Is This What You Were Trying to Say, Rep Fong? A rebuttal by Candidate for US Congress Congressional District 20, Sandra Van Scotter

July 24, 2026

What you were supposed to take away, and what actually happened

If you read the Bakersfield Californian's July 22 story by John Cox, about the National Defense Authorization Act commonly being called the NDAA, here is what you probably came away with: Congress passed something. Kern County got something out of it. A supersonic test corridor is coming to Edwards. Money is moving. Rep Fong is looking out for you, for us. 

Go back and read it again. Not one of those things is happening. 

To be clear, the reporting was accurate. Every fact in that story checks out. The  US House of Representatives that we elected did pass the bill. Congressman Fong did author the amendment. The R-2508 complex is real and so is the Point Mugu Sea Range. Nobody printed anything categorically false.

And yet you finished it believing a thing happened.  That thing? It has not happened.

And that is worth understanding, because it is going to happen many times between now and November. In fact, it happens an awful lot under this current Administration. Two more weeks. Two more weeks. It’s all going to change in two weeks. 

Start with the headline. A bill "OK'd by House." OK'd sounds finished. All it means is that one of two chambers voted on one of two different versions of a bill, and the other chamber has not agreed to any of it.

Now look at who is talking. Four people are quoted in that story. The Princeton elite,  Republican Congressmember, the head of a Ridgecrest nonprofit, the California lead of a technology accelerator, and a second congressmember from the next district over. All four quotes came from press releases issued by two congressional offices on July 22. Both releases are public. I checked every quote against them. They match word for word.

I am not going to guess at why it was written that way. I have no idea.   What I can do is show you where the meaning changed.

The congressmember's own release says the two ranges "encompass over 56,000 square miles of world-class testing capacity." Encompass. They already do. The article turned that into a study on "opening more than 56,000 square miles of testing capacity." 

Opening. One word, and a range that has existed since 1946 becomes something Kern County is about to be given.

It happens again with the pay raise. The Armed Services Committee's own summary says the bill "supports the President's 5-7% pay increase."  Supports. Both congressmembers' releases say the bill "provides" the raise. The article says it "would give" one. The word “supports” was changed to tell us it “provides” became “give” and a bill that funds a request from the White House turned into a bill that hands money to troops.

While nobody lied at any step, read the documents in order and you can watch the meaning shift.  The issue that we see over and over again is that Americans are too busy and too overwhelmed with the current affordability crisis to be verifying descriptor words used by a politician. 

Here is where things actually stand.

The US Congress House of Representatives passed its version on July 22 by four votes, 216 to 212. Eight days earlier, the Senate's version failed to advance, 50 to 46. Nothing becomes law until they reconcile it and the President signs.

The corridor item is a directed study with no money attached. It was never voted on by itself. It went into the bill inside a package of 54 amendments, disposed of in forty minutes on a voice vote. Not one member is on record supporting it by name.

The construction project the story mentions is $4.5 million, a figure the article never prints, to build a vehicle search area at a gate. Under the stopgap the House passed the same week, projects not already underway cannot start. It does not break ground this fall.

And here is the part that matters most in this district. The story did not mention it at all.

In March, the Pentagon notified Congress it intended to close the health clinic at Edwards Air Force Base to everyone except active duty members and their dependents. Retirees? Out. The civilian employees and contractors who make that base run? Out. At Naval Health Clinic Lemoore, it intended to end operating room services.

Section 705 of this bill stops both, orders any steps already taken reversed within thirty days, and requires staffing restored. I spent thirty years as a respiratory therapist. I have watched a department quietly close a service line because it could not fill the positions and then call it a realignment. Section 705 is written to stop exactly that. To reverse the damage done in March. It is the most important thing in that bill for this district and it did not make the article. Why is that?

It is also not law, and it may not become law, because of something else nobody voted on. The day before passage, the House adopted a rule by just three votes directing the Clerk to staple a restrictive voter ID measure onto the glorified 1.5 Trillion Dollar defense bill on its way to the Senate for approval.  House Members never voted on the combined text. Republicans who rejected the same tactic and additional measure, called it a procedural head fake, because the Senate can strip it out. Oh, the games they play. 

So a Voter ID measure, that will probably be removed by the Senate anyway, now stands between military families here and clinics that we need to stay open. And we wait. 

The Central Valley deserves better than a press release. You do. I do. Our Veterans and our children do. Ask what passed into law, what is real, ask what became law, and ask what the difference is between that and this article glorifying Rep. Fong for essentially nothing. The difference is usually the whole story.

Note: Sandra Van Scotter is a Candidate for Congressional District 20 running against Rep Vince Fong.   Ms. Van Scotter maintains that the CV deserves better in a rep. She claims that she is engaged and willing to meet the residents where they are - Sandra shows up. If you would like to reach out to Sandra and discuss any of your concerns about the Central Valley and how you are represented in the US Congress, you can contact her team here:   TeamSandra@ElectSandraVanScotter.com