Patients walk into an urgent care clinic trusting their doctor with the most private details of their lives. They do not sign up to become free advertising targets for a political campaign.
Yet that is exactly what former patient Sean Rose says happened when Dr. Sonia Devgan-Kacker, owner of Westlake Village Urgent Care, allegedly mined her patient database to blast out campaign texts during her failed run for Congress.
According to a lawsuit filed by Rose and reported exclusively by the New York Post, the Democrat physician running in California’s 26th District used medical records to send political propaganda in May 2026. The texts arrived on patients’ phones as “paid” ads featuring her photo, credentials, a campaign link, and a reminder to vote on June 2. Tucked in the middle was a bland note that the clinic would stay open during the campaign.
The phone number on the ad belonged to the campaign, not the clinic. Rose, who had been a patient years earlier when he lived in the district, smelled a rat.
When he emailed the clinic to ask how they got his number, the response was blunt. “It appears that you were a patient at this urgent care a few years ago, which is how we have your phone number. The text message was sent to all previous patients.”
Later that same day the clinic tried to walk it back, claiming the messages were just “geographically targeted” community outreach. Rose is not buying it. He had moved to the 29th District. Public voter rolls would have shown that. Patient records would not.
California’s Confidentiality of Medical Records Act is not a suggestion. It bars health care providers from disclosing patient information without authorization. Rose is seeking statutory and punitive damages in a class-action suit that could open the door for every other patient who received the same text.
Devgan-Kacker filed to run in January after longtime Democrat Rep. Julia Brownley announced her retirement. On her campaign site she cast herself as the outsider: “I’m not a career politician—I solve problems for a living. And I’m running to bring practical leadership, accountability, and real-world experience to Congress.”
Voters rejected that pitch. She failed to advance past the June primary. Now the “real-world experience” she touted is facing a courtroom test over whether it included treating private medical data as a campaign mailing list.
This is the same political class that lectures the rest of us about privacy, data security, and corporate overreach. Yet when an ambitious Democrat needs votes, patient records suddenly become fair game. The clinic’s initial admission followed by the rapid walk-back only makes the stench stronger.
Scripture is clear on the duty of those entrusted with others’ confidence. “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds” (Colossians 3:9).
A doctor who treats medical files as campaign fuel has already crossed that line.
Rose’s lawsuit will decide the legal consequences. The larger question is whether voters and patients will remember that some politicians view every relationship as a transaction and every private record as a resource to be mined. Trust once broken is hard to rebuild. In medicine, it should never have been for sale in the first place.
