Max Steiner is running for Congress because he loves his country and wants to end Doug LaMalfa’s political career.

On 9/11, Max was a high school student. Four years later, he was an infantryman in Iraq. He served for two years in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division, earning his Combat Infantry Badge while still in his teens, in a small arms engagement attempting to rescue a journalist from Iraqi terrorists.

Max enrolled at UC Berkeley after completing his deployments and graduated in 2011. He immediately returned to serving his country as a soldier and a diplomat.

He reenlisted in the Army Reserves and is now a Sergeant First Class and lead NCO of a Civil Affairs Team. He entered our country’s Foreign Service and served as a diplomat in Honduras, Mexico, and Washington, DC. His last overseas tour was in the Sinai Peninsula, where he served as an observer with the multi-national force charged with enforcing the 1982 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. He then left the Foreign Service to work toward a PhD in Policy Analysis at RAND.

Max knows how fragile democracy is.  Doug does not.

Doug has never served in our country’s armed forces. He has never lived or worked in corrupt countries with dictatorial regimes that enrich themselves while denying citizens the ability to vote them out of power. His sheltered life as heir to the family rice farm and 20-year career as a do-nothing politician have left him  without an ounce of patriotism and with nothing but contempt for the hard-working voters of this district.

The oath Max swore when he enlisted in the Army as a teenager was nearly identical to the oath Doug swore when he entered Congress. These solemn oaths were neither to a person nor to a political party – but were instead to the support and defense of our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

You can look at Max, serving as a soldier and diplomat in some of the most dangerous regions of the world, under Republican and Democratic Presidents alike. That is what integrity looks like.

Or you can look at Doug on the Sixth of January, crunching across the floor of the U.S. Capitol still littered with broken glass, to vote against certifying the results of a free and fair presidential election. That is what political cowardice looks like.

California’s District One deserves a congressman who will both sit down to write legislation and stand up to defend our democracy.  Max Steiner would be that Congressman.

Max’s brother lost his house in Redding to the Carr Fire in 2018, but he cleared out the wreckage and rebuilt his home. It’s time for District One to clear Doug LaMalfa out of office and it’s time to rebuild American Democracy.