Mailbag: Readers react to Steel support

The Daily Pilot published two letters on its Mailbag on July 10 praising Michelle Steel in favor of her run for the 45th congressional district, and one of them called her opponent, Jay Chen, an extremist. Here are the facts: Jay Chen is a veteran who cares about all voters, not just Steel’s special-interest friends. Speaking of extremism, just look at Michelle Steel’s voting record. She continues to support Trump and Trumpian issues and voted against any investigations into Jan. 6, 2021. Steel failed to represent the broad range of issues in District 48, such as the environment, women’s rights and defense of free and fair elections and our democracy. Now she wants to move to the 45th to continue the same dangerous failure to lead. Jay Chen will bring a caring and balanced approach to Congress, which we vitally need to move our country forward.

Roger Owens
Laguna Beach

With all due respect to my fellow residents who recently offered letters to the Mailbag related to Rep. Michelle Steel, I believe this famous adage applies: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not their own set of facts.” In other words, you can speak glowingly of Ms. Steel as your personal opinion, but the facts say something entirely different.

Ms. Steel is a career politician. In her time representing my community, she has failed to advocate for a single policy or initiative to make residents safer, healthier or more economically secure. Sadly, Ms. Steel has proven to be little more than a political extremist. Her ideology and scorched-earth political approach has led her to reject all constructive engagement on COVID-19, gun safety reform, corporate accountability, environmental protection, immigration reform and price controls for life-saving prescription drugs.

I didn’t expect miracles from Ms. Steel, but I did expect competent representation focused on assisting the communities she was elected to represent. Instead, we got a political zealot focused on furthering her career and endearing herself to her national party.

Her record is clear and well documented, and those are the facts. My opinion regarding Ms. Steel is very simple: You’ve been warned. Beware.

Steve Shepherd
Huntington Beach

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