For the first time in more than a decade, Ventura County is choosing a new voice in Congress. Rep. Julia Brownley is retiring after seven terms, and the 26th District, from Oxnard and the Santa Clara River Valley to Calabasas, is an open seat. For families who care about parental choice and medical freedom, the two candidates could not be more different.
Pastor Sam Gallucci: no to mandates
Sam Gallucci spent 20 years in the technology industry before answering a different call. He founded nonprofits serving the homeless and working families in Ventura County, and today he pastors Embrace Church in Ventura. He knows our community from the pews and from the streets.
On the issue PERK families care about most, Gallucci has been clear for years. Running for governor in the 2021 recall, he said government should not make vaccines mandatory and that he would not impose a vaccine mandate, mask mandate, or lockdown (Los Angeles Times). He said it when it was unpopular, and he hasn't backed away from it.
His campaign centers on cost of living, trade schools, and better wages for young people. And he's direct about why he's running: one-party rule in California has left too many families unrepresented on the things that matter most. (KCLU)
Sam Gallucci
Jacqui Irwin: a vote for the exemption crackdown
Jacqui Irwin has served in the State Assembly since 2014, representing the 42nd District from Camarillo to Brentwood. In that seat, she voted for SB 277, which ended the personal belief exemption and with it any religious exemption for California schoolchildren. She also voted for SB 276, which put the state, not your family doctor, in charge of reviewing medical exemptions.
Those votes were not abstract. They meant parents of medically fragile kids watched their exemptions get revoked. They meant doctors who wrote exemptions faced investigation. And they meant families of faith were told their convictions no longer counted in their child's education.
Irwin has also passed legislation that undermines title IX undermining girls, women’s rights, by upholding policies that allow biological boys in girls sports and in our opinion endangers our young girls safe spaces like locker rooms, bathrooms, girls sports, and overnight accommodations.
Irwin has named her top congressional priority as holding the current administration accountable (KCLU). For health freedom families, that means one more vote in Washington against Secretary Kennedy's reforms.
This is an uphill race. Irwin took 40% in the June primary to Gallucci's 22%, and the district leans D+9. But June's primary split the vote nine ways, and November turnout is a different electorate. Every health freedom family in Ventura County that sits this one out makes Irwin's job easier.
Jacqui Irwin
What you can do
Vote, and confirm your ballot was received at Where's My Ballot.
Talk to the parents at your church, co-op, and kids' practices this weekend. Most of them don't know Irwin's SB 277 record.
Share this post.
This is our backyard. Let's send someone to Washington who trusts parents. This is why we endorse Sam Gallucci.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
