Candidate Q&A: Rep. Raul Ruiz and Challenger Ian Weeks Answer Questions About Their Priorities and More

After the 2020 U.S. Census, the Coachella Valley was split into two congressional districts. Rep. Raul Ruiz, a Democrat who had previously represented the entire area, was put in the new District 25, which includes Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indio and Coachella, as well as all of Imperial County, and the rest of Riverside County to the east.

In the 2022 election, Ruiz easily defeated his Republican opponent Brian Hawkins, receiving 57.4 percent of the vote.

This year, as Ruiz seeks his seventh term in Congress, he has a new Republican challenger. Ian Weeks is an investment adviser who has not previously held elected office. A California native, Weeks was raised in the Temecula Valley and now lives in Hemet with his wife and two children. He graduated with an associate’s degree from Mount San Jacinto College in 2007, and earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University of Redlands in 2009. A self-proclaimed avid outdoorsman, Weeks includes being a worship leader and a musician as additional experience.

Ruiz was raised in the city of Coachella, and now lives in Indio with his wife and twin daughters. Ruiz obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1994, and went on to earn his medical degree and three graduate-level degrees at Harvard University between 1995 and 2007. After his college years, and before his first political campaign, Ruiz worked at Eisenhower Medical Center as an emergency-room doctor. In 2010, he founded the Coachella Valley Healthcare Initiative. He became senior associate dean at the School of Medicine at University of California, Riverside, in 2011.

According to the Federal Election Commission website, as of March 31, Weeks had $9,316.20 in available funds, after spending $69,450.79 thus far on his 2024 campaign. Ruiz had $1,997,709.47 available, having spent $1,136,315.31 to date.

The Independent recently spoke with both candidates and asked each of them the same slate of six questions, on a range of topics including the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument, the development of the region’s lithium industry, the proliferation of industrial-scale renewable energy projects, constituents’ health care needs, and the status of the Salton Sea. Their responses have been edited only for clarity and style.

Dr. Raul Ruiz

What are the two most pressing issues facing the constituents in District 25, and how do you plan to address them if you’re re-elected?

Thank you for asking that question. The two most concerning issues for me and my constituents are one, the rising cost of living. There has been some improvement over the last several months, but we all know that the costs are still higher than what they were pre-pandemic. The reason why the costs are high is because one, the pandemic, and two, because of Russia’s war on Ukraine, that has devastated our supply chains, and devastated grain and other produce exports from Russia and Ukraine. That has led to increasing costs.

In order to have the right treatment, you need the right diagnosis. With that diagnosis, the treatment is going to be to spur our domestic manufacturing of critical supplies, as well as food production, in order to decrease the cost of those products. We’re pursuing that specifically in the district by using monies from the CHIPS and Science Act, that would strategically stimulate strategic industries, like critical mineral extraction with battery manufacturing to bolster electric vehicles, and batteries for grid backup, that will help reduce costs for that. In other districts, chips and semiconductors’ manufacturing helps to reduce the cost of electronics that we rely on, and so forth. So, those are examples of how these great pieces of legislation are helping us work toward increasing supply, in order to decrease the cost here domestically.

The other thing is that the Inflation Reduction Act, that we already passed, capped out-of-pocket medication costs at $2,000 per year (for Medicare Part D recipients, starting in 2025). It capped the cost of insulin (for Medicare recipients) at $35 a month—and we have one of the higher incidences of diabetes in our district. This is going to be a big relief for tens of thousands of patients in our district. Also, for the first time ever, it allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceuticals (companies), which will reduce the price of medications for everyday Americans. Included in that bill, of course, were rebates that incentivize the use of more efficient household appliances to reduce energy costs, and to conserve energy more efficiently. So that’s one, and we’re working day in and day out to help everyday Americans with the cost of living, both strategically and aggressively.

The second is border security. There is an urgent need to pass bipartisan legislation that will secure our borders and provide economic prosperity for American families by stabilizing our workforce through comprehensive immigration reform, increasing work visas to address our workforce shortage crisis, and giving a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and farmworkers. Also, we need to invest in technology at the border to detect guns and drugs, in particular fentanyl, and invest in Border Patrol agents to help them combat coyotes involved in illegal smuggling and human trafficking. Resources are needed for the judges and lawyers who are processing the cases of asylum-seeking and economic refugees in order to expedite decisions on individuals who will stay and who meet the criteria, or who must leave the country who don’t meet the criteria based on American laws.

In addition to that, we need to address the root cause of migration by working with Latin American countries, which I have been a part of. During this last Congress, I worked with the administration to build support in Mexico, as well as Costa Rica and other countries, to develop opportunities for migrants to first stay in their home country by giving them hope, and investing through the private sector, in job development and education in those countries. The migrants are coming from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and other Central American countries, but we need to help third-party countries process migrant claims in those countries, as well as give the migrants opportunities for safety, refuge and jobs in those countries. So, that’s a comprehensive approach that will secure our borders, and lead to American family prosperity, as opposed to the current Republican plan of separating families and children from their mothers, and inducing emotional trauma to intimidate people from coming to the United States, which was just cruel. Then they built an ineffective, expensive border wall that, as we’ve have seen, has been easily traversed, and they’ve suggested shutting down immigration entirely, which would worsen our workforce crisis. So, there are very clear distinctions in terms of the pathways that each party wants to take to resolve the border management.

What’s your position on the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument?

I’m very excited about this monument, because I’m helping lead the charge to designate over 620,000 acres of desert land as a national monument. This effort has a broad coalition of strong support, which is unique in its scope, and includes the conservationist community, tribal leaders and the renewable-energy companies, as well as the Southern California Edison utility and others that perhaps traditionally have not been publicly supportive of national monuments in the past.

The reason why this is so important for so many in the community, especially our veterans, is because, while it preserves significant sacred, cultural sites for tribes and helps tribes co-manage (them) with the Bureau of Land Management … it also protects endangered plants and animals. It increases visitation and access for local residents that will help foster our tourism economy which the Coachella Valley relies on, and it will increase health and wellness, especially mental health by enjoying the outdoors and being active. Now, it does all that while also keeping the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan intact that allows for even further renewable energy development in the area. I introduced the Chuckwalla National Monument (Establishment) and Joshua Tree National Park Expansion Act, and I’m leading the coalition to advocate for President Biden to use the Antiquities Act route to expedite this effort.

What’s your position on the extensive renewable-energy infrastructure, particularly industrial-scale solar-energy projects, that are either already built or planned in eastern Riverside and Imperial counties? What do you believe should be done to protect impacted residents, wildlife and natural resources, such as the underground aquifer water supply and the desert ecosystem overall?

I’m proud to say that my district produces more renewable energy on federal land than any other district in the nation. I have been involved throughout the years to help develop that renewable energy. The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), which was agreed upon several years ago, after over a decade of negotiations between the renewable-energy companies, the recreationalists, the conservationists, the Department of Defense and others, set out a map that everybody agreed would set the boundaries for conservation, for recreation and for renewable energy development. So I am a firm believer in the DRECP, which I protected successfully by defeating President Trump’s effort to disregard the plan and open up land for further large-scale mining. And so, as long as the development of renewable energy happens within the DRECP boundaries, I’m an advocate of producing energy through renewable energy means.

Now, I am also a very strong advocate of allowing individual households to produce their own energy through solar rooftop panels, or other means, and have their own micro-grid with batteries to be self-sufficient and reduce their individual household energy costs.

Do you believe the development of the lithium industry as well as the potential related industrial growth will be beneficial to the future of District 25? What will you do to support or oppose that effort?

This is a topic that is a priority for the residents of the district as well as a priority for me, the state and the federal government. The reason is because it is in our national security interest to produce our own critical minerals like lithium, and manufacture our own domestic supply of batteries so that we are not reliant on foreign adversaries like China. While it’s of interest to the state of California to lead that industry in our nation—because California is always two steps ahead of other states in in our pursuit for renewable energy—it is an incentive for state and federal governments to partner with private industry to invest and get the resources needed for economic and social development in the most under-resourced county and district in the state of California. So, by fostering lithium production and a complete supply chain of battery manufacturing, we will be able to be a hub for innovation and battery manufacturing. Also, we’ll provide a critical supply of batteries for electric vehicles that will help reduce the cost of those vehicles so that everyday Americans can be incentivized to purchase them, which will be a factor in addressing air pollution and climate change.

So let me tell you what I’ve done in that regard. We have successfully received a planning grant from the Department of Commerce to develop a tech hub with a consortium of over 40 private, academic and public institutions to create a strategic plan to become a national tech hub that will foster the vision of a regional complete supply chain for lithium battery manufacturing. In addition to that, we have been designated as a finalist to apply for a re-compete grant that will help the district develop workforce opportunities through a labor hub and other training modalities to address this region’s highest prime-age unemployment rate in the country. So these are two significant designations and grants that are mobilizing federal attention and tying it to local investments for schools, infrastructure, health care and workforce development. That can be a game-changer for the quality of life of residents in the district, when done correctly.

What needs to be done to increase District 25 constituents’ access to hospitals, and prime and quality primary health-care facilities?

It’s a multi-prong approach. We need to incentivize our federally qualified health centers to become teaching health centers. Studies have shown that the federal investment in teaching health centers will not only produce more physicians in under-represented communities, but they also stay in the under-resourced communities to practice medicine. I say that, because we have a physician shortage crisis that is more pronounced in my district and in our underserved areas.

Next, we need to preserve the federal assistance to hospitals that take on patients that use the Medicaid and Medicare programs. Practically all of our hospitals have a disproportionate amount of patients who are either uninsured, underinsured or were on government insurance due to the level of poverty. So it’s very important to have a sustainable health-care provider workforce. In addition to that, we need more training pipelines starting in junior high through medical school, like the one that I created during my time as senior associate dean for UCR School of Medicine, which is called the Future Physician Leaders Program. We identify increased educational opportunities for kids from our communities who want to be doctors, and create a pipeline to facilitate their education and training in our community, so they stay in our community. And then overall, we need to expand access to the Affordable Care Act and to Medicaid. That will lead to better, and more affordable health-care services. I’m working all of those efforts in the district.

Are you satisfied with the progress made to date, and/or the future plans for saving the Salton Sea and eliminating the health risks it presents?

I’m a very impatient man when it comes to the Salton Sea, and there’s more to do. However, we have seen unprecedented attention and resources from the federal government, as well as the state, that is producing results. Before I got elected, we had no plan, no money and no projects. Since then, we have a 10-year plan. We’ve had investments from the state, and we’ve had $250 million from the federal government designated to the Salton Sea, $70 million of which has already arrived. And there is the opportunity of tying the Lithium Valley opportunity to the revitalization of the Salton Sea to protect the health of surrounding communities. So I am excited about the accomplishments that we have made, and clearly we need to expedite more funding for the projects that we need at the Salton Sea.

Ian Weeks

What are the two most pressing issues facing the constituents in District 25, and how do you plan to address them if you’re re-elected?

So this is an unconventional answer, but the most pressing issue facing constituents in our district is social. It’s the attack on traditional values, and I think the vast majority of our constituents, well over the 50% mark, hold traditional views about family and parental rights. Particularly in California, those are aggressively under attack, but certainly under the Biden administration and during Raul Ruiz’s incumbency, there’s been a heavy attack on these things. I don’t think it’s the role of government to cram ideology down the throats of the constituents. But the reality is that there are real social movements that are very aggressively against the values held by, I think, a majority of our constituents. I think that they need a representative voice that’s going to push back on that.

The second issue is everyday costs. That’s going to be inflation, energy and the bills in the grocery store. Those are the two most pressing issues. Certainly, the border is incredibly important. But the reality is, I think the vast majority of folks are really struggling to pay their bills over the last 3 1/2 years.

The way I intend to handle those issues is, again, on the social front. It’s not about passing a bunch of laws. It’s really about saying that the government needs to stay out of the business of the private citizens. Leave them alone. Allow them to raise their children the way they want to, and as it pertains to what’s happening in schools, simply teach kids to read, write and do basic math. Our education system is failing to do that right now. So the ideological stuff needs to be out, unless and until our education system can prove that they can actually succeed at their core competency.

So again, my prescription for that is not a bunch of laws that I want to pass. It’s taking a leadership role. We’re elected as representatives. That doesn’t mean we need to go pass a bunch of laws; it means that we need to stand up and be the voice of our constituents, and our constituents do not like the radical ideology that’s being pushed, so I will advocate for them.

Then, on the cost of living, it’s very simple. Most of inflation is driven by the fact that we print and spend way too much money. Raul Ruiz has been in Congress for 12 years. He’s been a party to really reckless spending. I’m a certified financial planner. I have a great skill set to bring to the table in terms of sound fiscal management. So, we fix the price at the pump, and we fix the prices at the grocery store, very simply. Stop printing and spending money like lunatics, and go back to the energy policy that we had 3 1/2 years ago, when gas was roughly 60% of the price that it is right now. So, it’s really just going back in time to what was working, and that’s what I’m going to advocate for.

What’s your position on the proposed Chuckwalla National Monument?

I’m always leery of a heightened level of government control over, really, the public’s asset. The land belongs to us. The reality is that most of the land is already owned by the government, so I’m a little suspicious of the idea of saying we need to sort of formalize it as a national monument. I’ve also been in contact with some veterans who do, basically, hobby mining on these lands, in particular on the section near Joshua Tree. They’re very, very concerned that their hobby-mining rights are going to be taken away in this process.

That being said, I’m an outdoorsman. I think God’s creation is a gift, and I think we need to be good stewards of it. So, I’m all for protecting the land. The thing I don’t really understand is that it’s already owned by the government. It’s Bureau of Land Management land; a lot of it, I think, is managed by the federal government in large part already. I know there are locals who are concerned about maybe overreach and more heavy-handed regulation that infringes on their right to enjoy public property. But again, that’s not going to be across the board. Of course, you know, we have access to national parks and things. But I don’t think that the benefits or the advantages of the proposal have been very well explained.

I live in the district, and, again, I spend time out in the outdoors, and I don’t feel like anyone’s made a good case to me why this needs to happen. So, before we go and sort of formalize maybe an even higher level of federal control over a bunch of public land, I would say, “Let’s be cautious.” Let’s proceed with caution.

What’s your position on the extensive renewable-energy infrastructure, particularly industrial-scale solar-energy projects, that are either already built or planned in eastern Riverside and Imperial counties? What do you believe should be done to protect impacted residents, wildlife and natural resources, such as the underground aquifer water supply and the desert ecosystem overall?

I would say on renewables, and particularly these big solar farms, you’ve got some pros, but you’ve certainly got some cons. And again, I’ve spoken with constituents who live adjacent to these facilities, and there is actually a pretty significant environmental impact in a number of ways, as it pertains to putting these things together. I’m a results-oriented guy, so I tend to just look at things as: Is it working, or is it not working? One of the bigger issues in California is that there’s a blind ideological commitment to “green energy.” I would submit to you that it’s really debatable as to how green it is, given the environmental impacts of some of these projects. And then, there’s the production of the solar panels, the materials, the way their mined and where they’re mined. But California has a very strong ideological bent towards “green energy,” and I’m all for clean energy, but we need abundant, affordable energy first, and California has really waged a war against fossil fuels. Ruiz has been complicit in that war. We import a bunch of fossil fuels from other places in the world who probably do not acquire it as cleanly as we could. Often times, it comes from places that don’t like us and don’t share our values. I think we pay more because it has to be shipped here, and we don’t have those jobs here.

Then you get into these solar farms where there are some jobs, but these are projects that last for relatively short durations. These are not long-term infrastructure jobs, like fossil fuels. But I’m all for moving toward the cleanest energy we possibly can. The problem is that the state of California, the Biden regime, along with guys like Ruiz in Congress, their focus has been ideologically driven: “We’ve got to do these things, really, at any cost.” And someone like me, says, “No. We need abundant, affordable energy.” Predominantly, that does still come from fossil fuels. Then we can we can continue to develop green energy, but it has to be economically viable. It has to work.

California has these ideas about shifting to predominantly, if not entirely, wind and solar energy. But we’re not there, and we’re not going to get there by forcing it. So I think the biggest issue as it pertains to these solar farms is really just that it’s the wrong solution. It is not a solution that is bringing abundant, affordable energy to the constituents—and that’s what they need. You know, people like the idea, theoretically, of clean energy, but they’re getting crushed economically because of these strong ideological demands that we do it right now. I’m not going to say, “Oh, well, we can’t do these projects.” But I’ve spoken with constituents who feel ignored, or left out of the conversation about solving a problem that doesn’t appear to be getting solved.

Do you believe the development of the lithium industry as well as the potential related industrial growth will be beneficial to the future of District 25? What will you do to support or oppose that effort?

I think the short answer is obviously yes. I think economic development, and the utilization of natural resources in the district, is probably going to be a net positive. That being said, there are always pros and cons. I know there are significant environmental concerns in the area, and this is an issue that I would honestly say, generally speaking, is probably an easier bipartisan issue. It’s not fundamentally an ideological endeavor. I think Republicans and Democrats, on something like this, agree that economic development is a positive thing for the region. From what I’ve read, and from some of the stakeholders that I’ve spoken to, the focus of guys like Ruiz, or Gavin Newsom, tends to lead with, “Well, what’s in it for the government? What kind of tax revenue can we generate from this?” I’m more in favor of free markets and saying, “Hey, let’s develop the resource. Let’s let private industry make a good economic thing out of this, just like we did with oil.” You know, when oil first came on the scene, private industry played a huge role in developing that, and private industry tends to be best at doing that. Do we need to have government involvement? Sure. But I think it’s a net plus for the region. Again, I think we proceed with caution. But this is an issue that is of great importance to the district.

I would say that, as I’ve spent the last two years speaking with constituents, they’re more concerned about paying their bills day-to-day than they are about lithium development. So I think when people are deciding who they want to represent them, I think the border, and foreign policy, and inflation, and sort of radical social ideology, and energy policy are really the things that people are paying attention to, and that are very partisan. They’re very partisan. They’ve really got a choice to make between what kind of representation they want. Issues like this are not big partisan sticking points. So, I think it’s important. I think it’s a net positive. But I think constituents are frankly focused on other things more close to their day to day lives.

What needs to be done to increase District 25 constituents’ access to hospitals, and prime and quality primary health-care facilities?

My fundamental position is that health care is not the role of the government, state or federal. We saw under the Obama administration the creation of the Affordable Care Act, and Ruiz arrived right around the time that was going on, and he’s been a champion of it. While I believe that it is not the role of the government in the first place, it’s a reality that the government is heavily involved in the health-care industry. And I guess my indictment of the issue, fundamentally, is people have never paid more for health care than they are right now. Certainly, for folks who are receiving it heavily subsidized or “free,” that’s a different matter. But a lot of those folks are finding that the quality of care they receive is very poor. And it’s my experience, and my view, that when the government guarantees economic value items, like health care, or mortgages before 2008, they spend an enormous amount of money, and they deliver very poor quality. A good example of that would be the homeless crisis in California. They spent $24 billion in the last several years, and the homeless problem has not improved. It’s gotten worse. And worse yet, they can’t account for the money. So I realize that’s a separate matter, but really, they’re part and parcel of the same thing. The government tends to get involved in solving problems, where they waste inordinate amounts of money, and deliver very poor results.

So I think that we need to fundamentally reassess. We don’t have more options for health insurance policies now; we have fewer options. I used to have a catastrophic plan for my family. We’re all young, relatively healthy people. So, we paid very, very, very low premiums, and we had high deductibles. But I had it for great emergencies, where I’ve got a massive bill. That really made sense for me and my family. It doesn’t exist anymore. You know, I had a high-deductible plan up until a couple of years ago, and between me and my company, we paid $18,000 a year, and I still had, like, a $10,000 deductible. That’s crazy. And that’s all happened post-Obamacare, and post-Raul Ruiz being in Congress for 12 years. So I think we need to go back in the direction of free markets, more competition, and the ability for insurance companies to design policies that are actually desired by the customer. More competition and more choice are the answers. And Raul Ruiz and his party have been driving us year after year after year toward universal health care. And I would simply submit: Is the health care system broken? Yes. Have they fixed it? Again, in Ruiz’s case, in 12 years in the U.S. Congress, has he made it better? No. And he’s a medical doctor. So, again, I’m a certified financial planner. I solve financial problems, and our country is over $34 trillion in debt. Health care has a lot to do with that. I don’t think we need a medical doctor to fix that problem. I think we need a financial professional, and that’s what I am.

Are you satisfied with the progress made to date, and/or the future plans for saving the Salton Sea and eliminating the health risks it presents?

Short answer is, no, I’m not satisfied. I’m not satisfied because the problem isn’t solved. And I am a constituent; I do live in the district. However, I live on the other side of the mountain, a very large mountain. So, it doesn’t matter as much if I’m satisfied. What matters is when you talk to folks who live down around the Salton Sea, where there are still very significant concerns. And I will say that I think meaningful efforts have been made to try to solve the ecological and the health challenges down there. Once again, I think that’s an issue that’s not super ideological, or partisan. I think that Raul Ruiz has had an opportunity to learn a lot about that issue. I think he’s been making a sincere effort to try to solve the problem. But I will say again that he and his party tend to focus on how the government can do the job, and I am certainly more for a free-market approach. I think they’ve done some things to try to do like a public-private partnership. But again, I don’t really think that is an issue, a super divisive issue, that the district has to decide (regarding) who’s going to do the best job on the Salton Sea restoration. I think that both of us are perfectly capable and competent human beings who can learn about the issue and who can solve it.

I think that a more conservative free markets minded approach is probably superior, but that’s not really what this election is going to be about. This election is going to be about pocketbook issues, massively high energy costs, the price at the pump, the price at the grocery store, a wide-open border, and that we’re embroiled in conflicts all over the world. The decision points for the voters in our district are not the Chuckwalla National Monument and Lithium Valley. They are federal policy that is running the country into the ground. And we’re not going to be able to develop lithium, we’re not going to be able to solve the problems that we have at the Salton Sea, we’re not going to be able to provide quality health care, if our country takes a complete nosedive—and we are well down that path. So, I think there’s a lot more work to be done. I think that I’m just as competent, if not more so, than my opponent to tackle those challenges. But his decisions on policy, that drive inflation and that are crushing the working-class person in our district, those are the reasons that I’m the better choice for the people in our district.