Rose Penelope Yee, Challenger for Congress
Meet Jared Huffman's primary challenger in California District 2.
Rose Penelope Yee is a candidate for Congress in California’s Second District who is challenging the incumbent, conservative Democrat Jared Huffman, in the Democratic primary. She is running on a “People, Peace, and Planet” platform, advocating the redirection of public resources away from foreign military involvement and toward domestic priorities such as healthcare, housing, and climate resilience.
Rose’s father was a political prisoner during the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines after serving as a defense attorney for activists there. She is Chair of the Shasta County Democratic Central Committee, where she drafted a successful resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and is a board member of North State Medicare for All.
She is a co-founder of Green Retirement, an ethical investment firm.
Rose discusses her candidacy in this conversation, and also announces a new policy proposal that I actually think is ... really good!
Below is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Richard Eskow: Joining me now is a candidate for Congress in California’s shifting Second District. Rose Penelope Yee is challenging incumbent Democrat Jared Huffman in the primary for that seat coming up in 2026. Let me tell you about Rose Penelope Yee. She is the chair of the Shasta County Democratic Central Committee.
I love that part of the world, by the way—Northern California. She’s a longtime advocate for healthcare, housing, climate justice, and peace—all the things we believe in. She was also the endorsed candidate of the California Democratic Party in District 1 in 2024 with a platform that called for Medicare for All, stronger worker power, climate-resilient policies, and the repeal of Citizens United.
She’s also the co-founder and CEO of Green Retirement, which is a socially and environmentally responsible 401k advisory firm. She says she’s running a “people, peace, and planet” campaign. We’ll ask her what that means. But first of all, Rose Penelope Yee, welcome to The Zero Hour.
Rose Penelope Yee: Thank you so much, Richard. I really appreciate you inviting me here. Hello to all the listeners out there.
Richard Eskow: I’m sure they say hello back. Now let’s start with this: you are challenging a sitting Democrat, Jared Huffman. Why?
Rose Penelope Yee: Maybe I can give a little bit of background on California and why you talked about District 1 and District 2, since some of our viewers and listeners might not be familiar with it. In November 2025, California passed Proposition 50. That proposition redrew the congressional district lines for California for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections.
It essentially was an answer to the gerrymandering that was being done in Texas. I live in Shasta County and, as you mentioned, I’m the chair of the Democratic Central Committee of Shasta County. Our county got affected. District 1, where I ran in 2024, is a very strong MAGA Republican district.
With the redrawing of the lines, some of the Democratic areas along the coast of California have now been redistricted to include Shasta County to change the number of Democratic representatives from California. So Shasta County is now part of a huge geographic area. It looks like an elephant head with a trunk running down the coast. We have Marin, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area, and then we have rural areas like Shasta County where I live. That is how the district is right now.
Richard Eskow: My understanding is that the newly drawn district where you now reside is heavily Democratic—it strongly leans Democratic—and is also the district of Jared Huffman. So you are now in the same district as Jared Huffman, which you weren’t in 2024. I’m going to make two statements and you can tell me if they’re true. One is that this is a pretty safe Democratic district now, and two is that you’re challenging the incumbent Democrat in what seems like a safe district. Are those statements true?
Rose Penelope Yee: That’s correct. That was the intention of the redistricting, so that this district stays safely Democratic.
Richard Eskow: So this gets us to the question of why. I have some opinions about Jared Huffman, but you’re now part of a solidly Democratic district. This is not a “frontline” district, as they say. Why do you feel that Jared Huffman is not the right person to represent this district and you are?
Rose Penelope Yee: When the maps were proposed and Shasta County was going to be part of District 2, I heaved a sigh of relief, Richard. I figured now I don’t have to fight a Republican incumbent. I thought I wouldn’t have to run for Congress because we have a Democrat in Congress who’s going to represent me, who is aligned with my values and who I know is going to do a good job.
Then I attended a meeting last year by the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. Somebody said that Huffman should be primaried. That made me question why a fellow progressive was saying this. So I “looked under the hood.” My background is in civil engineering—I also have a master’s in business—but I have that engineering mindset where I like to look at what is going on below the surface.
I did some research and was really disturbed when I saw that Representative Huffman voted for the $26 billion Israel Supplemental Appropriations bill. It boggled my mind that a Democrat who I thought was a responsible congressperson voted for something that is going to perpetuate the genocide happening against Palestinians.
I looked even deeper and saw that he has never condemned what the Netanyahu right-wing government in Israel is doing. He has never condemned it as a genocide. I saw that the supplemental appropriations bill not only gave $26 billion, but it also prohibited US funding for UNRWA—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that offers humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees.
In effect, that provision green-lights the use of famine as a weapon of war. Therefore, it condones the starvation and killing of civilians, most of them women and children. I cannot in good conscience let that pass. I cannot have a representative in Congress who votes for a bill like this. I am opposing Huffman in terms of moral and policy differences.
Richard Eskow: Let me ask you about something. Jared Huffman hasn’t been able to bring himself to decisively criticize Netanyahu or the IDF, but let me tell you who he is able to criticize: Bernie Sanders. My understanding is that Bernie Sanders did pretty well in your district.
Representative Huffman was quoted in Politico saying he’s tired of Bernie Sanders, saying that the idea that Democrats abandoned the working class is “a crock.” Then he goes on to say that “Mr. Working Class” underperformed Kamala Harris in his own state. So, did Bernie Sanders abandon the working class? I looked it up: Bernie Sanders won his election by a margin of 31.09%, and Kamala Harris won hers by 31.51%. They both won by enormous margins. I would argue she was probably lifted by his voters.
He seems to be one of those Democrats who “punches left.” I think that is not only wrong morally or analytically, but it also hurts the Democratic Party. When the party attacks its own left, it hurts its electoral prospects. What do you think?
Rose Penelope Yee: Well, Richard, I’m a little bit biased because I was a volunteer and donor for Bernie in both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. I strongly believe in Bernie’s policies. One policy that counteracts what Huffman is saying about Bernie abandoning the working class is his economic policy for large corporations to set aside 20% of shares for workers. It’s a democratization of decision-making. It recognizes that workers and staff are stakeholders. To me, that’s not abandoning the working class; that’s empowering the working class.
Richard Eskow: And I would say Medicare for All is hardly abandoning the working class either. It’s making life affordable and saving lives. But while we’re talking about policy, Rose, you have a policy announcement. We want to hear what it is.
Rose Penelope Yee: My campaign is rooted in “People, Peace, and Planet.” Those three are interchangeable. We cannot say we are for the people if we are pro-war, so peace is essential. We cannot have a sustainable planet if we are engaged in a war economy. Peace is key to taking care of human beings and our planet.
Because peace is the centerpiece of my campaign, my core policy is to reallocate the resources we put into the military into projects that benefit people and the planet. One of those is what I call the Peace Dividend. The Peace Dividend is $1,000 given to each adult during Thanksgiving. It will immediately hit their pocketbooks, much like the stimulus checks we got during the COVID pandemic. Every Thanksgiving, $1,000 reallocated from the war budget would go immediately into people’s pockets.
Richard Eskow: In Alaska, people get a check every year from oil revenue. We got the checks during COVID. It’s interesting you pick that name, because I recall when the Cold War ended, everyone talked about a peace dividend—that we wouldn’t have to spend insane amounts on the military and could do great things with that extra wealth. It never seemed to happen. I think this is a great idea because people understand cash and they are struggling financially. It underscores how many better things we could be doing with that money.
So let’s say you get into Congress and you’re sworn in. You want to introduce the Peace Dividend bill. I guess you’d have to find some allies there?
Rose Penelope Yee: It can be both an inside and an outside action. This is the first time your listeners have heard of the Peace Dividend. To go back to what you said about the end of the Cold War, that idea was more about reallocating money to projects. There was no immediate direct benefit to the people.
My policy is not just to put money into healthcare, education, and infrastructure, but also directly into the pockets of hardworking families. Since the end of the Cold War, a lot more families are struggling. It has been so much harder for everyone. Grocery and healthcare costs have gone up. I know of a participant in a retirement plan we advise who got notice she had to vacate her apartment by December 31st because she was behind on rent. This $1,000 dividend would help people during the holidays or help pay down debt and rent.
In terms of how we do this, there are other progressive candidates like me challenging Democrats in safe districts so that we can replace establishment corporate Democrats with progressives who will sign on to a Peace Dividend. We need to elect representatives who will fight for this, for Medicare for All, for living wage jobs, and to end Citizens United.
Richard Eskow: Thank you for that explanation. Let’s do a theme shift. I read in your biography that your family came from the Philippines. Is that correct?
Rose Penelope Yee: Yes. I am an immigrant from the Philippines, and I am what’s called a “martial law baby.” Those are children who grew up under the Marcos dictatorship. My father was a lawyer who defended student protesters, workers, and farmers when they were detained. Because of that, he became a target and was a political detainee. I spent many weekends as a child going to the military stockade with my mom and siblings to visit my dad.
Richard Eskow: There are those who would say we could be heading down a similar path in the United States. Between what ICE is doing and the escalation of political persecutions of dissidents, a lot of us are concerned. We haven’t reached the martial law stage, but do you think that experience helps you guide Democrats who seem to be caught flat-footed? I think the situation is urgent and I don’t think their strategy is the best way to fight these tendencies.
Rose Penelope Yee: Growing up experiencing fascism firsthand has definitely informed my activism. My personal background influences my decisions, which is seen in my challenge to Rep. Huffman over his votes for the Netanyahu government and continued war spending.
I believe there is hope because we need to differentiate the grassroots Democrats from the leadership. The leadership is not acting as urgently as we want, but people at the grassroots are. As the chair of the Shasta County Democratic Central Committee, we have passed resolutions condemning the genocide in Gaza, calling for a permanent ceasefire, and for US recognition of the State of Palestine.
Santa Clara’s committee also issued a resolution condemning the genocide. After the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro early this year, our county committee also issued a resolution condemning that action by Trump’s military. There is movement among the base that is not represented in the leadership.
Rep. Huffman spoke at our meeting last Monday. What I got from his speech is that his platform mirrors the leadership: “We are not Trump, and we want to get Trump out.” That is not a policy statement; it just gets us back to where we were before. If we don’t challenge the incumbents, we just return to the conditions that led to Trump. Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. By electing establishment Democrats, we stay in a cycle that will lead to someone even more dangerous than Trump. We need to replace leaders who supported the policies that led us here.
Richard Eskow: What would you say to someone who says, “I really like Rose, but can she really win against an establishment Democrat in this huge district?” He’s going to have all the money. Can an insurgent candidate really win?
Rose Penelope Yee: If we look at AOC, she didn’t start with a lot of money, but she had people behind her. In the most recent elections with Zoran Mamdani, he had a very small statistical chance of winning. It is not impossible, but we do need help. We need people to volunteer and donate. I am not accepting corporate money. It is all through donations from ordinary voters. I believe people are fed up and ready for a change.
Richard Eskow: Where do people go to support you?
Rose Penelope Yee: Please check out our website at roseforcongress.com. You can volunteer or donate there. I would love for listeners to sign up for my emails. They aren’t regular political emails you immediately unsubscribe from; they give an inside look at the campaign. This is a tough challenge, but it is winnable with people behind me.
Richard Eskow: You have to promise me that if I sign up, I won’t get those desperate emails saying, “Richard, I’m begging you.” You’re saying these will be informative?
Rose Penelope Yee: No, it’s not going to be that. My last email was about the representative of District 1 who passed away unexpectedly at the beginning of the year. My email was titled “Reflections on the passing of Doug LaMalfa and why running still mattered.” It gives you my perspective and values. I won’t use those fake deadlines because I hate those myself. I practice the Golden Rule.
Richard Eskow: All right. That’s Rose for Congress. My guest, Rose Penelope Yee, candidate for California’s Second District.
Rose Penelope Yee: It’s California District 2. It’s very easy: Rose for Congress.
Richard Eskow: Rose Penelope Yee, thanks for all your political work and thanks for coming on the program.
Rose Penelope Yee: Thank you so much, Richard.
Richard Eskow: We depend on your support here at The Zero Hour, so please give whatever you can. Thanks so much.