The Weirdo King Of Anti-Parent Democrats Is Running For Congress

During a 12-year career in the California state legislature, Dr. Richard Pan earned a reputation as a steamroller, authoring the vaccine law “banning personal belief exemptions for schoolchildren altogether.” Parents have no right to guide their children or make decisions on their behalf. Religion can play no role in your absolute and unquestioning submission to the scientific bureaucracy. The experts, who are simply unable to be wrong, decide what happens to your child’s body; you don’t.

In 2022, Pan joined state Sen. Scott Wiener, a fellow groomer-Democrat who is also now running for Congress, to push a failed bill that would have allowed minors to consent to Covid-19 vaccines without parental knowledge or agreement. Like Wiener …

… Pan, a pediatrician with a public health degree, proudly characterized the bill as an attempt to build on existing California law that excludes parents from sexually themed medical decisions for children, permitting abortions and STD treatment without parental knowledge. This video is only 45 seconds long, and you should watch the whole thing to see what’s at stake in this election:

If a 12-year-old is pregnant, has an STD, or has been raped, Pan argued, of course a doctor doesn’t need to mention it to the parents, which would interfere with a middle schooler’s right to privacy against parental involvement. (You can watch Pan’s complete comments here, in a time-stamped link to legislative floor debate.)

Pan’s deep enthusiasm for secret middle school abortions is a subset of his general enthusiasm for the topic, which he expressed in 2017 by putting on pink boxing gloves at a rally to show that he would beat up anyone who stood in the way of Planned Parenthood. You can find an especially vivid copyright-protected photo of Pan in his pink boxing gloves by scrolling down in this story.

Trying to flip a seat, Pan is running against Rep. Kevin Kiley, an adequate conservative who said during the pandemic and the Covid-19 vaccine debates that “bodily autonomy will be respected.” Kiley’s relentless criticism of failed California Gov. Gavin Newsom made him a target for the state’s recent off-year redistricting effort, pushing him out of a conservative rural seat and into the Sacramento suburbs.

Trying to survive that blue-shift redistricting, Kiley left the Republican Party to run as an independent. For Republican voters, he’s somewhere in the vicinity of a sort of okay choice. But he’s also not Richard Pan, and that’s the strongest imaginable point in his favor.

Pan is just an odd human being, an awkward public speaker who falls apart if someone disagrees with him. A few days ago, Pan allowed some media at a campaign event with Queen of Cringe Kamala Harris, but barred reporters who haven’t provided adulatory coverage. One of those reporters, the Sacramento television journalist Ashley Zavala, caught up with him the next day. Watch his body language in this exchange:

You can watch video excerpts from a debate between Pan and Kiley that was hosted by the Sacramento Bee, but notice this:

Pan spent the debate reading his zingers, his hands shaking, showing up with his tedious material about Trump, Trump, and more Trump written down on a script.

Pan’s consistent awkwardness and dreadful skill as a public speaker have limited his career outside of a state legislature where members are chosen on the famous California principle of “vote blue no matter who.” His 2024 campaign to become the mayor of Sacramento ended when he didn’t advance beyond the primary election.

That’s about what this race is looking like: In a newly drawn district that was supposed to be an easy pick-up for Democrats, Kiley has fought Pan to a tie in recent polls. Keep an eye on this one, because Richard Pan is an appalling figure who doesn’t belong anywhere near Congress.

Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at “Tell Me How This Ends,” here.