Representative Michelle Steel

Michelle Eunjoo Steel (née Park, born June 21, 1955) is an American politician who served as a Representative from California in the United States Congress from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Republican Party, she represented California’s 48th congressional district from January 3, 2021, to January 3, 2023, and the 45th congressional district from January 3, 2023, to January 3, 2025. During her two terms in the House of Representatives, Steel participated in the legislative process at a significant period in American history, representing the interests of her Orange County–area constituents and serving on the House minority whip team of Steve Scalise in the 117th Congress.

Steel was born in Seoul, South Korea, on June 21, 1955. Her father was born in Shanghai, China, to Korean expatriate parents, and she spent her early years moving among several countries in East Asia. She was educated in South Korea, Japan, and later the United States, experiences that contributed to her fluency in Korean, Japanese, and English and informed her later political focus on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. After immigrating to the United States, she pursued higher education in Southern California, earning a degree in business from Pepperdine University and subsequently an MBA from the University of Southern California.

Before holding elective office, Steel became active in Republican Party politics and public service. She served on various commissions in the administration of President George W. Bush, building a profile in tax and regulatory issues and establishing connections within state and national Republican circles. Her early political work laid the groundwork for her later electoral campaigns and positioned her as a prominent Korean American Republican figure in California.

Steel entered elective office at the state level when she was elected to the California State Board of Equalization in 2006, succeeding Republican incumbent Claude Parrish, who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer. Representing the 3rd district from 2007 to 2015, she served a constituency of more than eight million residents across all of Imperial, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego Counties and parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. During this period, she was regarded as the country’s highest-ranking Korean American officeholder and California’s highest-ranking Republican woman. In 2011, she was elected vice chair of the Board of Equalization, where she focused on tax administration and oversight.

In 2014, Steel was elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors from the 2nd district, defeating State Assemblyman Allan Mansoor. She served on the Board from 2015 to 2021 and chaired it in 2017 and again in 2020. Her tenure coincided with major local and national developments, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Steel opposed mandatory face mask requirements in Orange County, voting against mandates for retail employees and in public schools and publicly questioning the efficacy of masks in preventing the spread of the virus. In March 2018, she was the only elected official to greet President Donald Trump upon his arrival at Los Angeles International Airport during his first official visit to California as president, and in 2019 Trump appointed her to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. On September 15, 2020, she joined the Board majority in approving plans that could lead to increased private jet traffic at John Wayne Airport, a decision that drew criticism from her Democratic congressional opponent Harley Rouda, who highlighted campaign contributions she had received from ACI Jet, the corporation awarded the contract. Steel and her husband, attorney and Republican activist Shawn Steel, supported the 2020–21 recall initiative against California Governor Gavin Newsom and endorsed Larry Elder as a replacement candidate. In 2024, her management of $1.2 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds allocated for food aid to needy senior citizens during the 2020 pandemic response came under scrutiny, after she awarded a meal services contract to a marketing firm that also worked on her campaign and reportedly had no prior experience with such government funding; an audit later found that the meals provided under this contract were significantly more costly than those in other Orange County districts.

In 2020, Steel ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 48th congressional district. Advancing from the primary with 34.9 percent of the vote, she challenged first-term Democratic incumbent Harley Rouda in the November 3, 2020, general election. Running as a conservative aligned with President Donald Trump, she campaigned against COVID-19 mask mandates and expressed opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, and the creation of a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Steel raised approximately $200,000 more than Rouda and defeated him with 51.1 percent of the vote. Upon entering Congress on January 3, 2021, she joined several other Republican freshmen in an informal group known as the “Freedom Force,” formed as a counterpart to the Democratic “Squad.” During the 117th Congress, she served on House Minority Whip Steve Scalise’s Whip Team, assisting in party vote-counting and legislative strategy.

Steel’s first term in Congress unfolded amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. She tested positive for COVID-19 in January 2021 and later cited her own relatively mild symptoms to advocate for reopening schools and businesses. She did not vote on the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory on January 6, 2021, and on January 13, 2021, she voted against the second impeachment of President Donald Trump. In early February 2021, she publicly called for the reopening of schools in California. On February 25, 2021, she voted against the Equality Act, which sought to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act. Two days later, on February 27, 2021, she voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief and stimulus package. In March 2021, she introduced legislation to block federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project, which she characterized as a “failure.” In June 2021, she was one of 49 House Republicans to vote in favor of repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq. That same year, she joined a majority of House Republicans in signing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Following redistricting in California, Steel announced on December 23, 2021, that she would run in the newly drawn 45th congressional district in 2022. She received endorsements from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Representatives Young Kim, Ken Calvert, and former Representative Mimi Walters, as well as Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do and the Republican Party of Orange County. The 2022 campaign against Democratic nominee Jay Chen, a Naval Reserve officer and Taiwanese American, was contentious. Steel’s campaign aired advertisements and distributed materials suggesting that Chen was sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party, prompting protests and criticism from Asian American community groups and political opponents. Nonetheless, Steel prevailed in the November 8, 2022, general election and began representing the 45th district on January 3, 2023.

During the 118th Congress, Steel continued to pursue a conservative legislative agenda while also engaging in bipartisan initiatives. She served on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, including its Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education and its Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions. She also held a seat on the influential Committee on Ways and Means, serving on the Subcommittee on Health and the Subcommittee on Work and Welfare, and she was appointed to the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, reflecting her focus on U.S.–China relations and national security. Steel joined the Conservative Climate Caucus and the Republican Governance Group, signaling participation in both ideological and pragmatic Republican caucuses. In July 2022, she had voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which required federal recognition of same-sex marriages. As of December 2022, she had voted in line with President Joe Biden’s stated positions approximately 21 percent of the time. In September 2023, she joined a bipartisan group of eight House members to co-sponsor legislation aimed at integrating behavioral health services into primary care settings for Medicare beneficiaries, reflecting an interest in mental health policy.

Steel’s positions on reproductive rights and family policy drew particular attention during her second term. She was a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, introduced in January 2023 during the 118th Congress, which sought to define life as beginning at conception under federal law. After a 2024 Alabama court ruling raised concerns that such language could jeopardize access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), Steel publicly clarified that she did not support federal restrictions on IVF. Citing her own struggles with infertility, she stated that IVF had enabled her to start a family and described helping families have children as consistent with her pro-life beliefs. In March 2024, she formally rescinded her co-sponsorship of the Life at Conception Act, underscoring her support for continued access to IVF treatments.

Steel ran for re-election in the 45th district in 2024. Her Democratic opponent was Derek Tran, a second-generation Vietnamese American attorney and Army veteran. During the campaign, Steel’s team distributed mailers depicting Tran alongside images of Mao Zedong and a hammer and sickle, seeking to portray him as a communist sympathizer. The messaging drew criticism, particularly after Steel, who was born in Korea, remarked on the campaign trail, “I am more Vietnamese than my opponent.” Tran defeated Steel in the November 5, 2024, general election, ending her consecutive service in the House at two terms. Steel’s defeat marked the conclusion of her tenure representing Orange County in Congress, during which she had been, along with fellow California Republican Young Kim and Washington Democrat Marilyn Strickland, among the first Korean American women ever to serve in the U.S. Congress.

In February 2025, following her departure from elected office, Steel was appointed by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to a bipartisan commission charged with studying the feasibility of establishing a new national museum dedicated to the history and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This appointment reflected her longstanding engagement with AAPI issues and her status as one of the pioneering Korean American women in national politics. Throughout her career at the state, county, and federal levels, Michelle Steel contributed to the legislative and policy debates of her time while representing a diverse and rapidly changing region of Southern California.