A note on the passing of Rep. Doug LaMalfa

FOR sends its condolences out to the family of U.S. Representative Doug La Malfa (R-Richvale), who passed away on January 6 during surgery following a medical emergency. Doug, a prominent rice farmer, had been a fixture of the northern Sacramento Valley Republican political establishment for decades, serving in both the State legislature and then the Congress. 

Doug was not a snowflake. I am sure that he would have agreed. He regularly characterized environmentalists as “extreme environmentalists” and was consistently rewarded for this by his voters with reelection after reelection. 

I had always left dealing with him to other members of the FOR staff, mostly the longtime Chico resident Steve Evans. As you might imagine, Doug was not much of an advocate for wild & scenic rivers — in his district or anywhere else. 

So my first one-on-one encounter with Doug was at a 2018-era meeting of the Department of Water Resources Oroville Spillway Disaster and Recovery Ad hoc group chaired by State Senator Jim Nielsen (R-Red Bluff), and Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City). Within the Ad hoc, I was treated with respect, even as a colleague, including, although to a more limited degree, by the Department. 

Doug had always sent staff to the Ad hoc but had decided to attend that day, so at the meeting he had to figure out the internal political landscape of the Ad hoc. Unfortunately for him, he found himself agreeing with me, no doubt a bewildering experience. I wasn’t the only one in the room, too, who could see his confusion. One commentator used the Peaceable Kingdom metaphor; you know, with the lion lying down with the lamb, although it was probably unclear which was which. 

Doug, of course, was unchanged. He went on to back the proposed Shasta Dam raise and the Sites Reservoir. One of his prouder accomplishments was to help land a $449.2 million U.S. Department of Agriculture loan for the 1.5-million-acre-feet Sites Reservoir. 

Of course, here at Friends of the River, Doug’s crowning achievement was at President Trump’s January 2025 press event on the Los Angeles-area urban fires. 

Doug, addressing the President (see YouTube time 46:20)

Doug, addressing the President (see Youtube video), began some rambling complaints about Shasta and Folsom “Lakes” releasing more water than inflows into the drought-affected reservoirs. Of course, that’s actually supposed to happen during droughts.

However, the President’s response went in an entirely different direction than Doug or the other officials expected.

Here are the words of the President: 

You know you don’t even need reservoirs with the water coming down. You don’t need the reservoir. You have so much water, you don’t need it. You only have the reservoirs because you tried to hold the water. But you have natural water coming down, along the coast. It’s, for a million years it’s been coming. You know that, right? In addition to that, you have a lot of half pipes. In other words, you have the half pipe that’s filled, and it hasn’t been used. You see it’s bone dry. No water has been in that half pipe, for a, years and years. Closed up years ago.

Read the full Headwaters article “Trump Declares War on California Water HERE.

President Trump describing the path of water from the Columbia River to Southern California to Rep. LaMalfa. Credit: Screenshot from Forbes Breaking News on Youtube. 

The no-doubt stunned Congressman could only reply “Yes” to the President’s request for confirmation of the President’s recitation of the “facts” (that the natural course of the Columbia River is to Southern California). 

Here at Friends of the River, we had already put together a piece on the President’s campaign-trail misfires on the subject (see the Halloween-special Headwaters Online piece), (although, in retrospect, giving the President credit for way more erudition than it turns out he deserved). So we, at least, were not surprised by the President’s January 2025 remarks on the matter. 

It was all comedy gold, of course, and fortunately without a lot of grim consequences among a sea of Presidential grim consequences. So, thank you, Doug La Malfa, for teasing out that precious piece of Presidential wisdom. It deserved a chuckle! 

Addendum: 

Governor Newsom will have to call a special election to fill the seat of this solidly GOP congressional district, likely in the upcoming June primary. Assemblyman James Gallagher has announced his intention to run in La Malfa’s existing but shortlived district boundaries. However, this district was reapportioned by the voters and is expected to lean Democratic in the November 2026 election until the state election commission takes back control of the district lines after the end-of-decade census. So there could be some big changes coming for the 2027 district and for Mr. Gallagher.