minimum wage to inflation,” said freshman Julian Donnell, who attended the event, regarding Kerr’s positions. “He wants peaceful resolution in Gaza.”

Donnell, who had never heard of Kerr prior to the event, now has a favorable opinion of Kerr. “It convinced me that he’s the person I want to vote for,” he said.

Junior Ryan Igoe attended the Kerr event due to his professor bringing the class to the event.

“I thought they were both very well done, they were very well spoken,” said Igoe, comparing the Levin event to the Kerr event. “Personally, I like Joe Kerr a little bit more because he seemed to be a lot more direct with his answers.”

Kerr was honest about not knowing the answer to certain questions, which was something Levin seemed to be lacking at times, Igoe said. 

However, Levin also gave in depth answers on certain topics, Igoe said, adding that he thought Levin’s proposed free gun safes were a good idea.

ASG hosted Republican Matt Gunderson of the 49th Congressional District Sept. 9th.

The general election is Nov. 5, during which presidential and congressional candidates will appear on the ballot. 

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