A Sacramento city councilwoman now running for a seat in Congress has repeatedly turned her back on the American flag and refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at official proceedings, then celebrated the act on social media with a #FreePalestine hashtag.
Mai Vang, who is challenging longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui in California's 7th Congressional District primary, refused the Pledge at district meetings on January 22 and March 26, 2025, and again at a Sacramento City Council meeting on July 1, 2025. She also declined to participate at a Veterans Day ceremony. The pattern stretches over months and across multiple types of public events.
In a February 2025 Facebook post, Vang laid out her reasoning in her own words:
"This is exactly why I choose not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance during every council meeting. As much as I love this country, I use that moment to ground myself, to center our communities and remind myself of the injustices and harm that continue to affect so many, both locally and across the globe, under this nation's influence."
The post continued with language about resistance and complacency, closing with a call to "stay steadfast in the fight for equity, justice & humanity." She tagged it #FreePalestine.
Vang is not a fringe protest candidate. She is polling neck-and-neck with Matsui and slightly ahead of Republican Zachariah Wooden, according to the New York Post. The June primary will determine the top two finishers in a newly redrawn district that now includes more conservative communities like Lodi, Placerville, and El Dorado Hills, places where turning your back on the flag at a Veterans Day event is not a résumé builder.
What makes Vang's refusal particularly notable is that the pushback is not coming only from Republicans. Steve Maviglio, a Democratic political consultant based in Sacramento, called her actions "completely disrespectful to veterans and their families."
"It's 'Patriotism 101,' you say the Pledge of Allegiance even if you don't agree with everything. You can't say the Pledge of Allegiance, that's how extreme you are? Come on."
That is a Democrat talking. When your own party's consultants are publicly questioning whether you can clear the most basic threshold of civic respect, the problem is not partisan spin. It is conduct.
The pattern of Democratic candidates caught in moments that reveal their real instincts keeps growing. In Vang's case, the moment was not a hot-mic accident. She chose it, repeated it, and posted about it.
Republican candidate Zachariah Wooden, a first-time candidate competing in the same primary, framed the issue in blunt terms.
"To hear that somebody wants to be a sitting member of US Congress and appears to be disinterested in the major symbols of American pride and what it means to be an American, it's not just disappointing, it's malicious."
Wooden added that "a lot of her rhetoric is a rejection of our basic American values." In a district that recently absorbed conservative-leaning communities east of Sacramento, that argument may find traction with voters who did not sign up for a council member who treats the flag as a prop to protest against.
San Joaquin Republican Party Chairman David Cushman was equally direct. He said Vang's approach is "badly misjudged and really bad fit for the district."
"She's trying to be the AOC of the Central Valley, but this is not the same district as AOC's or even Nancy Pelosi's district [in San Francisco]."
California Republican Party Chair Corrin Rankin tied Vang's behavior to a broader pattern: "Too much contempt for law enforcement, too little respect for our country, and no understanding of what Californians value."
Rankin added a line that may stick with voters as they head to the polls: "When a candidate cannot meet that basic test, it tells voters everything they need to know."
The 7th Congressional District was recently redrawn. It no longer covers just urban Sacramento. The new lines pull in El Dorado Hills, Placerville, and Lodi, communities with a more conservative tilt. A candidate who might have coasted in the old district now faces a broader electorate with different expectations about what patriotism looks like in an elected official.
Vang has cited her family's history as Hmong refugees. Her parents, she has said, were recruited by the CIA to fight during the Vietnam War and later fled Laos. That biography is compelling on its own terms. Many Americans whose families sacrificed alongside U.S. forces would consider the Pledge of Allegiance an affirmation of that sacrifice, not a burden to resist.
The growing fractures inside the Democratic Party, where progressives openly defy their own leadership, make races like this one a test of how far left the party's activist wing can push before voters push back.
No law requires an elected official to recite the Pledge. The Supreme Court settled that decades ago. But running for Congress while publicly and repeatedly refusing the Pledge, and celebrating that refusal on social media, is a political choice, not a legal one. Voters are entitled to weigh it.
Vang's Facebook post frames her refusal as an act of moral seriousness: centering communities, resisting complacency, fighting for justice. The language is familiar. It is the vocabulary of campus activism transplanted into city government and now pointed at a congressional seat.
What it is not is a platform that tells voters in Lodi or El Dorado Hills that their new representative will show up and honor the country she is asking to serve. Even Maviglio, a Democratic operative, recognized the gap between Vang's posture and what ordinary voters expect from someone seeking federal office.
The broader question of credibility problems within Democratic ranks is not new. But each new example sharpens the contrast between the party's activist class and the voters it claims to represent.
Vang has not, based on available reporting, responded directly to the criticisms from Cushman, Maviglio, Rankin, or Wooden. Her Facebook post remains the most detailed public explanation of her reasoning. Whether that explanation satisfies voters in a newly competitive district is a question the June primary will answer.
Doris Matsui, the longtime incumbent, faces a serious challenge from Vang on the left. Wooden, the Republican, has a shot at finishing in the top two under California's jungle primary system. The redrawn district gives him a path that did not exist before.
For Vang, the calculation appears to be that Sacramento progressives will reward her stance. For everyone else in the district, veterans, their families, taxpayers who just want their representative to stand for the flag, the calculation looks very different.
If you cannot bring yourself to face the flag and say the Pledge, voters are entitled to wonder what exactly you plan to represent when you get to Washington.