On Monday, state Senate colleagues of Monique Limón, Democrat of Santa Barbara, voted her to one of the three most powerful posts in California’s Capitol.

She hasn’t had much time to celebrate.

Amid Donald Trump’s vicious military, economic and political assault on her state and its people, Limón said on Thursday, she’s been racing from one crisis to another — the manhandling by federal agents of California U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, the snatching up of dozens of farmworkers in her district, from Santa Maria to Ventura, the sudden disappearance by immigration officials of the parents of a child, who happens to be a U.S. citizen.

“The political, the legal, all of that is part of this equation – but there are people who are suffering,” the state legislator told Newsmakers, in her first extended interview since being voted three days ago as the senate’s next President pro tem.

“I was given a report that a 12-year-old U.S. citizen was just left without his parents in Oxnard. His parents are gone, they were detained, no one knows where they’re at,” Limón added. “There’s a piece of humanity here. This is breaking and hurting our communities. And so I don’t want that to be lost in just the rhetoric or the politics.

“It is breaking our communities,” the born-and-bred Santa Barbaran underscored. “They’re trying to break up what California is about.”

The child of immigrants, whose grandfather came from Mexico via the Bracero Program to pick strawberries in Oxnard, Limón steadily climbed her way to the highest levels of power since arriving in Sacramento as a freshman class Assembly member in 2017.

As she prepares to succeed incumbent senate president Mike Maguire in January, the deep dive policy wonk doubtless would prefer to be focused on some of the substantive issues about which she feels passionate and which have animated her career to date: climate initiatives, health care, consumer protection.

However, Trump’s deliberately cruel and sinister provocations over immigration raids and military deployments in Los Angeles in recent days, coupled with the right-wing assault on California’s progressive programs and project that began the day he took office, have put Limón — along with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Attorney General Rob Bonta and every other top official in the Democrat-dominated state – in a defensive posture, scrambling to respond to the incitement and prodding for pretext of MAGA’s reality TV president.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Limón took time in her frenetic schedule to discuss the Padilla scandal, the legal state of play and the need for popular protests – and also offered updates, assessments and opinions on a batch of other urgent issues, including Santa Barbara’s battle against the Sable Offshore oil company, the emotional debate over Medi-Cal benefits in the state, and the looming June 15 deadline over a projected state budget that is $12 billion in the red.

“We have to keep going – there is no other choice,” she said. “So we go, we balance the budget, we do the work, we do the policy, we prepare for what we think could come, and I think that that’s all we can do collectively as legislators. That is important for me. There’s not an option not to keep going.”

Some key quotes:

The assault on Senator Padilla. “I was actually on the phone with Alex Padilla on Wednesday night and we were discussing how serious the situation was. So to wake up and see this happen midday today, I think, was certainly very concerning and deep on a lot of different levels. For me, it amplifies the magnitude of concern that is happening here. You have elected officials that are being taken down for questions that they’re asking. We also saw a labor leader in Los Angeles who is being accused of conspiracy. These are very serious acts and regrettably, they also create a concern, an alarm, a fear that is growing and growing by the hour.”

The need for popular opposition to Trump. “First and foremost, peaceful – peaceful -protest is very, very important. As an elected official, I can tell you that there are things that are said on a daily basis to me with the goal of triggering, of getting me upset. And I just think, all of us right now have to just keep focused…Protest is, I think, the most important thing…Speaking your voice and protesting is our right (and) I also think it’s important to recognize that there are those who cannot exercise that right for a number of reasons at this moment. There’s those who really are living in fear and are choosing to be in the shadows in this moment.”

Sable Offshore’s rogue effort to reopen the Refugio pipeline. The courts have sided with the state of California. I think our state agencies are trying. Multiple state agencies say, ‘we’ve never worked with a company that has just outright not followed the laws and has been open about their desire to not follow the laws.’ And so…one of the things that’s really difficult, is to watch a company come from out of state and choose not to follow laws even though our state agencies have asked them to.”

The budget battle and Medi-Cal benefits. (The Legislature) will be adopting a (budget) framework…that no one who is using Medi-Cal now is going to be asked to leave Medi-Cal. So really it’s about the expansion, and it’s super difficult. It’s been a very difficult conversation in Sacramento and certainly when you look at history at targeting one group, whatever that group has been, whether it’s been women or any other group, it is never an easy conversation…And so I think for us, we’re really clear on our values, and excluding groups of people just because of whatever background they may or may not have is not helpful.”

The road ahead. My grandfather came here with the Bracero Program, he picked strawberries in Oxnard. So as I watched those videos on Tuesday of farm workers being chased, of course I thought, the same great country that has seen me grow up, that has invested in my success, that has let me go from public schools to future President pro tem of the senate is a country that is now questioning, challenging and breaking those values that have made us a great country and a great state. And for me it’s personal, it’s deep, and I think that there’s a lot for us to do.

Check out our conversation with Senate Monique Limón via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here.

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