Sonora, CA – Governor Gavin Newsom today signed SB 106, granting $90 million in one-time emergency funds for Planned Parenthood after the defunding of reproductive health care providers by President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” and now two Mother Lode lawmakers are criticizing the move.
“California is taking steps to ensure people don’t lose access to the range of services provided by Planned Parenthood,” stated Governor Newsom. “As the Trump administration’s Big Ugly Bill punishes women and community health providers, California continues to stand in support of women’s access to essential health services and reproductive freedom.”
Republican State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Jackson) and Assemblyman David Tangipa oppose the new law. Alvarado-Gil contends that the state is grappling with an $18 billion deficit, and Democrats have hurriedly pushed through a bill that provides millions in no-bid grants to Planned Parenthood clinics and exempts them from the Public Records Act, thereby severing any transparency and accountability. She also pointed out that if “extra” funds are available for health care services, the priority should be rural hospitals, like in Senate District 4, many of which are cutting services and facing closure.
“Murky budget deals hashed out behind closed doors in Sacramento invite waste, fraud, and extra burdens on rural California’s hardworking families,” said Senator Alvarado-Gil, vice chair of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. “Shoving through these bloated spending plans with no real transparency, debate, or fixes for our endless deficits and rising costs overlooks the daily grind of rural families, farmers, and small-town businesses barely getting by. That’s not honest governing; it’s leaving districts like ours high and dry.”
Assemblyman Tangipa offered amendments that he said would have instead strengthened access to comprehensive care in rural areas, adding, “Why does Planned Parenthood get a $90 million grant, but right now over 60 hospitals in the state of California are on the verge of shutting down, and they have to ask for a hospital distress loan? Hospitals across our state that deliver high-quality care to women are on the brink of closure today; one out of five hospitals is at risk of shutting its door between the low Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and the high cost of required seismic renovations. Many hospitals are struggling just to keep services available.”
Additionally, both countered that rural hospitals are often the only critical care provider in a county, providing not just critical care but basic family care.
