A historic housing construction boom may finally moderate rent hikes

• October 20, 2023

By Tim Henderson, Stateline.org

An unprecedented surge in the nationwide construction of new housing — mostly apartments — may finally be making a dent in fast-rising rents that have been making life harder for tenants.

More than 1.65 million housing units were under construction last year, the highest annual number since federal record-keeping started in 1969. This year, the number was even higher — almost 1.7 million in September.

Meanwhile, the typical annual rent increase nationally fell to zero in June for the first time since the pandemic began, after peaking at 17.8% in 2021, according to Apartment List, a rent information aggregator and research firm. In September, rents fell 1.2%.

Vacancy rates are rising, said Alexander Hermann, a research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

“You’ve had this huge rush to build apartments in the last couple of years, and projects are bigger and bigger. It’s more common now to be building 50 or more units,” he said. “You can start to see where new supply is coming online, you see starker and stronger rent decreases.”

Federal statistics, which don’t track active construction below the regional level, show that construction hasn’t been higher in the Northeast since 1987 or in the Midwest since 2005, and it’s at all-time highs in both the West and South. A growing share of the country’s housing construction is in the South, up from 40% in 2017 to 46% in 2022.

In some places, rents are falling back a little, but they’re still plenty high compared with just a few years ago. In Texas, Austin has seen rents drop more than 6% for the fiscal year ending in September to $1,734 for a two-bedroom — but that’s still up almost 20% from 2020, according to Apartment List.

Austin’s rent decreases are the most in the Sun Belt, according to Apartment List, while its surrounding metro area is issuing more housing permits than any other large metro — “signaling the important role construction plays in managing long-term affordability.”

Travis County, which includes Austin, increased its housing units by more than a third between 2012 and 2022, creating 169,700 new units in that time as its population swelled by almost 230,000, according to a Stateline analysis of census estimates.

Among the arrivals to Austin in the past decade is K.N., a single father who asked to be identified only by his initials because he doesn’t want his children’s schoolmates to hear about his problems. K.N., a tech programmer who moved from San Francisco a decade ago, said his increasingly high rent may force him to move.

The landlord for his two-bedroom townhouse has asked for annual $100 rent increases in recent years, and just asked for another $200, K.N. said, upping his monthly housing costs with utilities to around $2,500.

“It would reduce my disposable income to basically zero, and that’s not wise with all the extras kids need in school,” K.N. said. “I’d have to pinch pennies to the point that it would cause anxiety. Being housing poor is something I’m trying to avoid.”

Despite a good income, K.N. said, he might have to move farther from his children’s school, which now is within walking distance. He moved to Texas in the first place partly to save money on rent in hopes of buying a house. But he says he sees apartment construction everywhere in Austin.

His observations match reality: Last year, Austin built 24 million square feet of apartment buildings alongside 8.7 million square feet of single-family housing, according to city records.

It’s a similar story nationally, with nearly 1 million apartments under construction as of September. By comparison, there were 914,500 apartments under construction in 2022 and 736,900 in 2021.

The number of single-family homes being built is also high, though the pace has slowed in the past two years. There were about 694,000 homes under construction in September, down from about 736,000 at the end of 2022 and 750,500 at the end of 2021. The last time construction was so high was in 2006, when about 748,000 single-family homes were under construction during the housing bubble before the Great Recession.

The new supply is already having an effect.

Rents dropped in 71 of the nation’s 100 largest cities in the year ending in September. That eclipses the most recent large decrease, in June 2020, when 65 cities had year-over-year declines, according to Apartment List. In early 2022, rents were rising year over year in all 100 cities.

Apartment List said in an October report that construction is one reason vacancies are rising, combined with a decline in remote work as more companies call employees back to the office, which has led to fewer renters in “Zoom towns” in states such as Arizona, Idaho and Nevada.

Other areas with big recent drops in rents are also mostly in the South and West, where construction is at all-time highs. The Austin metro area dropped 6%; Portland, Oregon, dropped 5%; and Atlanta, Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and San Francisco all dropped by 4% in the past year as of September.

Some of those areas are, like Austin, just beginning to see modest drops in average rents but remain much pricier than just a few years ago. The Miami metro area, for instance, has had the nation’s biggest jump in rents since 2020, at 40%. Orlando, Florida, rose 32% over the same time, according to Apartment List.

In the past six months, rents dwindled just 1% in each city.

“Recent gains in housing supply have helped to slow rental prices and housing costs, although I would be cautious about calling rent decreases of 1% very significant,” said Randy Deshazo, director of economic development and research at the South Florida Regional Planning Council. Soaring prices are particularly painful in the region, he said, because affordability, in terms of housing costs compared with income, is the worst in the country.

In some parts of the Northeast and Midwest, where the construction boom hasn’t been quite as robust, rents have continued to rise in the past six months as of September. Rents were up by 7% in Providence, Rhode Island, for example. During the same period, the increase was 5% in Boston, New York City and Hartford, Connecticut.

Estimates of the nation’s housing shortage, which many experts blame for high rents, vary. Fannie Mae last year estimated that there were 4.4 million too few units in large metro areas, and Realtor.com this year pegged the shortage at 2.3 million units. About 1.4 million units were finished in 2022, the most since 2007, and another nearly 947,000 were finished in 2023 through August, according to a U.S. Census Bureau construction survey.

Permits issued from mid-2022 to August 2023 point to likely large increases in housing in Utah, Idaho, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, North Carolina, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia and Colorado.

Those states could all see housing stock grow by about 2% above census estimates for mid-2022, the latest available, according to a Stateline analysis.

Nationwide, the number of permits issued in 2023 is down compared with a peak in late 2021 and early 2022, even as the numbers remain high in some states. That’s one reason most analysts expect some kind of slowdown from the recent torrid pace of building, said Hermann, of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

South Dakota’s building permits have fallen back from a 48% surge in 2020 followed by a 24.8% increase in 2022. This year they dropped 37% in the second quarter.

Even so, South Dakota had one of the highest rates of new building permits between mid-2022 and August 2023 — more than 2% of its existing units, or almost 9,000 new housing units, if they all get built.

The initial pandemic boom was “likely induced by more work-from-home options and increased demand for space and land, of which South Dakota has an abundance,” said Aaron Scholl, an assistant economics professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, who worked on a Dakota Institute report on real estate in September.

The recent decline likely points to stagnation in the state’s housing market and eventually its whole economy, Scholl said.

“Building permits are often a leading indicator for not only housing market demand, but the overall economic landscape,” Scholl said. “As the housing market cools, I’d expect the economy to do so as well.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy. Read more Stateline coverage of how communities across the country are trying to create more affordable housing.

©2023 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

OC judge tosses charges against Newport Beach doctor, girlfriend

• October 20, 2023

By PAUL ANDERSON

Signaling an end to the long-running, politically charged prosecution of a Newport Beach hand surgeon and his girlfriend who were initially accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a series of women they met in bars or other settings, a judge said Friday, Oct. 20, he will dismiss most of the remaining charges in the case.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Leversen dismissed felony charges of poisoning and sale of phencyclidine against Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 43, and Cerissa Riley, 36.

Robicheaux, however, is expected to plead guilty to felony counts of possession of an assault weapon and four misdemeanor counts of possession of a controlled substance, including GHB, more commonly known as the date-rape drug. Riley no longer faces any criminal charges.

It was not immediately clear when Robicheaux will enter his plea to the weapon and drug charges. Leversen said he would agree to a stipulated sentence.

Barring further developments, the judge’s decision marks a winding down of a case that began five years ago in the heat of a re-election bid by then-District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, who held a widely covered news conference to announce the charges. The case quickly became a target of then-DA candidate Todd Spitzer, who criticized Rackauckas’ handling of the case and questioned why Rackauckas did not move faster to file it.

After he was elected, Spitzer called for an internal review of the case, assigned two new prosecutors and then moved to dismiss all of the charges. That drew protests from several of the alleged victims, and an Orange County Superior Court judge refused to toss the case.

Spitzer’s office was eventually recused from the case and the Attorney General’s Office took over.

‘Swingers’ or predators? Judge to decide if case against Newport Beach doctor can go to trial

Robicheaux initially faced charges involving five alleged victims and Riley three alleged victims, but a prior Orange County Superior Court judge granted a motion from prosecutors to reduce the charges. There were initially a total of 13 accusers, some who prosecutors had planned to use as witnesses to show a pattern of behavior at trial.

By the time the case got to a preliminary hearing, there were two alleged victims.

After a roller-coaster ride of various court rulings, dismissals and refiling of charges, only one alleged victim remained in the case — a woman who initially began chatting with Robicheaux via the Bumble app and said she trusted him because he was a doctor who once appeared on a TV show on Bravo.

Leversen tossed out sexual assault charges following a July preliminary hearing, which left only the poisoning and drug possession charges remaining against the pair.

With those charges tossed out on Friday, attorneys and the judge were still meeting to determine what sentence Robicheaux could face on the remaining counts against him, and when his plea might be entered. The timing is complicated by the fact the alleged victim in the poisoning counts is in the Israeli military and serving in the war against Hamas.

Attorneys said the woman wants to address the judge if a plea deal is struck in the case.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

​ Orange County Register 

Red meat tied to higher risk for type 2 diabetes, plant-based protein may lower risk: Harvard study

• October 20, 2023

Have you been trying to cut back on red meat? It could help you avoid a serious disease that affects tens of millions of people across the U.S.

People who eat two servings of red meat a week may have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to people who eat fewer servings, and the risk increases with greater consumption, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The Harvard researchers also found that replacing red meat with healthy plant-based protein sources — such as nuts and legumes — or modest amounts of dairy was tied with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

“Our findings strongly support dietary guidelines that recommend limiting the consumption of red meat, and this applies to both processed and unprocessed red meat,” said first author Xiao Gu, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Nutrition.

Type 2 diabetes is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and kidney disease, cancer, and dementia.

While previous studies have found a link between red meat consumption and type 2 diabetes risk, this study now adds a greater level of certainty about the association.

The researchers analyzed health data from 216,695 participants from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), NHS II, and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The participants were asked about their diet in food frequency questionnaires every two to four years, for up to 36 years. During this time, more than 22,000 participants developed type 2 diabetes.

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The scientists found that consumption of red meat — including processed and unprocessed red meat — was strongly linked with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Participants who ate the most red meat had a 62% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who ate the least.

Every additional daily serving of processed red meat was linked with a 46% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and every additional daily serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 24% greater risk.

The researchers also estimated the potential effects of substituting one daily serving of red meat for another protein source. They found that substituting a serving of nuts and legumes was linked with a 30% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and substituting a serving of dairy products was associated with a 22% lower risk.

“Given our findings and previous work by others, a limit of about one serving per week of red meat would be reasonable for people wishing to optimize their health and wellbeing,” said senior author Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition.

The researchers also said swapping red meat for healthy plant protein sources would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and provide other environmental benefits.

The red meat and type 2 diabetes study was published on Thursday in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

​ Orange County Register 

No. 18 USC vs. No. 14 Utah: Who has the edge?

• October 20, 2023

No. 14 Utah (5-1, 2-1 Pac-12) at No. 18 USC (6-1, 4-0)

When: 5 p.m. Saturday

Where: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

TV/Radio: FOX/790 AM

Line: USC by 7

Notable injuries: Utah: OUT: TE Thomas Yassmin (surgery, undisclosed); WR Mycah Pittman (undisclosed); DE Logan Fano (knee); RB Micah Bernard (undisclosed); DOUBTFUL: QB Cameron Rising (knee), TE Brant Kuithe (knee). USC: QUESTIONABLE: S Max Williams (undisclosed), S Bryson Shaw (undisclosed), CB Jacobe Covington (undisclosed).

What’s at stake: Not to be dramatic, but entire seasons rest on Saturday’s game. No two-loss team has ever made the College Football Playoff, and it would be a Steph-Curry-range longshot for Utah to make it given the continued absence of Rising, but a loss also significantly weakens Utah’s Pac-12 chances in a loaded conference. USC, meanwhile, is coming off a truly deflating performance against Notre Dame, and Saturday brings a chance to show they’re both bark and bite against a gritty Utes front. If the Trojans falter, again, ever-growing national fury will reach a fever pitch.

There’s also a measure of revenge here, too, against a Utah team that first handed USC its first loss of the year in 2022 and then drubbed them out of last year’s Pac-12 championship game. Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said this week he wouldn’t call the matchup a rivalry; that could change in a couple days.

Who’s better? Utah’s defense is one of the best in the FBS, ranking fifth in opponent points-per-game allowed. USC’s offense, as Whittingham pointed out, has been performing even better than last year. It’s a matchup of two of the best individual units in college football; and Utah enters with a built-in upper hand, with film readily available of Arizona and Notre Dame defenses that capably handled the Trojans’ passing game in back-to-back games.

But Utah’s offense, with the absence of Rising, looks nothing like the explosive attack that hung 40-plus on USC in its two meetings last year. It’s looking increasingly unlikely Rising plays against USC, and with widespread injuries across the board for the Utes – down two top tight ends in Kuithe and Yassmin – the overall edge in talent hinges slightly toward the Trojans here.

Matchup to watch: USC’s offensive line against Utah’s Jonah Elliss. Think the most important aspect of Saturday’s game is how Caleb Williams attacks the Utes’ defense? Maybe, but none of that goes according to plan if USC can’t protect its quarterback for the second game in a row. It’ll be interesting to see if the Trojans’ line makes any personnel changes to prepare for a dynamic Utah front, and Elliss is the key, a 6-foot-2, 246-pound cyclone of a pass rusher who’s become one of the most dominant defensive players in the country. He has nine sacks in six games and could be the worst possible matchup at the worst possible time for USC’s front.

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USC wins if: They limit the negative plays that doomed them against Notre Dame – namely, if the line holds Utah to four or fewer sacks and the Trojans don’t commit multiple turnovers. If their offense doesn’t hand the ball to Utah, the Utes don’t have a dynamic enough attack to keep up.

Prediction: USC 28, Utah 24. Williams may take time and more than a few hits in figuring out Utah’s defense, but he’s looked especially motivated coming off the worst performance of his collegiate career.

​ Orange County Register 

Real estate news: Home billed as ‘Chapman housing’ sells for $1.8 million in Orange

• October 20, 2023

A modest home billed as “Chapman student housing” in the city of Orange sold in late September for $1,774,500.

Shane Young and Dan Lewin of Young Lewin Advisors brokered the purchase, which equaled $295,833 “per bedroom.”

Also see: California reinstates ADU sales separate from primary home

The house on N. Waverly Street, not far from an elementary school and half a mile from Chapman University, recently upgraded to six bedrooms with an additional dwelling unit.

The property was sold to Nile Pacific Realty LLC in Tustin, according to property records.

Retail news: Orange getting its second Goodwill, replacing a shuttered Big Lots

Young Lewin Advisors said students who live in the home pay $9,600 monthly.

Multifamily deals in Garden Grove land $3.3 million

Pivoting west to Garden Grove, two small rental properties recently sold for a combined $3.3 million, according to CBRE.

The properties sold to separate unidentified buyers.

The first building at 10772 Palma Vista Ave. sold for $1.87 million or $233,125 per unit. The buyer of the 62-year-old building was identified as an investor from Los Angeles County; the seller was based in San Diego County.

The two-story, 4,864-square-foot building completed in 1961 has eight one-bedroom units.

CBRE said it generated multiple offers and went “non-contingent on day one.”

The investor who bought 10772 Palma Vista Avenue “was a repeat client with a track record of purchasing several assets within Orange County and Southern California,” according to Dan Blackwell at CBRE.

In the second transaction, a six-unit property — across the street from the first property — at 10761 Palma Vista Ave. sold for $1.44 million. That’s $240,000 per unit.

The two-story, 5,320-square-foot building also was completed in 1961 and has all one-bedroom units.

The seller was based in Orange County, and the buyer was a repeat client of CBRE’s from Newport Beach.

This eight-unit apartment building in Santa Ana sold for $2.2 million or $239,000 per unit. Standard Avenue Apartments includes a 6,589 square-foot building at 1401 S. Standard Ave. (Photo courtesy of Marcus & Millichap)

8 units in Santa Ana sell for $2.2 million

Tracking south to Santa Ana, an eight-unit apartment building sold for $2.2 million or $239,000 per unit, according to Marcus & Millichap.

Standard Avenue Apartments includes a 6,589-square-foot building at 1401 S. Standard Ave.

The complex will “provide the buyer with strong returns and value appreciation over the long-term investment horizon,” said Greg Bassirpou at Marcus & Millichap.

An 80-year ground lease for Nohl Plaza in Orange was sold to Regency Centers for $25.3 million. (Photo courtesy of Institutional Property Advisors)

Von’s shopping center in Orange sold, getting an upgrade

An 80-year ground lease for Nohl Plaza in Orange sold for $25.3 million, according to Institutional Property Advisors.

The new ground interest lease owner, Regency Centers, is looking to upgrade the 103,639-square-foot Vons-anchored shopping center, IPA said.

The company bought the lease from a family trust.

“Having purchased the property in 1989, the sale of this generational asset was emotional for the sellers, but they are thrilled with the exceptional price and … the buyer,” said Tom Lagos, IPA executive director. “Regency saw an opportunity to upgrade the property, fine-tune the tenant mix and utilize its unique approach to operating grocer-anchored shopping centers to enhance the customer experience.”

The shopping center is at the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Tustin St. and was built between 1966 and 1979 on 10-plus acres. The tenants include Starbucks, Del Taco, Bank of America, the Tartan Room restaurant and a Union 76 gas station.

“This sale represents a trend we’re seeing where demand for high-quality retail properties on the West Coast is sustaining strong values despite rising interest rates,” said Patrick Toomey at IPA, a division of Marcus & Millichap. “This trend, also known as a scarcity premium, will hold until supply meets demand.”

Real estate transactions, leases and new projects, industry hires, new ventures and upcoming events are compiled from press releases by contributing writer Karen Levin. Submit items and high-resolution photos via email to Business Editor Samantha Gowen at [email protected]. Please allow at least a week for publication. All items are subject to editing for clarity and length.

​ Orange County Register 

Judge threatens to hold Donald Trump in contempt after deleted post is found on campaign website

• October 20, 2023

By MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial judge threatened Friday to hold the former president in contempt, raising the possibility of fining or even jailing him because a disparaging social media post about a key court staffer remained visible for weeks on his campaign website after the judge had ordered it deleted.

Judge Arthur Engoron said the website’s retention of the post was a “blatant violation” of his Oct. 3 order requiring Trump to immediately delete the offending message. The limited gag order, hours after Trump made the post on the trial’s second day, also barred him and others involved in the case from personal attacks on members of Engoron’s judicial staff.

Engoron did not immediately rule on potentially sanctioning Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but noted that “in this current overheated climate” incendiary posts can and have led to harm.

Trump, who returned to the trial Tuesday and Wednesday after attending the first three days, wasn’t in court on Friday. During his appearance this week, he reserved his enmity for Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose fraud lawsuit is being decided at the civil trial. Neither are covered by Engoron’s limited gag order.

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise blamed the “very large machine” of Trump’s presidential campaign for allowing a version of his deleted social media post to remain on his website, calling it an unintentional oversight.

Engoron, however, said the buck ultimately stops with Trump — even if it was someone on his campaign who failed to remove the offending post.

“I’ll take this under advisement,” Engoron said after Kise explained the mechanics of how Trump’s post was able to remain online. “But I want to be clear that Donald Trump is still responsible for the large machine even if it’s a large machine.”

Engoron issued a limited gag order on Oct. 3 barring all participants in the case not to smear court personnel after Trump publicly maligned his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, in what the judge deemed a ”disparaging, untrue and personally identifying” Truth Social post. The judge ordered Trump to delete the post, which he did, and warned of “serious sanctions” for violations.

The post included a photo of Greenfield, posing with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at a public event. With it, Trump wrote that it was “disgraceful” that Greenfield was working with Engoron on the case.

Before Trump deleted the post from his Truth Social platform, as ordered, his campaign copied the message into an email blast to supporters. That email, with the subject line “ICYMI,” was automatically archived on Trump’s website, Kise said.

“What happened appears truly inadvertent,” Kise said. The lawyer pleaded ignorance to the technological complexities involved in amplifying Trump’s social media posts and public statements, calling the archiving “an unfortunate part of the campaign process.”

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“President Trump has not made any statements of any kind about court staff, has abided by the order completely, but it appears no one also took down the ICYMI — in case you missed it — link that is in the campaign website in the back pages,” Kise explained.

New York law allows judges to impose fines or imprisonment as punishment for contempt. Last year, Engoron held Trump in contempt and fined him $110,000 for being slow to respond to a subpoena in the investigation that led to the lawsuit.

James’ lawsuit accuses Trump and his company of duping banks and insurers by giving them heavily inflated statements of Trump’s net worth and asset values. Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his company committed fraud, but the trial involves remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records.

​ Orange County Register 

No. 25 UCLA at Stanford: Who has the edge?

• October 20, 2023

No. 25  UCLA (4-2 overall, 1-2 Pac-12) at Stanford (2-4, 1-3)

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Stanford Stadium

TV/radio: ESPN/570 AM

Line: UCLA by 17

Notable injuries: STANFORD: OUT: S Jummy Wyrick (undisclosed); DOUBTFUL: WR John Humphreys (knee); QUESTIONABLE: TE Benjamin Yurosek (upper body). UCLA: DOUBTFUL: QB Collin Schlee (upper body); QUESTIONABLE: LB Ale Kaho (undisclosed), WR Titus Mokiao-Atimalala (undisclosed).

What’s at stake?: The Bruins have struggled on the road in conference play against Oregon State and Utah. A victory keeps the Bruins’ dim conference title chances alive. The Bruins, who have played the Cardinal every year since 1946, lead the all-time series 48-43-3.

Who’s better?: UCLA has more talent this season as Stanford continues to rebuild following the resignation of David Shaw after 12 years at the helm, in late November last year. First-year coach Troy Taylor arrived to find just six returning starters while also needing to replace quarterback Tanner McKee, a two-year starter who is now with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Matchup to watch: UCLA’s cornerbacks vs. Stanford’s receivers. Wide receiver Elic Ayomanor was productive in the second half of the Cardinal’s wild comeback victory over Colorado last week. The 6-foot-2 sophomore recorded 13 catches for 294 yards and three touchdowns. Cornerback Jaylin Davies was been an impact player in the UCLA secondary, with 19 tackles, an interception and four pass breakups.

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UCLA wins if: The Bruins will have success if they limit their turnovers while having the defense create turnovers and extra possessions. Quarterback Dante Moore must minimize his mistakes while leading the offense downfield. The true freshman has struggled throughout the first half of his first three conference games this season.

Prediction: UCLA 27, Stanford 10. The Bruins will have a bounce-back game and pick up their first conference road victory this season.

​ Orange County Register 

Jimmy Pham launches Assembly campaign days after dropping out of congressional race

• October 20, 2023

Five Democrats running against each other for a single seat was too much, thought Jimmy Pham.

So the Westminster attorney last week dropped out of the race for California’s 45th congressional district, opting to endorse one of his former primary opponents, Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza.

And he set his sights on a different campaign: the 70th Assembly district, officially launching his bid on Friday, Oct. 20.

California assembly district 70 candidate Jimmy Pham in Westminster, CA, on Thursday, October 19, 2023. Pham recently announced he’s dropping out of the crowded CA-45 house race to run for the state AD-70 seat. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

It took him several weeks to come to that decision, Pham said. Mentors and friends had reached out to him months ago telling him there was a need for a Democrat to run in AD-70, represented by former Westminster Mayor Tri Ta, a Republican.

“At first, I didn’t want to switch, because I was in the middle of a congressional race,” said Pham, who is of Vietnamese descent. “At that time, there were four people in the race. But when the fifth Democrat jumped in, it affected me.”

“There were now five Democrats running, and three were of Vietnamese descent,” he said.

The race for CA-45, held by Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Seal Beach, has drawn several candidates, including Nguyen-Penaloza, Brea resident Aditya Pai, UC Irvine Law grad Cheyenne Hunt and attorney Derek Tran. Nguyen-Penaloza and Tran are of Vietnamese descent.

Pham said he ended his congressional campaign “to unify the party.”

“Steel is going to be one of the two to advance past the primary,” he said. “So why are we fighting against each other? Why is the Democratic Party, in this instance, so divisive?”

The 70th Assembly district includes Westminster, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Los Alamitos, Stanton and Rossmoor, plus parts of Santa Ana and Huntington Beach. It was redrawn last year in the decennial redistricting process with the goal of ensuring much of the county’s Vietnamese community could be clustered together and retain political clout.

Nearly 40% of voters in the district are Asian, with Vietnamese Americans comprising the largest segment of that population, according to Political Data Inc.

Ta, who is in the midst of his first Assembly term, in 2012 became the first Vietnamese American elected mayor in Westminster, home to the largest Little Saigon in the nation, as well as the country’s first Vietnamese mayor.

He plans to run for re-election, he said.

“I continue to be humbled by the trust voters have placed in me to represent them in Sacramento,” said Ta. “I look forward to a spirited campaign and the opportunity to discuss the fight to improve public safety, make California affordable for all and to create real solutions to the homelessness epidemic.”

Another reason for the switch, Pham said, was that he felt the congressional race was “too much” for him at the moment. He wanted to work his way up the ladder, he said.

“If I’m going to build my political career, maybe I jump to the state level,” Pham said. “I jumped from being a city council candidate to a federal congressional seat.”

Last year, Pham ran for Westminster City Council but did not get elected.

AD-70 “is a better fit” for now, he said. “It’s a less aggressive approach in my political career in that it is more attainable … because one, it requires less money.”

Pham, who stressed money wasn’t the central factor in his decision, struggled to fundraise for his congressional campaign, raising a total of $29,890. A bulk of that came from a personal loan, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

According to the most recently available data, Ta has raised $169,481 and has $144,613 cash on hand.

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“Money was a concern, but it’s also going to be a concern for the AD-70 race. The AD-70 race is not a race that’s cheap,” he said. “And I’m going to still have to fundraise and money needs to still come in.”

Pham is an Orange County native and graduate of UC Irvine, and the only one of five siblings born a U.S. citizen. He said his family escaped Vietnam in 1975 via a refugee boat and found opportunity in the U.S.

“My father became one of the first Vietnamese dentists in the United States, opened a practice on Bolsa Avenue in Westminster and was one of the founders of the Little Saigon community,” Pham said.

Pham now serves as vice chair of Westminster’s traffic commission.

Several issues he wants to tackle in Sacramento are housing affordability, public safety and homelessness.

“We’ve had (multiple) smash-and-grabs in Little Saigon recently at the Asian Garden Mall,” he said. “Public safety is an issue; people are not respecting the laws. We also have to address homelessness. Westminster has a liaison team called Be Well. They have be more active in pulling homeless off the street. Most of these homeless are wounded and need a place to go.”

For now, Pham said he’s busy tying up loose ends and kickstarting his new campaign. His campaign staff has nearly doubled since dropping out of the congressional campaign, he said.

“I do believe I can win this race,” he said. “I’m already working to fundraise and get my name out there.”

​ Orange County Register