Too many in our community are struggling to get by. As a commuter city, with people making long drives to work and back every day, one thing I hear about often when it comes to affordability is the cost of gas. As a single mom, I know how hard it is to balance paying for the essentials like gas, too.

At a time with so much divisiveness in our political system, Big Oil interests have been spending millions over the past year in mail, and now on a set of billboards, to mislead you on my record when it comes to gas prices. And, they are trying to scare me into voting the way they want, which includes protecting their profits over your pocketbook. They have seen me speak out and know I’m not afraid to stand up to their price gouging, like the crushing price spikes we saw in 2022, and they know that I’ve been fighting to lower your price at the pump.

Additionally, many politicians in Sacramento — both Republicans and Democrats — have used gas prices as a political tool to try and win elections. Rather than taking something that has such a huge impact on families and using it to play politics, our elected leaders should work as hard as they can to solve the problem, so families don’t have to struggle so much.

The truth is, while there are a number of factors that impact the cost of gas — including supply and demand, crude oil prices, refining, international markets, wars, and more — two reasons for increases have been the focus of Big Oil special interests: taxes and fuel pollution standards.

Let’s break it down here:

Gas Tax Increase

In 2017, five years before I was elected to office, the legislature passed the Road Repair and........

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