Constituents press U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta to be bolder.

When U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, hosted a town hall meeting at Monterey Peninsula College on Friday, March 7, he wanted to focus on cuts to Medicaid (in California, Medi-Cal). He invited three physicians to the stage to talk about how important the government-provided insurance is for people who cannot afford commercial insurance. More than 163,000 people in his District 19 are on Medi-Cal.

But when it came time for audience questions, people in the room had other issues on their minds. The first person to get the mic wanted to know: If President Donald Trump defies court rulings, who is going to arrest him? Panetta responded with his belief that checks and balances will work, and that voters play a role in the next elections. The question-asker piped up: “Do you really think there’s going to be another election?”

Panetta absolutely thinks so. He is an institutionalist – a bipartisan Democrat who believes reaching across the aisle is still an option. He also knows his party is losing. But he continues to deliver a long-game, optimistic take in town hall conversations with constituents. “When it comes to our courts, we are winning,” he said.

I also attended a Zoom meeting on Wednesday, March 5 when Panetta spoke to 50-plus members of Indivisible, a progressive group that formed in response to Trump’s first term.

Members were in agreement with Panetta about the substance of the issues – protecting the federal workforce, expressing solidarity with Ukraine, preserving Medi-Cal and Medicare.

But some members wanted something less tangible – a bolder, more vocal leader.

“We are looking to you to be more visible,” Angela Marshall from Santa Cruz said. “We want you to be getting on Rachel Maddow, we want you to be loud, we want you to speak up and speak out. We can’t wait for the next election.”

Another constituent from San Jose expressed her disappointment that the night before, as Rep. Al Green of Texas was removed from the congressional chambers during Trump’s speech, nobody protested. “This just is not a time for silence,” she said. “This is a time for action.”

Panetta heard the feedback, and he urged patience. “We’re not going to win tomorrow,” he said. “I understand the concern with Project 2025. My focus is on Project 2026.”

He also promised to keep delivering constituent services, helping people who are stuck in the bureaucracy of processing immigration paperwork, veterans’ benefits and the like.

“I’m not a performer, I’m a public servant that does the work,” Panetta said. “To me, good governing is good politics, and that’s exactly what I’ll continue to do.”

Of course, the majority party appears utterly disinterested in good governing, and Republicans continue to enjoy political support (thanks partly to the part of politics that is performative). That makes good governing for Democrats difficult to impossible – the idea of negotiating across the aisle is anachronistic.

Consider the potential impending government shutdown on March 14. (There was a negotiation underway to extend that timeline, but Trump and his righthand man Elon Musk last year urged Republican lawmakers to sink that deal. They did.)

“I will not vote for a government shutdown, but I will not vote for a partisan budget,” Panetta said at MPC. Given the current climate, it seems unlikely he will have an alternative to vote for.

Beyond the immediate shutdown deadline, budget negotiations look similarly bleak. Republicans have put $880 billion in cuts on the table from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which means cuts from Medicaid; they are asking for a $230 billion cut from agriculture, $10 billion from infrastructure, and so on.

At MPC, Panetta invoked a Thomas Jefferson quote: “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Then he added: “We do not deserve this chaos. The question we have to answer going forward is, will our democracy withstand this chaos?”

Panetta believes old-school good governance will see us through. An increasingly vocal group of constituents are rightly worried that it won’t. We don’t deserve chaos; we do deserve bold, outspoken leaders.

SARA RUBIN is the editor of the Weekly. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.