Richard Pan spent a dozen years teaching and practicing pediatrics before being elected to the Assembly in 2010. Today, having left the state Senate behind to instruct students in health policy at UC Davis, Pan seeks a seat in Congress. His congressional campaign is driven in part by a desire to fight Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and to arrest the Trump administration’s sledgehammering of the nation’s public healthcare system.
The Front Lines of a Public Health Backlash
During his tenure as a California state lawmaker, Pan authored some of the strongest vaccine laws in the country. That legislative effort arose directly from the 2014-15 measles outbreak at Disneyland, which stood at the time as one of the largest and most consequential epidemics following the disease’s supposed eradication from the U.S. in 2000. His policy positions brought severe pushback, including death threats, a physical assault outside the Capitol in Sacramento, and an incident where a demonstrator threw a cup of blood from the gallery onto the Senate floor during a contentious 2019 debate over vaccine exemption rules. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to Sacramento multiple times to rally hundreds of protesters against Pan’s legislation.
Pan argues that the current political climate makes scientific expertise in Washington more vital than ever. “We need people in Congress who have the background, the training, the knowledge to basically hold this administration accountable,” Pan said during a 100-degree day in the Sacramento suburbs.
A National Wave of STEM Candidates
Pan is part of a broader wave of doctors and scientists running for office across the country, spanning school boards, city councils, state legislatures, the House, and U.S. Senate. This surge in civic engagement connects directly to Kennedy’s pseudoscience and the systematic weakening of federal health agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The political organization 3.14 Action has recruited and helped elect hundreds of STEM candidates, endorsing more than 500 runners this election cycle.
Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist who founded 3.14 Action in 2016, noted that when she started the organization, there were more talk radio hosts on Capitol Hill than scientists and engineers. “There isn’t an issue that doesn’t benefit by having fact-based decision-makers, people that will go into office as problem-solvers,” Naughton said from Pennsylvania, a state currently experiencing the nation’s worst measles outbreak in more than three decades. Naughton criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy for downplaying the severity of the outbreak while vaccine-preventable diseases rise, describing him as “the arsonist in charge of HHS.”
The November Matchup in California
In November, Pan is running in a district against Rep. Kevin Kiley, a conservative Republican running as an independent. Kiley has sought to distance himself from Trump and the MAGA movement, stating he would not caucus with GOP lawmakers if he returned to Washington. On vaccination policy, Kiley voted against Pan’s legislation cracking down on fraudulent vaccine exemptions while serving in the Assembly.
