Padilla pushes back in shutdown fight, warns of soaring healthcare premiums

California Sen. Alex Padilla is among the highest-ranking Latinos in American politics today, but it took a pair of handcuffs to make him famous.

How’s that for a commentary on America 2025?

Padilla, you may recall, was accosted and handcuffed by federal officers after he tried to ask Homeland Security Czarina Kristi Noem a question at a press conference in LA in June, when the National Guard showed up on our streets. Noem then claimed Padilla was “rushing” — which he didn’t — using the classic Trumpian technique of erasing reality with blame, especially when it comes to the Browns.

Padilla told me that “from day one of this administration, I’ve tried to speak truth to power,” and if people were being forced into this attack they would “have no choice but to start paying attention now…that might be helpful, because the general public knows it’s wrong.”

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi recycled the incident Tuesday when Padilla attempted to question her during a congressional hearing, expressing concern about arming the Justice Department. Bondi declined to answer several questions, instead invoking NOEM’s defense.

“I find it interesting that you want to order…in this procedure now,” Bondi said. “You certainly didn’t have any orders when you stormed Secretary Noem at a press conference in California, did you?”

Once again, no assault, no raid, not even a feint. Really, if anything can be said of Padilla, it’s that he’s a guy who likes order. An MIT-trained engineer, he is known for being calm to the point of annoying – in the best way. Who wouldn’t want a little boring in their politics today, if it’s seasoned with compassion and common sense?

Calm, of course, does not mean a lack of conviction. As the government shutdown limps toward the end of its first full week, Padilla took a few minutes to fill me in on why Democrats shouldn’t back down and why he won’t — whether the issue is health care, immigration, or the collision of the two, which is at the heart of this shutdown.

Republicans want voters to believe that undocumented immigrants are dumping parties in our emergency rooms, hoarding free services while pushing American citizens to the curb. In reality, there isn’t a lot of good data on how many ER visits involve undocumented people because doctors are more focused on saving lives than checking immigration status. But a Texas study found that about 2 percent of all hospital visits in a three-month period involved people without documentation. It’s in a state with a high number of undocumented people, so take it for what it’s worth – hardly a blight.

Padilla and Democrats would like to stay focused on a real crisis — health care premiums for low- and middle-income people are poised to skyrocket in the coming weeks if Congress doesn’t retain Obama-era subsidies that make premiums affordable. Padilla wants voters to understand how disastrous this is.

“It’s not a concern of what is sharpness…it’s now a concern,” Padilla told me.

“Open enrollment is opening,” he said. “People are setting their premiums and having to make choices about where to sign up for health care and price right now, and so it needs to be addressed immediately.”

Lest you think this is a partisan show, far-right Maga cheerleader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) agrees with Padilla. That’s when you know things are getting weird.

“Not a single Republican in leadership has talked to us about this or given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums doubling!!!” Greene wrote on social media, breaking with her party on the issue.

That’s about the only thing Padilla and Greene could agree on. Padilla is the son of immigrants who met in Los Angeles and later gained legal status. He was born in Southern California, making birthright citizenship his identity at a time when Trump is asking the Supreme Court to end it. It’s not just an immigrant story, it’s a California story, and it’s never far from his mind.

He was recently asked if he regretted fighting with the Biden administration over proposed immigration reform that lacked pathways for immigrants, particularly Dreamers and others who have been in the United States for years, even decades, to become citizens. Would it have been better to sell them, leave them in limbo, but repair the border before Trump could exploit it?

“Of course not,” Padilla told me. Rather than shrinking, Padilla said he held his ground.

California is one of the few states that actually offers health care to undocumented people, although budget shortfalls have forced Gov. Gavin Newsom to scale back that plan.

No federal dollars are used for this undocumented health care – it’s all state money. And Padilla supports him.

“There are some states that choose to use state funding to provide this care, and I’m OK with that, because it’s much smarter, from a public health perspective, to help people get sick or treat people very early, not administer health care, certainly not primary care, through emergency rooms,” he said.

Padilla said it’s rich news that the very workers deemed essential during the coronavirus pandemic, workers who kept food on tables, deliveries and cared for our young and elderly, are now “the agency’s primary target for mass deportation irony.” “

The Trump administration inadvertently raised Padilla’s profile, but the newfound fame has had a somewhat unexpected consequence: frequent speculation that he might run for governor when Newsom ends in 2026.

Padilla said he had “not made a decision on this and is not making any announcements at this time.”

Instead, he’s focused on passing California’s Proposition 50, which would draw electoral maps to potentially create five more Democratic seats in the midterm elections, with the hope of taking control of at least one house of Congress, an effort he says is “critical to reintegration into this out-of-control administration.”