By request, here are links to Davisite articles about Eric Jones’s bid to unseat Mike Thompson in the House, plus his recent donation #s (as best as I can determine them), for easy sharing with friends & on social media. I will try to keep this post updated. – Roberta
*** This is a pinned post — scroll down if you’re on the main page looking for new Davisite articles on other topics
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By John Smolenski
I wrote previously about my disappointing experience at the townhall Eric Jones held in Davis on August 26. I had previously looked at Eric Jones’s website, ericjones.us, before the townhall, simply to get a sense of him and his campaign. This reinforced my impression of Jones. It also caused me to look back at how Jones’s ideas have evolved over time. This made me question Jones as a candidate even more. Jones announced his candidacy for Congress on August 17, 2025. Over the last year, his views have undergone remarkable transformations. He has undergone a significant shift to the right, especially after the June primary. Some major issues he previously championed have disappeared from view. His political values seem like a moving target. I have been left wondering what Jones actually stands for, on key issues.
This is all drawn from ericjones.us, looking at the website as it now stands and earlier versions that can be found at the Wayback Machine. I have provided links for all screen shots.
The issues I will explore here are: immigration; taxes; housing and renting; balanced budget amendment and sunsetting programs; and abortion, childcare, and transparency. I know this article is long, so readers can scroll down to find a particular item they might be interested in.
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By Elaine Roberts Musser and Dan Carson
Measure W -Willowgrove is the latest housing development to come up for consideration under Measure J/R/D. This measure is the City of Davis law that requires a majority vote of the public to annex farmland or open space to our city for urban development.
As you assess the merits of this project, it’s important to understand where we stand today. The state has imposed mandatory requirements for communities like ours to rezone the land needed for additional housing. These requisites include additional units of low income housing, as well as housing for moderate income persons who work in Davis but cannot afford to live here. Our failure to comply with these mandates would, without question, trigger state intervention to force our compliance with state housing policy.
That state intervention could even result in state action to override Measure J/R/D itself. The last legislative session saw strongly bipartisan approval in the Assembly of AB 2676. This bill would have curbed the use of local initiatives and referenda, that are widely being used around the state to block cities from meeting their state-mandated housing obligations. AB 2676 did not pass the Senate, but has momentum, and will almost certainly be reconsidered in some form in next year’s legislative session.
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By John Smolenski
I went to the town hall Eric Jones held on August 26 at Watermelon Music. I came away from the town hall without a clear sense of why Jones is running for Congress in District 4 and what he hopes to accomplish. This emerged as he talked about the policies hoped to enact if elected to Congress. (That he showed more enthusiasm regarding an endorsement from Republican candidate Raymond Riehle than he did for the Democratic party’s goals seemed telling.) Comparing what he said at his town hall to what I found re-reading his website only compounded this sense. It’s not entirely clear what Jones stands for, especially since his policies have moved significantly to the right since the primary, as he sought Riehle’s endorsement. In many respects, it seems as if this movement has happened less as a ideological evolution than an opportunistic attempt to get elected. I do not believe Jones is a viable choice for progressives seeking change in Washington.
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A continuation of the deceptive tactics we’ve seen since the primary
By Roberta Millstein
Last week, a Davisite reader sent me two versions of the same “Eric Jones for Congress” flyer that had been left at homes on her North Davis street on the same day. The one she received seems clearly pitched to Democrats; the other one, which she found near her driveway, is strikingly different and seems instead to be pitched to Republicans, which some of her neighbors on her block are. [1] To paraphrase her reaction, “How stupid does Eric Jones think we are?”
Now to be clear, this is not the first time we have seen this sort of behavior from the Eric Jones campaign. After months of playing the progressive, e.g., with a mailer that touted his endorsement from Our Revolution and implied (falsely) that he had been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna, he:
But this does seem like a new low, pandering to Democrats and Republicans alike, trying to be everything to everybody, while still ridiculously claiming to be against PACs and special interests — even though his former Silicon Valley Dragoneer Investment Group colleagues and associates have dumped millions of dollars into his campaign via direct donations and a Super PAC. And he is still trying to tout his health care experience as being good for employees and patients, when the evidence shows otherwise.
Why do I say that these flyers are pandering?
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Public Invited to New Exhibit on Native Californian Stewardship
(From press release) Over 90% of the Sacramento Valley’s wetlands have been destroyed over the past 150 years, contributing to today’s interrelated extinction, climate and water crises. Naturalist, artist, and Maidu/Wintun Cultural Practitioner Diana Almendariz is working diligently – with plants such as tule and cattail, and with artists, youth, land managers, and scientists – to reverse this significant loss.
A leader in revitalizing Native Californian stewardship through cultural burning and Native plant restoration, Almendariz brings to life indigenous knowledge that was once targeted for erasure and genocide. In a sign of changing times and attitudes, the Sacramento Bee recently recognized Almendariz as one of the region’s top change makers. She praises tule – a keystone wetland species — for renewing her cultural traditions.
“Tule has been my creative muse for 30 years. This important reed is at the heart of the marsh economy – drawing down carbon from the atmosphere, creating rich soil, cleaning water, and cultivating the valley’s rich food web. By restoring wetlands, we can revitalize the natural systems that are key to a livable future,” explains Almendariz.
A new exhibit, Good Fire, Living Water: The Gifts of a Marsh Economy, opening on September 20th at the Davis Art Center, showcases Almendariz’ multifaceted eco-cultural practice that spans the arts, education, Native homeland culture, and environmental stewardship. The exhibit highlights how she is passing on this vital knowledge to the next generation of Native cultural practitioners – her daughters Ooti Maxine and Christina Almendariz.
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By Bertie Brouhard
“Her” is his wife of 60-plus years; his rock, his foundation, his compass, his true love who always addressed or referred to him as “Lawrence.” To most he was Larry Burdick. But to the many who knew and appreciated his special gift; especially those in his vast bicycling community which included The Davis Bike Club” he was “The Legend.”
Born and raised in Haileyville , Oklahoma, where he played high school football after graduation he joined the Army. Stationed outside Davis at what was later DQ University he met Delores “Dee” from Knights Landing. They raised two sons on L Street and Dee retired from jobs in food service and Larry from a long career in the Nutrition Dept. at UCD.
Our college town with its rapidly expanding university is crammed full of residents who are well read, published, educated, traveled, heeled and thought of. However, it lays claim to only a few true “Legends.” Newsworthy, famous maybe, but not “Legendary.”
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Harvey’s Coffee approaches 200 monthly subscribers, every bag roasted by hand on a machine built in the early 1900s
(From press release) Close to 200 people around the country get their coffee from a backyard in Davis, roasted four bags at a time by a high school senior. Harvey Uyeyama learned on that machine in June 2024, the night his father asked if he wanted to give it a try.
“He had been roasting coffee pretty much my whole life,” Uyeyama said.
His father died of a heart attack on Harvey’s 15th birthday. Two weeks later, the church needed coffee for the funeral service, and Harvey roasted it alone for the first time.
“I’d never roasted coffee fully by myself before, and it was a learning curve. I can’t tell you how many batches I probably ruined that night,” he said. “Everyone who drank the coffee at the funeral was like, ‘this is really, really good coffee. This is too good coffee for a funeral.’ And I was like, huh, maybe that’s a sign.”
Harvey’s Coffee now roasts every Friday and delivers every Saturday across Davis, shipping the rest of the country from the same backyard — New Mexico, Iowa, New York. The business is closing in on 200 monthly subscribers.
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By David Kupfer
The summer of 2026 has witnessed the quiet, heavy closing of an era. With the recent passings of population biologist Paul R. Ehrlich, radical theater pioneer R.G. “Ronny” Davis, and most recently, the visionary agrarian writer Wendell Berry on August 31, we have lost a singular trinity of American defiance. Operating in vastly different arenas—the university laboratory, the public park, and the rural hillside—these three men were bound by a shared, ferocious commitment to shaking humanity out of its industrial complacency. To have known them as friends and mentors over the decades was to witness the rare alchemy of brilliant intellect wedded to an uncompromising moral compass. Now, as the dust settles on their long lives, their final, intimate moments reveal the heavy burden borne by those who dare to speak truth to a civilization bent on its own consumption.
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By Judy Tipple
His campaign biography says his father’s health struggles taught him “how critical affordable health care” is to working families (ericjones.us/meet-eric). It says he “built a firm that built businesses.” It lists Lyra Health as a company he helped make “accessible to millions.”
Fair enough. Let’s look at the businesses.
His job was healthcare
Jones joined Dragoneer Investment Group in 2013 and became a partner 4 years later, where he remained until he resigned in July 2025. Not an employee. A partner. His sector title at the firm was “Partner – Healthcare, Fintech, Internet” (RocketReach profile; his LinkedIn will confirm). Healthcare was not a side interest. It was his book.
So the question is simple. When Jones and Dragoneer put money into healthcare, who was the customer?
Seven companies. Same answer.
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