photo credit: Rose for Congress

Prop 50 is remaking the lines of California's congressional districts, putting voters all the way from Marin to Modoc together.

Stretching from the Golden Gate to Oregon's border with the Golden State, much of the 2nd Congressional District remains the same, but thanks to the Proposition 50 redraw, the Democratic-leaning district now stretches inland from the North Coast, covering rural far northern California counties like Shasta and Siskiyou.

Marin Democrat Jared Huffman represents the current 2nd District. He is running again for re-election this year with the Democratic Party endorsement, but challenging for the seat is a new District 2 resident, Shasta County's Rose Penelope Yee.

"I am running for Congress first of all because I believe that out government should work for the people and not for the Epstein class," Yee told KRCB News.

Yee is a Redding resident and two time candidate for Congress.

"I'm a Bernie Democrat, and I do not accept any corporate PAC or AIPAC funding or donations," Yee said.

Yee was born and educated in the Philippines, before moving to the U.S. with her husband in 1993. Yee is co-founder of the firm Green Retirementm and described herself as a socially and environmentally responsible business leader.

"[Green Retirement is] a retirement advisory firm with a focus on socially and environmentally responsible investments, and we became a certified founding B-Corp in 2007," Yee said. "In 2012, we were one of the first 12 California firms to go to the Secretary of State office in Sacramento and registered to become a California Public Benefit Corporation. And in line with the work that I did do with B Corps in the socially responsible business community, I co-founded a nonprofit Rose Penelope Yee in 2018, which was really a response to the first Trump presidency, and it's a collective of women business leaders in mission-aligned and purpose-driven organizations."

Thanks to the Proposition 50 redistricting, Yee will now be in the same district as liberal bastions like Marin, where she's picked up an endorsement from the Marin Green Party; west Sonoma County, and Arcata, who's voters she feels she is closely aligned with.

"I have the three pillars to my campaign, people, peace, and planet," Yee said.

She first ran for Congress in 2022 as a long shot independent candidate...

"I know myself, my husband, my son, and my sister would vote for me, but I was doubtful about my brother-in-law," Yee joked about the first run.

A strong advocate for universal healthcare, Yee most recently ran in 2024 as a Democrat challenging the late Republican Representative Doug LaMalfa for California's 1st Congressional District.

While Prop 50 is re-organizing the lines of the 1st District as well; in the 2024 elections the largely rural 1st District heavily leaned towards Republican voters.

Yee is a member of the Shasta County Democratic Party Central Committee, and in 2024 was endorsed by the California Democratic Party in her race against LaMalfa.  She said she's not afraid though to criticize what she sees as her party's failings, and she feels the California Democratic party isn't doing enough to support rural members, candidates, or voters.

"All that help that I got was the phone banking system," Yee said. "Despite that, we were able to get over 100,000 votes...So there definitely is a big base....Part of our strategy was us working with down ballot candidates and also re-energizing some of the counties, the central committees in the counties here in District 1. Because again, without that support from the state party, people get demoralized and they think that it's not worth the fight."

Yee said she's also an unabashed peace candidate.

"What I would love to offer to Americans as proof, as concrete proof that when we have peace, we should invest in ourselves and not in war, not in weapons of destruction that destroy the environment and kill people," Yee said.

Her signature proposal is what she calls a Peace Dividend.

"Instead of money going to the pockets of weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and all the others that benefit from the Pentagon budget...we have a Peace Dividend kind of like...when we had COVID and we have the...$1,000 first and then it was $600 later," Yee said. "It gets people to know that if we don't fund wars and weapons that we can put that money instead into their pockets so that they can maybe go out to dinner, go buy gifts; because...the way that I've conceptualized it is that it's a...yearly sum that will be given around Thanksgiving."

Yee said her political convictions were shaped by experiences growing up in the Philippines, and the political transformation in the country in the 1980's.

"I'm what is called a martial law baby," Yee said of her youth. "So in the Philippines, we had a dictator, Ferdinand Marcos and I grew up under martial law. So I grew up in a fascist dictatorship. I know what it's like to live in fear where we have just the military and the army going about like it's nobody's business. And I also had parents who were active against and protested against the dictatorship. My father in particular was a lawyer and in his spare time he would he organized other lawyers, and he also would defend students, workers, and farmers, anyone who was protesting against the dictatorship, who would be arrested and brought to court."

Yee said it's those formative experiences that push her now to call for abolishing ICE and oppose the policies of the Trump administration.

In addition to the Peace Dividend and universal healthcare, Yee is campaigning for a $25 minimum wage, doubling housing construction, a green transition, a federal jobs guarantee, and an end to unconditional military support to Israel and the occupation of Palestine.