• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) hosted his annual Cafecito Con El Congresista event on Oct. 16 in Santa Barbara. Carbajal founded the program in 2017 to bring together Central Coast Latino community members and elected officials for an open forum to discuss local and national issues. In a statement from Carbajal’s office, the congressman described Cafecito Con El Congresista as “an annual opportunity for our community to continue celebrating our heritage and the many contributions Latinos make to our country and the Central Coast, … coming right on the heels of Hispanic Heritage Month.” This year’s Cafecito Con El Congresista program included Q-and-A sessions with Carbajal’s special guests: California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra and State Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara). “To me, Latino Heritage Month is not just one day or one month—we must live and follow our values every day,” Becerra said in an Oct. 20 press release, “and I believe that as difficult as things are, California still has the best days ahead of it. … I’ve had the privilege to experience leadership in California, in Washington, D.C., and I’ve learned that Californians must continue to be the leaders of this nation.” In the release, Carbajal thanked Becerra and Limón for attending the event and “sharing the stories of their incredible public service journeys.” Other event attendees included local community members along with representatives from the California State Assembly, Santa Barbara County, city of Santa Maria, city of Guadalupe, and other local jurisdictions. Limón said she was honored to “close out Hispanic Heritage Month” alongside Carbajal, Becerra, and other community leaders. “It was great to be able to share the work of the state Senate, how we are working to protect all Californians, and utilizing all branches of government to better the state,” Limón stated in the release.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed a California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, alumna to the 24-A District Agricultural Association—Kings County Fair Board on Oct. 23. Currently registered without a party preference, Venoma “Nomie” Bengel-Kautz studied agricultural business/crop science at Cal Poly SLO before taking on leadership roles with Sanwa Bank between 1983 and 2000 and Fresno Madera Farm Credit from 2000 to 2022.
• In an Oct. 21 letter addressed to multiple CEOs of major technology developers, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) and other legislators urged company executives to ensure their platforms and tools help protect the integrity of the November general election, while supporting “free, fair, and secure elections.” Padilla and other lawmakers who signed the letter underscored the need for social media and technology companies to do their part to promote election security. They outlined the potential risk to elections created by the spread of false information through social media platforms and artificial intelligence. “Much of the United States—and the world—searches for and receives information from American search engines, American chatbots, and American social media platforms. These connections create opportunities for Americans to come together and debate important topics and share information,” the letter stated. “But they also create vectors for foreign adversaries and domestic actors to easily and quickly reach—and manipulate—large audiences. … Public reporting indicates that Russia continues to undermine confidence in U.S. elections through disinformation campaigns executed directly on many of your platforms; though such efforts clearly violate your terms of service, some of your companies have not quickly or consistently removed such content.” The letter scrutinized some company’s current fact-checking policies “woefully insufficient or even nonexistent, allowing false, manipulated, and misleading content to continue to circulate on your platforms unchecked.”
This article appears in October 29 – November 5, 2026.
