Jasmeet Bains
Jasmeet Kaur Bains is an American physician and politician serving as a member of the California State Assembly for the 35th State Assembly district|35th] district since 2022. Bains is the first South Asian American woman and Sikh American elected to the body. She is considered to be one of the most moderate Democrats in the Assembly.
Early life and education
Bains was born in Delano, California, to Punjabi Sikh immigrants from India, where her father started as an auto mechanic then owned car dealerships and her mother was a bookkeeper. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006 and a Doctor of Medicine from the American University of Antigua in 2013.Career
Bains was working at her father's Chevrolet dealership in Taft, California, at the beginning of the Great Recession and decided to go into the medical field after witnessing people lose their jobs and health insurance.From 2015 to 2018, Bains was a resident physician at Clinica Sierra Vista in Bakersfield, California. She worked as a family medicine physician at Omni Family Health from 2018 to 2020. In 2017, Bains was appointed to the California Healthcare Workforce Policy Commission by California Governor Jerry Brown. She also served as a member of the California Developmental Services Taskforce and as a volunteer physician for the California [Emergency Medical Services Authority]. She is currently a family doctor at Adventist Health's Delano branch.
California State Assembly
Elections
Bains was first elected to the California State Assembly for the 35th district in November 2022, defeating fellow Democrat Kern County Supervisor Leticia Perez with 60% of the vote. The district is majority Latino and located within Kern County.She was re-elected in 2024, defeating Republican candidate Robert Rosas with 57% of the vote.
Tenure
In August 2023, Bains sponsored a bill recognizing the Sikh genocide">Punjabi Sikhs">Sikh genocide and received numerous threats afterwards from men, who appeared to be of Indian origin. She also co-sponsored state senator Aisha Wahab's SB 403 which would ban caste discrimination.Oil and gas
Bains has voted against numerous Democratic proposals and with Republicans on bills that would harm the California [oil and gas industry]. In April 2023, Speaker Anthony Rendon removed Bains from the Assembly Business and Professions Committee after she was the lone Democrat to vote against a bill targeting oil companies over gas price gouging. She was reinstated a month later and stated that her vote represented Kern County's interests as an oil-producing region.In June 2025, Bains demanded Liane Randolph resign as chair of the California Air Resources Board for raising gas prices.
Healthcare
In September 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Bains' "Grow Our Own" bill which would mandate and establish a new funding pool for the creation of a new University of California medical school located in Kern County to address healthcare disparities in the region.In April 2025, Bains stated "I am completely offended by the comments made about healthcare for undocumented immigrants...The idea that covering undocumented healthcare will increase healthcare costs is a completely nonsensical argument" after Republicans argued for cutting Medi-Cal access to undocumented immigrants.
Public safety
Bains supported Proposition 36 in 2024, which would increase penalties for certain theft and drug offenses.In April 2025, Bains introduced a bill to raise the minimum sentencing of child torture from seven to twenty years. In May, Bains wrote a letter to the California Attorney General's office questioning why the former Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner was charged with child cruelty and possession of an assault rifle instead of child sexual abuse charges. The California Department of Justice responded saying that it only filed charges that could be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt."