California’s technological and demographic power is unmistakable, with one notable exception: We’re underrepresented in shaping foreign policy in Congress. That is bad for us and the country because California’s Pacific perspective, born of 840 miles of coastline and a wave of immigration from across the Pacific and around the Pacific rim, is crucial. Too often, D.C. policymakers overemphasize the importance of issues in Europe and the Middle East and frequently misunderstand or underappreciate threats and opportunities in the more distant Indo-Pacific.
It may seem to strain credulity to say that California, by far the most populous state, isn’t being heard in Congress. But leaving aside how the constitution weighs in favor of low-population states, there are no Californians on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or the Senate Intelligence Committee—not just no chairs, no members at all.
These three legislative committees comprise the core of American foreign policy decision-making. They confirm our ambassadors to countries and NGOs, the secretaries of State and Defense, the CIA Director, and the National Intelligence Director. They ratify treaties, shape force structures, conduct important intelligence oversight, and work with the administration to define how America engages with the world. Currently unrepresented and lacking any near-term prospect for direct engagement, 39 million Californians’ voices are locked out of the Senate’s foreign policymaking process and apparatus to the detriment of America’s present and strategic future.
California brings expertise, insight, and resources that America often exploits but does not always strategically leverage in today’s global conflicts. Demographically, culturally, and educationally, California is instead ignored and frequently dismissed.
If California remains underappreciated in U.S. foreign policymaking bodies and their influencing institutions, the consequences for America could be dire. In part, it can also slow America’s economic engine, which remains stoked by California’s active global engagement, agricultural power, manufacturing prowess, massive and developing port system, venture capital concentration, and technological leadership.
The state has an economy equal to India’s. It is home to the nation’s most populous ethnic Indian, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Mexican populations and its second-largest Jewish and Ukrainian communities. This diverse population brings family and business relationships that can deepen America’s diplomatic and strategic foreign relations, aiding the Biden administration’s recognized need for greater multilateralism and alliance-building.
Without a prominent California voice, D.C. leadership defaults to Transatlantic-oriented policy inertia and frequent, reflexive Middle East entanglements. (No offense to our fellow Pacific-facing states, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.) Rebalancing East and West Coast thinking and interests in foreign affairs could help readjust Europe’s ongoing overreliance on American markets and might. Under President Joe Biden, the long-awaited military pivot to Asia has begun in earnest, but it has a long way to go.
Mexican-American relations, too, could greatly benefit from a Californian perspective, promoting a more managed, rational, and humane approach to immigration policy with our largest trading partner. Mexico’s presidential elections are coming up and hold the promise of a fresh start. It would be helpful to leverage California’s collaborative history, experience, and networks to improve cross-border security, energy, and trade policies with the incoming Mexican administration. California should be relevant.
It wasn’t always this way, but Dianne Feinstein’s passing and Barbara Boxer’s retirement brought about California’s recent national security and foreign affairs vacuum in the U.S. Senate. Boxer (Foreign Relations) and Feinstein (Intelligence) performed vital roles on the U.S. Senate’s foreign policymaking committees.
Kamala Harris was the last Californian to sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Now that she is vice president, however, she represents the entire nation, not just one state of the union. It’s fair to argue that she brings her ingrained California perspective to the executive branch. In that case, it should also be reckoned that President Biden brings a Delaware perspective to the nation’s foreign policy. Lucky Delaware (population 1 million). They also have Senator Chris Coons on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Lucky Maryland, too. The current chair of Foreign Relations is Senator Ben Cardin, who was joined on the committee by the junior Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen. Maryland and Delaware are overrepresented in the exclusive foreign affairs club; California is kept from members-only gatherings.
California Governor Gavin Newsom points out that the 22 smallest population states add up to California’s nearly 40 million people. That means 44 senators have the same or more clout as California’s two senators in the U.S. Senate.
What about the House of Representatives? California congressional members played an essential role in foreign affairs up until recently. The Californian Speakers of the House, Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy were part of the bipartisan Gang of Eight—a group with access to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence. None today are Californians. None come from west of the Rockies. Californians sit on the House committees dealing with foreign policy—Armed Services, Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs—but none is a chair or ranking member. Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, is the only West Coaster in the leadership of these three committees.
West Coast consciousness and preferences are further diluted by dominant national media institutions based in D.C. and New York. Broadcast networks and surviving print media both feed and reflect East Coast biases and often characterize West Coast concerns and interests as ranging from quaint to quirky.
Conversely, because of the woes of local media, the largest circulating newspapers in California are headquartered in New York. Respectfully, and as Washington Monthly’s former president and publisher, I understand and even appreciate the success and power of East Coast media and its dominance over the national conversation. It does not adequately represent a rapidly changing American nation and contemporary geopolitical challenges from California’s Central American neighborhood and Indo-Pacific. The Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society remain on New York’s East Side and aren’t likely to migrate to California anytime soon.
What needs to be done?
It is up to the U.S. Senate leadership to rebalance and understand the need to find vital California representation on these critical committees. (That’s as long as the Senate stays Democratic.) Seniority may continue to rule the day, but the Senate must first understand the importance of elevating a representative West Coast voice in its body and within the global commons. California will have a new U.S. Senator in 2025. He should be put on one of the three foreign affairs-focused committees.
Further, much of the institutional media power concentrated on the East Coast needs to do more than parachute in reporters or establish minor outposts in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, or the U.S.-Mexico border. A more robust presence and interest in what happens here—and by whom—will help interpret for and impress upon Washington’s decision-makers what the future should be in Sino-American relations or global tech policy.
The nation’s most populous, wealthy, innovative, diverse, and internationally touristed state needs more significant formal influence on global policy decisions made in Washington, DC. America needs to hear and heed the perspectives of its economically most vibrant and globalized state of the union. The U.S. Senate marginalizes or ignores California, the world’s largest minority-majority democracy, at its peril.
