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Megan Dahle, a Republican, won her assembly seat in a 2019 special election over Democratic challenger Elizabeth Betancourt after having raised “more money than any other candidate in the district at the time of the special election primaries in August,” according to Capitol Weekly.
Elected to finish out the term of her husband, Brian Dahle, after his election to the California State Senate, Megan Dahle was active in her first term in the legislature, serving on five committees and introducing legislation related to broadband infrastructure, unemployment benefits, and disaster relief, among other things.
Dahle faced Betancourt again in the 2020 general election, this time increasing her victory margin by a little more than two percentage points. In the November 2022 election, she ran against Democrat Belle Starr Sandwith and got 62 percent of the vote.
Background
Dahle and her husband are dryland wheat farmers, with her legislative website noting that “the wheat that they grow is processed for seed, which is sold to local farmers and wholesalers alike.” Married for more than two decades, they have three children.
Committees
Appropriations
Business and Professions
Education
Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials
Water, Parks and Wildlife (vice chair)
Select Legislation
AB 2034: Dahle’s bill, introduced in January 2020, would have defined “frontier school districts” as having fewer than 600 students and with county population densities below 10 people for each square mile. The bill was referred to the Education committee and received no votes before dying in August 2020.
AB 2041: This bill, which also died in August 2020, would have provided $15,000 tax credits for businesses with fewer than 10 employees hiring foster youth and ex-offenders between the ages of 18 and 25.
District boundaries and office locations
Pick a spot in northeastern California and there’s a reasonable chance Megan Dahle represents it in the assembly. Her vast, rural district is larger than some states, as California requires one assembly member for roughly every 450,000 residents. District 1 spans all or parts of Alpine, Amador, El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, and Siskiyou counties and includes the cities or communities of Truckee, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Redding, and Susanville.
