Sudden Death of GOP Congressman Will Reshape California Water and Farm Politics as well as DC; Frank Shares His Take on a ‘Very Smart, Very Dumb’ Politician
We offer some personal reflections and speculation about how a rock solid rice farmer could have such extrememe culture wars opinions and how his death might impact everything from the gray wolf to the future of water in Mendocino county.
(Read the article in Politico first for the facts of what happened to the congressman and how it may have national impacts. We concentrate on what we knew of the man and state issues)
The unexpected death of Northern California’s most influential Republican is already creating national complications for the GOP’s narrow majority. I probably never agreed with a single thing Doug LaMalfa did on the national stage, but I genuinely liked him as a person.
I never interviewed him as a journalist—nor really had reason to—but he once interviewed me. He called after I wrote a story in the Appeal‑Democrat about the Biggs City Council. LaMalfa grew up in Biggs and wanted more details about some of the lunacy unfolding there. He knew everyone, of course, and we ended up laughing about the ancient rivalries that still defined the place.
We also found common ground in a few off‑the‑record conversations, including one where he gave me background on the transformation of the California rice industry—much of it driven by well‑connected figures, some with reputations that were less than honorable. I was one of only a handful of reporters who ever wrote that update to the movie Chinatown. He and I both thought it would make a great film. With help from Ronald Reagan, California’s rice industry—tiny compared to Arkansas—managed to take over the world with high‑quality rice. Neither of us played any role in that saga, though his father did, but it was a conversation and a “movie” I always hoped we’d return to.
For all his positions—many of which I found horrifyingly right‑wing on social issues—LaMalfa was one of the most knowledgeable people in politics when it came to California water and farming. His opinions there were grounded in real experience. I didn’t always agree with him, but on those topics he was worth listening to, unlike many who simply repeat partisan talking points.
LaMalfa was also, from high school onward, the guy unafraid to say something stupid—and he did so spectacularly at times. But he was equally unafraid to talk to anyone, anytime. When other Republicans jeered and shouted at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union, LaMalfa walked down, greeted Biden, and chatted with him affably for several minutes while the chamber was still in chaos.
I always thought he might someday step outside the Fox News talking points. He seemed capable of thinking for himself. Maybe that’s why I related to him. I’m a guy who isn’t afraid to look stupid either—and often does. I was terribly disappointed in this salt of the earth funny guy who somehow thinks Juneteenth should not be a holiday and such. He could have been an independent voice, a farmer holding a pitchfork like those that chased the British into surrender in the American Revolution. Instead, he got himself to fit neatly into the Fox News talking points. I truly don’t think that could have been natural or easy. But I never did that follow up with him at his ranch, so I can’t say for sure.
Like fellow rice farmer Wally Herger before him, Doug LaMalfa was firmly right‑wing and came from a big family. LaMalfa leaves behind a wife and four children; Herger had twice as many and was, in my view, less ideologically rigid and more traditionally conservative. Herger was the holdout vote on NAFTA until GOP leadership brought him around with promises of funding for Central Valley programs.
Both men were the kind of people you could sit down to dinner with and never hear a word about politics. You’d have a good meal, good conversation, and walk away thinking you should do it again. LaMalfa, though, had a far better sense of humor than Herger—or than many on the other side of the aisle.
LaMalfa inherited his rice farm, but I know for a fact he worked his tail off during the busy season, which I suspect helped shape his interest in politics. Many others in office never worked a day in their lives. Rice farming does have an off‑season, unlike dairy, but the work is real.
I hope Doug left behind an unfinished book or at least some notes on rice, water, and the history of it all. I’d read that in a heartbeat.
I voted for the gerrymandering measure, but I still think the whole practice is awful. I felt more than justified in my vote when people I know on the GOP side insisted Texas had done nothing wrong by kicking off the latest round of partisan map‑carving. I joked that my old hometown of Houston could end up sliced into more pieces than Lizzie Borden’s parents.
Someday, when Trump is no longer on the scene, I hope we can finally pass a national ban on all gerrymandering.
Doug was in the middle of a very hot issue: wolves in California. He had been leading an effort to remove the species from federal protection. It’s the kind of problem that desperately needs a bipartisan solution, but the two sides are dug in and immovable. Whoever runs for his seat now has an opening to propose something that could outlast the partisan stalemate—though any real compromise would almost certainly frustrate both ranchers and wildlife advocates.
LaMalfa lost me the first time he ran, when he—or at least his campaign—resorted to dirty politics by circulating a doctored image of his opponent essentially bowing to Nancy Pelosi. It was fake, and it was unnecessary. She had zero chance in that district to begin with.
If you’re interested in Doug’s positions on Medi‑Cal, Medicaid, fire prevention, and a host of other issues, there’s a revealing video of him facing an often‑hostile crowd in Chico—where he later died at Enloe Hospital. In that meeting, you can see both the standard talking points and the places where he genuinely knew his stuff.
Doug LeMalfa at Chico Town Hall
His district had been gerrymandered to the point that he faced only a slim chance of winning again—and now we’ll never know how that race would have played out. Gov. Newsom has 14 days to appoint someone to fill out the term in LaMalfa’s old district, which in earlier times would have been a guaranteed Republican hold. We shall see.
Herger would have voted no on the president’s attacks; LaMalfa would have voted yes. Politics in 2026 has drifted far from traditional conservatism and sharply to the right.
RIP, Congressman. You had your charm, and you made a great deal of yourself. I only wish you had spent as much time reflecting as you did talking. I still wonder whether a man so grounded in the soil truly believed everything he said. He never hesitated to talk or joke with Democrats, even as that old tradition becomes rarer by the year. He was a man of the earth, not of virtual reality.
Did you really believe all of it, Doug? You could ask that of any politician, but with you, it always felt like there might have been a real answer tucked somewhere beneath the talking points, under the jokes, under the tules and dark waters of the rice fields. Maybe that’s why people listened, even when they disagreed. Maybe that’s why I did.
But that answer—whatever it was—dies with you now. The district will move on, the party will move on, the fights over wolves and water and everything else will grind forward without pause. Yet the question lingers in the air like chaff after harvest: what did you truly believe?
We’ll never know. And maybe that’s the most honest ending a political life can have.
A look at Doug’s take on farming
