Kevin McCarthy’s last day in Congress is set. Here’s when a special election could happen

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

MCCARTHY RESIGNATION DATE IS SET, AND THE RACE IS ON

Via Gillian Brassil...

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, tendered his resignation from Congress Tuesday, indicating he’d officially leave that body on Dec. 31.

That means once McCarthy’s resignation becomes official, California Gov. Gavin Newsom will be required within two weeks to call for a special election to fill the remainder of his term.

That could set up a situation where there are essentially two elections at once, one to fill the rest of McCarthy’s term and the other for the full two year term that begins in January 2025.

Both primaries could occur March 5.

If no candidate gets a majority of the votes in the special election primary, a runoff would take place in May. In the full two-year term race, the top two candidates in the March primary would compete in November.

California’s 20th district, which holds parts of Kern, Tulare, Kings and Fresno counties, will almost certainly go to a Republican, analysts say.

There are several GOP contenders who are running to succeed McCarthy in the full term election who could decide to run in the special election too, including Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, business owner David Giglio, former fighter pilot Matt Stoll, California City Mayor Kelly Kulikoff and Fresno businessman Kyle Kirkland. Democrats Marisa Wood, a Bakersfield school teacher, and Andy Morales, who works in private security.

California’s secretary of state said that Assemblyman Vince Fong could not run in the contest for a full congressional term next year because he had already qualified in his Assembly district. Fong intends to file suit over the decision in the Sacramento County Superior Court Wednesday morning, his campaign confirmed.

The Bee asked the secretary of state if Fong, R-Bakersfield, would be allowed to run in the special election — though doing so would be unlikely given the term for the special election ends on Jan. 3, 2025, after the next Assembly convenes on Dec. 2, 2024.

THE U.S. HAS FORGIVEN MORE THAN $7 BILLION IN STUDENT LOAN DEBT

Via Gillian Brassil...

The Biden administration has forgiven over $7 billion in student loan debt for more than 130,000 California borrowers, the U.S. Secretary of Education said in an interview with The Bee.

A lot of this relief came through fixes to federal loan programs geared toward teachers, nurses, public servants and veterans and income-driven repayment plans, said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.

Before changes, Cardona said, “That system was leaving folks in great debt with very little return on investment.”

With this and other changes, the administration has approved over $132 billion in relief for more than 3.6 million Americans.

One of President Joe Biden’s campaign promises was to provide widespread relief to student loan borrowers. But the Supreme Court rejected his trademark plan to provide up to $20,000 in relief to some borrowers, prompting the administration to look at a different method under a rulemaking process.

Biden also released a new repayment plan based on eligible borrowers’ income, the SAVE plan, to halve monthly payments.

Federal student loan payments paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. About 40% of 22 million borrowers missed their first payment after that pause lifted this fall, the Education Department said last week.

Borrowers who miss payments through September 2024 won’t be reported as delinquent or in default as a way to ease burdens coming out of the pandemic. Interest is still accruing.

Cardona, a first-generation college student himself, said he’d tell students fearful of loan debt that, “I was once in their shoes.”

“It does make sense to go to college. It does make sense to invest in yourself,” he said. “And for the students that are afraid of the price tag, there are ways that you could find a cost efficient way to get a degree.”

“We are working with high schools to make sure that all students, including students of color, have access to college,” Cardona said. “This is not only important for Black and brown students, this is important for our country.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The fundamentals of this presidential race remain strongly in favor of an incumbent re-election — possibly by as large a margin as 1996. None of the recent polls are telling me anything different at this point in the race. Biden’s problems are fixable, and the campaign doesn’t seem strong but it’s early. The race will start taking shape by late March.”

- Mike Madrid, California GOP strategist, via Threads.

Best of The Bee:

• Two more Sacramento-area men have been arrested and charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, including one tracked down by the FBI after he allegedly bragged to passengers on a plane that he was in the “second wave” of protesters who breached the U.S. Capitol building that day, via Sam Stanton.

• Sacramento city officials violated state law last week when they asked council to vote to give City Manager Howard Chan a raise and, following questions from The Sacramento Bee, have decided to redo the vote, via Theresa Clift.

• After months of waiting, California state employees represented by the largest state worker union will soon receive the raises they won after a fraught summer of contract bargaining, via Maya Miller.

• Tech giant Google could soon pay hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution to consumers who made purchases on the Google Play Store between August 2016 and September 2023, via Andrew Sheeler.