Why Richard Pan Must Not Be Allowed Into Power Again — Ever

Few politicians in California history have done more to erode medical freedom than Richard Pan. His name is synonymous with coercive public health policy and state overreach. Once a practicing pediatrician and later a powerful state senator, Pan spent his political career pushing sweeping mandates, stripping away exemptions, and criminalizing dissent. He is the architect of some of the most coercive vaccine laws in the country.

Now he wants a promotion. On October 14, 2025, Pan announced he is running for Congress in California’s 3rd District — and he’s made it clear why: in a recent interview, he said part of his motivation is to “hold RFK Jr. accountable.” What he means by that is no mystery. RFK Jr. has become a leading voice in the movement to restore informed consent, limit federal overreach into deeply personal medical decisions, and re-establish doctor–patient choice as a fundamental principle.

Pan is openly telling voters that his goal is to stop the very movement that has grown in response to his own heavy-handed approach. He is signaling that he intends to dismantle the growing consent-based movement before it can reshape public health policy nationwide. He wants to return to Washington with the power to mandate, coerce, and control — not just in California, but across the country.

And if voters aren’t careful, a new ballot measure called Proposition 50 could help him get there.

Pan’s Record: Coercion Over Consent

Richard Pan’s legislative record is a roadmap of state intrusion into private medical decisions:

• SB 277 (2015): Pan authored the law that eliminated all personal-belief and religious exemptions to California’s school vaccine mandates. Families who declined even one required vaccine lost the right to send their children to public or private school.
• SB 276 (2019): He followed that by targeting medical exemptions. This law created a state review board to second-guess doctors and deny exemptions even for children with serious medical issues or prior adverse reactions. Pediatricians faced investigation if they wrote more than five exemptions a year.
• SB 871 (2022): Even after evidence showed COVID-19 vaccines did not stop transmission, Pan introduced a bill to mandate them for all students and strip away personal-belief exemptions. The bill failed — and in 2023 the state officially abandoned plans for a K–12 COVID shot requirement.

Pan’s philosophy is clear: parents cannot be trusted, doctors must be monitored, and the state always knows best.

It’s exactly this worldview that RFK Jr. and the growing medical-freedom movement are trying to roll back — by re-establishing consent-based medicine, protecting doctor-patient decision-making, and ending coercive mandates. And Pan has now declared that defeating those efforts is one of his primary reasons for seeking federal office.

Prop 50: The Gerrymandering Power Grab That Could Hand Him a Seat

Pan’s ambitions don’t stop with his record. They’re now backed by a structural change that could tilt the political playing field in his favor. A dangerous ballot measure, Proposition 50 — which Californians will vote on in November 2025 — could help him secure a congressional seat he might otherwise lose.

Prop 50 would strip California’s independent redistricting commission of its authority and return map-drawing power to the state Legislature — dominated by the same Democratic supermajority that worked hand-in-glove with Pan during his Senate years. Originally sold as a response to Texas’s redistricting maneuvers, the measure is now openly described as a partisan plan to redraw California’s congressional districts to secure more Democratic seats.

Leaked draft maps already reveal the intention: reshape Kevin Kiley’s CA-03 district into a Democratic-leaning stronghold by pulling in more urban voters and carving out Republican strongholds. If Prop 50 passes, Kiley’s seat could become unwinnable for a Republican — and tailor-made for Richard Pan.

This is not democracy. This is politicians picking their voters. And if they succeed, it will give Pan a congressional platform to do nationally what he already did to California: strip away choice, vilify dissent, and expand state power into the most intimate areas of family life.

Why Pan’s Return Would Be a Disaster for Families

Pan’s re-emergence is not just about one seat in Congress. It’s about the future of medical freedom in America.

The infrastructure Pan built with SB 277 and SB 276 has not gone away — it’s expanding. Just this year, the Legislature passed AB 144, handing the California Department of Public Health sweeping new powers to decide on vaccines in California that no longer look to ACIP or the CDC — a significant divergence from national standards that are finally shifting toward individual choice and away from blanket coercion. California families must now continue fighting unelected bureaucrats over decisions that should belong to parents and their doctors.

If Pan wins a seat in Congress, he will supercharge this trend — exporting California’s most heavy-handed policies to the federal level and making them far harder to resist. His coercive philosophy will not change; it will simply have a larger stage. He will likely push for federal vaccine mandates, tighter restrictions on medical exemptions, and new ways to tie federal education funding to compliance — leveraging Washington’s power to pressure states and families alike. And he will do it while working to undermine the policies of people like RFK Jr., who are fighting to restore choice and informed consent to the center of public health.

For parents, this means the fight for the right to make medical decisions for their children — a fight already raging in California — will escalate onto a national stage. For doctors, it will mean deeper political interference and continued erosion of their professional judgment. And for anyone who believes in constitutional limits and personal autonomy, it will mean a coordinated effort to erase those boundaries under the banner of “safety.”

A Line California — and the Country — Must Not Cross

California has already seen what Richard Pan does with power. The laws he wrote divided communities, drove families out of the state, and deepened mistrust in public health. They trampled on bodily autonomy and treated dissent as a disease to be eradicated.

If Proposition 50 passes and Richard Pan returns to power, that approach will not just return — it will expand unchecked. It will come for families in every state. It will try to undo the hard-won progress of those working to restore informed consent as the cornerstone of medicine. And it will once again target your children as the testing ground for government control.

Voters have a choice. They can reject Prop 50 and reject Richard Pan — and in doing so, affirm that medical decisions belong to families and doctors, not to politicians. Or they can look away, and watch as one of the most coercive figures in California’s political history uses gerrymandering and power politics to climb to Congress.

The stakes could not be higher. Richard Pan must not be allowed into power again. Ever.