CALIFORNIA-- THE BEST AND THE WORST: JERRY McNERNEY AND JERRY LEWIS

Mixed bag in California on Tuesday, mostly an endorsement of the status quo. By moving left and making nice with Democratic pols-- who, for their own selfish reasons were eager that there not be a Democratic gubernatorial incumbent in 2010-- Schwarzenegger was re-elected. The most important thing on the ballot, Prop 89, for Clean Elections, was slaughtered. And a mega-infusion of cash from Enron and Big Tobacco won the day when it came to defeating two other reform bills. On the other hand, Debra Bowen, no friend of Diebold, was elected Secretary of State and a nice slate of solid Democrats was elected statewide. Jerry Brown could even turn out to be as much a Spitzer-like Attorney General as I expect Ohio's Marc Dann to be.

The biggest disappointment came from the results in the congressional races-- although there was some powerful solace to be found even here. The solace of course was the defeat of environmentalists' Public Enemy #1, Dirty Dick Pombo. He also happens to be one of the most corrupt Republicans in the House. But I and lots of other bloggers have gone on about that endlessly for a year now. Recently Rolling Stone ranked him as the over-all seventh worst congressman. They called the chapter on Pombo: "Enemy of the Earth."

No member of Congress has worked harder to savage America's natural resources than Pombo, a Stetson-wearing cattleman who ran for office after a nature trail was slated to run through his family's 500-acre ranch. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Pombo has waged a career-long campaign to abolish the Endangered Species Act, which he accuses of putting "rats and shellfish" before people. Last year he almost succeeded: His comically titled "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act" would have phased out all protection for threatened wildlife by 2015. Pombo has also won passage of bills to eliminate habitat protections on 150 million acres of wilderness and to lift a quarter-century moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

"Dick Pombo is the most dangerous member of the House," says Carl Pope of the Sierra Club. "There's no one who represents the threat to our public lands that he does."

But Pombo doesn't let his environmental attacks get in the way of his own profit: He raked in $35,000 from clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and paid his own wife and brother $357,000 for dubious campaign services. That's a quarter of every dollar raised by his political action committee-- known, aptly enough, as Rich PAC.

Rolling Stone agrees with me that there's a California congressman far worse than Dirty Dick Pombo: Jerry Lewis. They just don't agree with me about how bad he is. Their #1 worst congressman is the corrupt, venal and hapless Denny Hastert, "The Highway Robber." (I have nothing to say in his defense, of course-- in fact, I would add that it is widely known in Washington that he is another homophobic Republican closet queen who hires male prostitutes.) Where I do part company with R.S. is when they rank Lewis as merely the fifth worst congressman-- "The King of Payoffs."


My contempt for Lewis is well documented on the pages of DWT. When Mark Foley was finally nailed, Jane credited me with having already written 72 stories about him here. Not counting this one, I've done 124 stories mentioning Lewis. Some background: here, here, here and, for the sake of this particular story, most importantly here and here.

Why most importantly there and there? Well, that's the crux of the tragedy I've been meaning to bring up. Either read all about it in the links I've provided or just take my word for it: Jerry Lewis, head of the House Appropriations Committee, is the most egregiously corrupt man in Congress, perhaps in the entire history of Congress. Good target for a Democrat, especially in light of the fact that voters were telling pollsters that congressional corruption was the #1 issue on their minds when they were making up their minds about for whom to cast their ballots this week.

For the citizens of the 41st C.D. in southern California, "the Inland Empire," they didn't get much of a choice. Basically, there was no campaign. That's because Jerry Lewis had no opponent. How is that possible? Well, Rahm was busy rooting out progressive, anti-war and grassroots candidates wherever he could find then, replacing them with "ex"-Republican and Republican-lite shills, so the 41st somehow never came on his radar. The California Democratic Party under Art Torres is a myth and less than useless. So, Lewis, who has a long history of buying off Democrats in his fiefdom, just bought himself an opponent, someone who wouldn't do much opposing.

A few month ago I was able to get the San Bernardino Sun to do a Sunday front page story (in case you missed it above) about it. It didn't do any good at all. The DCCC just threw up their hands and the California Democratic Party refused to be draw out of their state of denial. There never was a campaign against Lewis this year, none whatsoever.

George Watson is the guy who writes about politics in the San Bernardino Sun. It's the biggest newspaper, by far, in the 41st congressional district. He did a follow-up piece about the "race," last week.

As the subject of a much-publicized federal investigation into his ties to lobbyists, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, might seem an easy target for an aggressive Democrat come Tuesday.

The challenger for his 41st Congressional District seat, however, is barely known even by members of his own party. In fact, Louie Contreras, an insurance salesman from Hesperia, turned down help from the Democratic Party.

In a campaign season rife with political sniping and partisan finger-pointing, the Lewis-Contreras race has proven remarkably noncontroversial.

Lewis has refused to answer questions about the investigation into his connections with powerful Washington lobbyists, broadly denying any wrongdoing in prepared statements while rebuffing requests for personal interviews.

At the same time, Contreras has not actively campaigned for the seat. The phone line to his campaign headquarters goes unanswered and appeared Friday to have been out of service. His online events calendar has no entries beyond September.

He could not be reached for comment for this report.

Not by Watson, not by DWT, not by the DCCC. The voters of the 41st C.D. were disenfranchised this year. Is that legal?