The Washington Report

The Washington Report

Political giant, mentor and role model: Silicon Valley mourns Dianne Feinstein

Silicon Valley leaders and politicos are mourning the death of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein—the longest serving female senator in history. She was 90. Feinstein was a historic fixture in California politics and won election to the U.S. Senate in 1992 after a political career in San Francisco. After a series of health struggles and an...

Silicon Valley congressman tours computer chip facility

Silicon Valley has long been at the forefront of next generation technology from microprocessors and integrated circuits, to cutting-edge software and internet companies that have changed the global landscape. One Silicon Valley congressmember doesn’t want his region to lose that edge. Rep. Ro Khanna stopped in Sunnyvale on Tuesday to tour Applied Materials, a semiconductor...

Silicon Valley congressmember’s visibility attracts donors

Silicon Valley Congressmember Ro Khanna has been making headlines this year—and his campaign finances indicate he’s seeing a huge return on making himself more visible. Khanna said his growing contributions can be attributed to his greater visibility on high-profile issues including a number of Supreme court decisions and the failure of Silicon Valley Bank,  as...

San Jose State University gets millions in federal STEM funding

San Jose State University is getting millions in federal funds to bolster STEM research and education, with more than half the money going toward encouraging low-income students to pursue careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. More than $4.4 million is coming to the university through the National Science Foundation, an independent...

Silicon Valley private colleges lose affirmative action

Race has been wiped from the college application process, an approach used for decades to screen minority students in helping them to attend colleges or universities. Yesterday’s 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action will color-blind the applicant pool nationwide. But California has been operating without this legal requirement since 1996, when voters passed...

Silicon Valley lawmaker explores legislation after bank collapse

Two weeks after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse left thousands of businesses reeling, one Silicon Valley lawmaker is exploring legislation to ensure it doesn’t happen again. At a discussion in Santa Clara on Saturday with nonprofit and business leaders, Congressman Ro Khanna announced he’s crafting legislation that would require banks to pay higher premiums to the...

Congressman discusses why Silicon Valley Bank failed

Congressman Ro Khanna led efforts to ensure depositors of Silicon Valley Bank could withdraw their funds following the largest collapse of a U.S. financial institution since the 2008 mortgage meltdown. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took control of Silicon Valley Bank last week after uncertainty about its solvency led to a run on the bank,...

‘A concentration camp’: San Jose advocates protest inhumane detention centers

Tears fell from the eyes of a mother of a detained immigrant who has been on a hunger strike for 14 days. Eighty-four detained immigrants, including four from Santa Clara County, continue their hunger strike in protest of abhorrent treatment at the Mesa Verde Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center in Bakersfield and the Golden...