Ahead of the June primary election, the Southern California News Group compiled a list of questions to pose to the candidates who wish to represent you. You can find the full questionnaire below. Questionnaires may have been edited for spelling, grammar, length and, in some instances, to remove hate speech and offensive language.
Name: Loren Colin
Current job title: Principal and Creative Director, Hermathena Agency
Age: 50
Political party affiliation: No Party Preference
Incumbent: No
Other political positions held: Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, Region 7 Representative, 2006-2009; Co-Chair of the SLNC Governing Board, 2007-2009
City where you reside: Echo Park
Campaign website or social media: lorencolinforcongress.com
From voter ID to war powers and from immigration to tariffs, Congress has tackled many issues over the past year. What do you, though, see as the top three issues impacting Californians, and what specifically could you do as a lawmaker to address these issues? (Please answer in 250 words or less, and keep your response to future proposals.)
The top three issues that I see impacting Californians, specifically the people of CA-34 in Los Angeles, are the ones I hear from them: housing, homelessness and healthcare.
The only proven way to solve the housing crisis, bring rents down, make home ownership accessible and to increase local tax revenues without modifying Prop. 13 is to upzone all of Los Angeles. I will use the carrot and stick power of the federal purse to push California and Los Angeles to outlaw single-family home exclusive zones and upzone to multi-family home zones. This will also lead to the largest ever jobs boom in the city.
It is time for a federal response to homelessness. The only proven solution is to build permanent supportive housing and to have the necessary medical and mental services delivered to the home. I propose $10 billion to Los Angeles to build 25,000 units of permanent supportive housing in the next three years, with the county providing health and mental services.
We need Healthcare for All. We can do better than Medicare for All. I propose copying Germany and Japan, where both employee and employer pay 8% of the employee’s wages to the national healthcare fund, everyone is covered cradle to grave with healthcare, mental care, prescriptions and long-term care. No one goes bankrupt. No one dies waiting for care. And both countries achieve the best outcomes for one-third less the cost per person than the U.S. Copy the best and call it AmeriCare.
Speaking of voter ID, the president has implored Congress to approve legislation that would require people to show proof of citizenship in order to vote. What role do you believe the federal government plays in telling states how to conduct their own elections, as dictated by the U.S. Constitution? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
The role of the federal government in telling states how to conduct their federal elections, and by extension their state and local elections, is to maximize the democratic components of our participatory representative democracy.
My proposal includes:
• A national voter ID that is free and delivered by the government to every voting-age citizen and used by every state.
• 30-day primary and general elections with 100% mail-in/drop-off ballots and voting ending on Election Weekend for in-person voting.
• Move all 50 state primaries that coincide with federal elections in even years to a single national primary 30-day voting period.
• For every elected office, institute open, nonpartisan primaries decided by ranked choice voting (RCV) or STAR voting, with either the top three or four candidates moving to the general election, completely removing political parties from the state apparatus of elections.
• For every elected office, determine the winner of the general election by RCV or Star voting.
• Expand the size of the House of Representatives from 435 districts to 1,491, which would bring the resident-to-representative ratio from 760,000:1 down to 250,000:1, the same ratio as in 1929 when the House was capped at 435 districts. Alternatively, the minimum House expansion follows the Wyoming rule, or matching the ratio of residents-to-representatives to the population of the smallest state. Under this rule, the House would expand to 589 seats.
Make gerrymandering any and all political districts at the local, state and federal levels illegal.
What, in your opinion, should the federal government focus on when it comes to immigration policy? For example, do you place a priority on border security, visas for high-skilled workers, refuge for asylum seekers, etc., and why? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Immigrants are pro-America. They represent the best of America. They are real Americans. Let’s celebrate our immigrants and bring new ones in.
First, we must defund and abolish ICE. The rogue agency cannot be reformed and is a danger to the freedom and liberties of every American.
On my first day in Congress, I will propose a new naturalization agency to hire 10,000 administrative judges to provide legal residency to all 12 million undocumented Americans.
With a green card and path to citizenship at the ready for every existing undocumented immigrant, require each of them to apply for residency and subject themselves to a criminal background check. When an undocumented person is discovered, automatically sign them up for the green card to citizenship process. Failure to apply for a green card and subject oneself to a background check is immediate grounds for removal and deportation.
For the future cultural and economic success of the U.S., we must increase the number of legal immigrants to 2 million people each year, including those seeking asylum. Welcome immigrants from everywhere with varied skills and without bias.
Not every migrant wants to come to the U.S. permanently. Many come for temporary, seasonal work. The government must make their journeys and work safe while offering the same protections afforded to anyone within the country’s borders.
A new border and customs agency will be tasked with securing and managing all border entry points to ensure the legal flows of people, goods, service and capital.
It’s been over a year since Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the federal government for supplemental disaster aid to help Southern California communities rebuild after the devastating Palisades and Eaton wildfires, but neither President Donald Trump nor Congress has acted. What would you do to push for the funding, besides writing letters to the Trump administration or the leaders of Congress? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
The question is accurate; neither President Donald Trump nor Congress has acted to provide the state-requested supplemental disaster assistance of $33.9 billion to rebuild after the devastating Palisades and Eaton wildfires.
If Congress and any of the 52 members of the California House delegation were doing their jobs, they would have put the $33.9 billion of disaster aid directly into any of the continuing resolutions, the reconciliation package or the final appropriations bills that passed in 2025 and early 2026.
Since none of our current House members will do the right thing, I will, on day one in the House, introduce legislation to pay California the $33.9 billion it has been promised and is owed.
This actually gets to a larger issue: California is the largest donor state, sending $276 billion each year to the federal government that we do not get back. California dollars subsidize Mississippi and Alabama, when those states should tax their own people.
Enough is enough!
We need our money here in Los Angeles and in California to pay for our infrastructure, schools, healthcare, public safety and more. California Democrats brag about the money they return to our state when they should be ashamed of how much they shortchange their own people – the drivers of the whole of the U.S. economy.
I pledge to only vote yes for a federal budget when it returns every single dollar California sends to the federal government back to California.
Do you support a ban or restriction on congressional lawmakers and their families from buying or selling individual stocks? Why or why not? And what would you propose to ensure lawmakers aren’t using their positions to engage in insider trading? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Not only do I support a complete ban on congressional lawmakers and their families from buying or selling individual stocks, I am also running for Congress to explicitly make this the law. The complete ban must also include the president, vice president and the Supreme Court justices and their families.
Once the ban passes, everyone it affects can either place their existing individual stocks in a blind trust or convert their portfolio to a market-based indexed Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) or market-based indexed Mutual Fund.
Individual stocks owned prior to service, or once the ban passes for current members, that go into a blind trust can only be sold while serving in office. A sitting office-holder and their families can never purchase even a single share of an individual stock while in office.
Office holders can invest in or sell from their indexed Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) or indexed Mutual Fund at any time.
This approach removes the ability for lawmakers, the president, vice president, the Supreme Court justices and all of their families from leveraging their positions of power to engage in insider trading. At the same time, by requiring all stock investments to be in indexed funds, lawmakers share the same market risk and benefit as all Americans.
Do you support stronger regulations on pollution and carbon emissions? If so, how would you ensure those regulations aren’t overly burdensome on small businesses or lower-income families? And if not, how do you propose lawmakers protect the environment and curtail the impacts of climate change? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
The government has a duty to implement strict, science-based safety regulations on pollution and carbon emissions and to hold polluters accountable to these requirements. How a business meets these requirements is wholly up to them. If a business fails to meet the requirements on their own, then tax them the cost for the government — federal, state and local — to hire third-parties to clean up their pollution.
Allowing pollution is a subsidy from the people to a corporation, so the idea that not allowing pollution is somehow burdensome on small businesses or low-income families is a statement without fact.
The No. 1 way to protect the environment and curtail the impacts of climate change is to immediately end all tax expenditures, including subsidies, exemptions, credits and special depreciation rules for the oil and gas extraction industries.
The unsubsidized cost of oil and gas extraction would skyrocket. Cleaner renewables like solar, wind and battery would clearly demonstrate they are in fact much cheaper options, even without subsidies. The market difference in price between expensive, unsubsidized oil and gas versus cheap, unsubsidized renewables would see oil and gas extraction markets shrink while renewable energy markets grow.
The No. 1 infrastructure and environmental policy I support is a move to cover 100% of residential, commercial and industrial rooftops with solar panels and a battery. Turning this policy into action will make the U.S. the most green-friendly country on the planet, as well as harden every last neighborhood from the effects of climate change and natural disasters.
President Donald Trump has significantly increased spending for the U.S. Department of Defense. Would you, as a member of Congress, approve additional dollars for the military if the president were to ask for more funding? How would you ensure that any military spending does not end up putting the American people or national security in harm’s way? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
We do not need a $1 trillion defense budget.
The truth is that every Republican and Democratic president and Congress has significantly increased spending for the U.S. Department of Defense for the last 45 years, and Americans have been made less safe and less well off. This is not a Trump problem; this is a two-party system problem.
For the safety, security and well-being of the American people, end the U.S. empire by slashing the defense budget from $1 trillion to $500 billion while taking care of all of our veterans and current soldiers. The U.S. would still be far and away the largest spender on its military of any country.
Stop overspending on a military that does not make us any safer. Inflating profits for Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Palantir and the rest of the private defense industry is not the job of the American taxpayer.
Empty our bases around the world. Our footprint should be within our borders and in the seas. There is no reason for a single American soldier to be stationed anywhere in the world during a time of peace. And no, the American soldier on foreign soil is not keeping the peace.
The way to ensure that military spending does not end up putting the American people or national security in harm’s way is to not spend the money on the military and instead invest those dollars directly in the American people at home.
Under what specific circumstances do you believe the U.S. should engage in a war? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
The U.S. should only engage in a war when the territory of the U.S. has been attacked, and we are defending ourselves. That’s it. No more empire.
U.S. military interventions in foreign countries, when not responding to a direct attack on U.S. territory, via war or covert destabilization, has never succeeded in making the people of the foreign country safer or better off, and it has never made the American people safer or better off. Ever!
The truth is, every U.S. military intervention since the end of World War II has cost U.S. treasure, lives and investment in our future. Following a posture of war only when defending U.S. territory after an attack, ending the empire and investing directly into the American people will leave us without enemies who would ever want to attack. This is how we achieve peace and demonstrate the values of liberty and freedom at home and abroad.
Do you believe a president should seek congressional approval before engaging in military action overseas? Why, or why not? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
If the president wants to wage war, then they absolutely need congressional approval beforehand.
The U.S. Constitution explicitly states in Article. 1. Section. 8., “The Congress shall have Power…To declare War.”
Article. 2. Section. 2., “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States…,” does not give the president the power to declare war; therefore, the president cannot alone wage war.
What’s the definition of war, then? Quite simply, any action of force by the U.S. military internationally and domestically is war. We need to stop with the euphemisms, including the one in this question about “engaging in military action overseas,” when it should be “engaging in war overseas.”
A president waging war on their own was not what the Founders had in mind, nor was it the norm until Harry Truman started to wage an unauthorized war in Korea. Every Congress since 1950 has been complicit with the sitting president in violating the Constitution by funding war and allowing the president to wage it without an explicit declaration.
Congress needs to reclaim its constitutional responsibility and be the sole body to declare war and to pay for it. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is toothless and should be repealed. In its place, Congress should simply do its job.
If a president goes to war without the approval of Congress, then Congress must restore the constitutional order by impeaching and removing the president.
Congress, in theory, is supposed to serve as a check on the president through budgetary, legislative and oversight powers. Do you believe Congress has fulfilled that obligation during the past two administrations, with one being a Democrat and the other a Republican? Why or why not? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Congress has not adequately served as a check on the president through budgetary, legislative and oversight powers since Newt Gingrich became speaker in 1995 and replaced the Regular Order of the House with the dictatorship of the Speaker.
It has been over 30 years since Congress passed a budget, regardless of which party held the majority. It has been over 80 years since Congress carried out its constitutional duty and declared war, letting president after president trample over the Constitution.
Why? Because the two-party system is working exactly as expected, for the billionaires, the large corporations and the powerful, while it works against everyday Americans.
The only solution is to elect enough independents from across the country and across the political spectrum to stop both Republicans and Democrats from a majority in the House of Representatives.
As the only no party preference, independent candidate, and as a member of the Independent Candidate Network, a coalition of 20 Independent House candidates, I am the only person in the race for CA-34 who can deliver the systemic change needed to end the two-party system, put the power in the people’s hands, and finally check the out-of-control unitary executive branch.
By breaking the two-party system in the House and restoring the body to Regular Order, independents will lead the charge to once again make Congress a first amongst equals with the executive and judiciary as the Framers intended and as required by the people.
Governments around the world are increasingly considering an age ban or other restrictions on social media use among young people, citing mental health and other concerns. Should Congress adopt such restrictions? If so, what specific restrictions do you propose? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Social media, as it works today, is a danger to young people, as well as to adults. The danger to mental health, personal relationships and finances is not from the content per se, but from the targeting algorithms and addictive user design.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“COPPA”) was Congress’ first attempt at social media and other online activity restrictions for children under 13. The law should be updated to cover children to 18 years old. Congress must ban the use of an algorithmic feed for children, ban targeted advertising, and ban addictive features like infinite scrolling and auto-play. This means parents and children can only create curated, opt-in feeds displayed in chronological order without targeted ads.
For adults, Congress must pass a law that every social media platform has to offer a curated, opt-in, chronological-only feed, along with the algorithmic feed.
While Congress cannot ban mobile phones from schools, it has a duty to offer funds to school districts to implement mobile phone bans in the classroom.
Parents also have a role to play by not allowing their children to bypass age gates and register for a social media app or other website as an adult. The federal government should not ever require ID registration as age verification, nor ban VPNs, and states with those laws should immediately repeal them. Anonymity online, as anywhere in the physical world, is a liberty that cannot be sacrificed where parental and corporate responsibility will do.
Statistically, violent crime rates in California are on the decline, yet residents still don’t feel safe or at ease in their communities. How do you see your role in Congress in addressing the underlying issues that make Californians feel unsafe in their own neighborhoods? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
From Lafayette Park to Downtown to East Los Angeles, residents I have spoken with mostly feel that homelessness and open drug use are what make them feel less safe or less at ease in their communities. People do understand that violent crime rates in California are not only on the decline, but are actually at historic lows and continuing to fall.
However, none of that matters if you cannot take your kid outside to walk unobstructed on the sidewalk because people have been forced to live on the street, or you cannot go to the park without being surrounded by people consuming drugs.
We will all feel safer in our neighborhoods when we address the top three issues of the district – housing, homelessness and healthcare – because that is how we get the unhoused into permanent homes and drug addicts off of drugs.
Congress can also push and fund California to modify the CARE Court (Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment) law to include temporary state conservatorship to treat drug addiction. Congress can also help Los Angeles fund the SB 43 updated Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, which already allows for the conservatorship of drug addicts. It is inhumane to allow people not in their right mind to harm themselves in the name of liberty.
We cannot return to the days of forcing people into mental institutions; however, we must create a society that stops investing in bombs and starts investing directly in people, so that each of us is safe, secure and at ease.
There are term limits to serve in the California Legislature, but none to serve in Congress. Would you advocate for term limits for House members? Why or why not? If you support term limits, how many years maximum should a House member be allowed to serve? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Having a permanent professional class of politicians is a danger to a participatory representative democracy like ours. We have been warned for ages that permanent factions and permanent parties will erode the foundations of our republic. We are now living with their destructive effects.
Public service should be exactly that. Not a lifetime career, but rather a time spent as a citizen representative. For this reason, I do support congressional term limits and a total time spent in Congress between both the House and the Senate.
The maximum number of House terms should be set to six, allowing a total of 12 non-consecutive years to serve in the lower chamber.
The maximum number of Senate terms should be set to two, allowing a total of 12 non-consecutive years to serve in the upper chamber.
The maximum time spent in Congress then is 24 non-consecutive years for a person who maximizes their terms in both chambers.
All that said, term limits are not some panacea to restoring our democracy, nor to increasing citizen participation. Real change, and real power for the people, will only come when we maximize the democratic components of our participatory representative democracy with a new voting rights and ballot access movement.
I am proud to be part of this new maximum democracy movement, and I urge everyone in Los Angeles and throughout the country to join and create the change that will lead to materially improving your life.
What’s a hidden talent you have? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
A hidden talent of mine is turning chaos into systems. It turns out to be a highly useful talent when creating a marketing campaign, building software or running a campaign. And it will be immensely helpful when it comes to legislating in the House to create and pass the laws that will materially improve the lives of everyone in CA-34 and throughout the country.
Part of turning chaos into systems is the realization that I never have all of the answers, and I do not pretend to. Which is why pairing that talent with my ability to break down complicated issues into plain language that helps bring people into conversations they might not otherwise join is so important.
I can think of no greater ability in a representative than bringing all of one’s constituents to the table to listen and learn from them. This is how we build a culture, politics and government that works for all of us on a foundation of individual dignity, and to make sure that dignity is extended to all.
Turning chaos into systems might not be the flashiest talent, but it has served me well and will continue to do so in service to you.