Will Dirty Dick Pombo Wind Up Back In Congress?

The least populated part of California's 11th congressional district-- the far eastern part of the district-- borders on the 19th CD, the district George Radanovich announced he would be giving up. Radanovich is old and tired and he didn't want to have to face a political hack playing up to teabaggers, former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson. So he announced he'd be retiring-- like so many other House Republicans (14 so far) who just don't want the hassle of running against extremist teabaggers (South Carolina right-winger Henry Brown being the latest) in bitter primaries. But before he announced he was retiring, Radanovich stuck it to Patterson by getting termed-out state Senator Jeff Denham to agree to run. Fresno City Council Member Larry Westerlund is also interested in running and yesterday the former 7-term congressman from CA-11, defeated Dirty Dick Pombo announced that he's running and ex-Secretary of State and perennial candidate for one thing or another, Bill Jones, hinted that he would run too.

I don't think any of these people actually live in the 19th CD. Westerlund and Jones live in the wrong half of Fresno, which is split between the 19th and 20th. Pombo lives on his ranch in Tracy, nowhere near the district. Denham's senatorial district is partially in the 19th, but that isn't where Denham lives. And the teabaggers in the district, who are a powerful force inside the GOP there, are wary of all the candidates as being too establishment and too likely to sell them out.

Michael Der Manouel Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Club of Fresno County, promised that every prospective candidate will emerge "bleeding" from their interview session with the conservative Republican organization.

"We're so sick of phony Republicans that the Lincoln Club will be the toughest interview anybody has to go through," Der Manouel said. "If you're not going to go there with a pitchfork in your right hand and strong principles in your left, don't even bother to file."

Der Manouel -- who lost to Radanovich in the 1994 Republican primary-- noted that Denham, Patterson and Westerlund are either current or former elected officials. "There's got to be at least one person that runs that just brings with him a big business background and doesn't need the job," Der Manouel said.

Pombo doesn't need the job, at least not financially. Psychologically, on the other hand, he certainly has that ole craving. Funny he's not running to try to win back his old seat where everyone knows him. I guess that's the point though. Widely considered one of the most corrupt and extreme Republicans from the freewheelin' Bush-Abramoff-DeLay days, Pombo needs to go where he isn't too well known.

a brief refresher on Pombo. Elected to Congress in 1992, he routinely pounded his Dem opponents, often getting around 60 percent of the vote, despite serving in a Democratic-friendly district that was a mishmash of suburban Bay Area and Central Valley. But in 2006, he was the only incumbent Californian to lose his seat.

How? With the joint help of the liberal netroots, tons of volunteers from the Bay Area and enviro activists, Pombo was tossed from his seat in 2006 by newbie Dem Jerry McNerney. He was pilloried for his environmental record-- the League of Conservation Voters named him one of their Dirty Dozen (members of Congress) in 2006-- and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named him one of the "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" in 2006.

Looks like there's going to a tough GOP primary in the Valley.

Is there a chance for a Democrat? Not likely. The PVI is R+10. Obama only took 46% of the vote, while Radanovich ran unopposed last year and won with 60% in 2006. The two Democrats in the race now are Les Marsden (who sounds like he'd head right for Blue Dog country) and Loraine Goodwin (who sounds more like an actual Democrat). On paper neither looks like they'd have a chance against any of these GOP heavyweights in this prohibitively Republican district. So... just get out the popcorn and sit back and watch the mean-spirited, hypocritical Republicans rip each other to shreds.

Is CA-19's George Radanovich's political demise an opening for the return of "Dirty Dick" Pombo?

“I don’t miss the politics,” Pombo said. “I miss the policy side of it. Obviously California needs some help.”

-- former Rep. "Dirty Dick" Pombo, quoted by the Fresno Bee

by Ken

CA-19 Republican Rep. George Radanovich announced yesterday, a step ahead of a torch-bearing Teabagger lynch mob, that he's retiring (as reported by the L.A. Times):

Central Valley Rep. George Radanovich announced Tuesday that he is stepping down from his strongly Republican district seat next year and has asked state Sen. Jeff Denham, a fellow conservative Republican, to run to replace him.

Radanovich, a 15-year veteran of Congress from Mariposa, said in statement that he wants to spend more time with his wife, Ethie, who is battling ovarian cancer; and his son.

"My family needs me, and I intend to be by their side to win this battle," Radanovich said. "It is for this reason that I have decided to not seek reelection to Congress in 2010."

As Howie points out, though, "Radanovich is hated by the Teabaggers because he voted for Bush's Wall Street bailout," even though "his lifetime ProgressivePunch score on substantive matters is 1.81, making him the 355th most progressive member of Congress. The only CA congressmen with more extreme-right voting records are freshmen nutcases Tom McClintock and Duncan Hunter Jr, plus Buck McKeon, Darrell Issa, Gary Miller, Ken Calvert, Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes, all just fractionally."

No sooner had Radanovich slipped back into his political crypt than word surfaced of a possible return from the political dead of an old DWT thug-favorite, "Dirty Dick" Pombo.

Pombo may seek Radanovich seat

Posted at 07:01 PM on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
By John Ellis / The Fresno Bee

After Richard Pombo narrowly lost a 2006 re-election bid in the 11th Congressional District to Democrat Jerry McNerney, he went back to work on his Tracy cattle ranch.

Now, the 48-year-old Republican is thinking about a return to Congress — in George Radanovich’s 19th Congressional District.

“I started getting phone calls last night,” Pombo said today. “Obviously, I haven’t made my mind up on it at all, but it is something that I am considering.”

Already, former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson and state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, have said they will seek to replace Radanovich, and Fresno City Council Member Larry Westerlund has been calling potential supporters about a run.

But the addition of Pombo would add a whole new dimension to the race. He was a seven-term lawmaker in Washington D.C. who rose to become chairman of the House Resources Committee, which writes environmental laws.

Earlier this year, Fresno County agricultural interests frustrated with Radanovich contacted Pombo about running. Pombo said he declined at the time because he did not want to challenge a sitting Republican.

But with Radanovich’s announcement Tuesday that he will retire after this term, Pombo said he is now seriously considering a run for the seat.

“I don’t miss the politics,” Pombo said. “I miss the policy side of it. Obviously California needs some help.”

Pombo said he expects to make a decision within in the next week.

Despite early threats that he would return, Pombo has been basically out of politics in recent years. Last year his Rich PAC collected nothing and paid out $26K+ in PAC legal fees plus a dribble of small gifts.

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Maybe Dick Pombo Wouldn't Be The Best Suicide Prevention Counsellor For Marilyn Musgrave

Suicide is painless

A few weeks ago we talked about how, in 1963, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc captured the attention of Vietnam-- and that of many in America-- by killing himself, the method a very public self-immolation. I know Republican members of Congress, both those experiencing their last days at the public trough like Ric Keller and Robin Hayes, and those who have been left behind and feel the noose tightening-- how many more fundraising days before November, 2010?-- are down in the dumps.

Few, however are as down and dumpy as extremist loon Marilyn Musgrave, whose constituents turned her out in an angry landslide against her right-wing values and right-wing voting record. Not even Mark Sanford, Tony Perkins and Grover Norquist could make the preposterous claim that her overwhelming defeat was anything but Colorado voters giving a big thumbs down to the far right and all it stands for.

Musgrave is the nastiest of this year's batch of discarded Republicans. While some, like the aforementioned Ric Keller and Robin Hayes are moping around the gloomy Republican Capitol Hill Club asking long defeated old hacks like Dirty Dick Pombo how to drum up some lobbying business, Musgrave is refusing to face reality. Like Virgil Goode (R-VA) and Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Musgrave has been unwilling to concede defeat, even though she lost by double digits. Perhaps she has already heard Pombo's bleak assessment of what lies in store for defeated wingnuts-- he admits he's been "scrounging for business"-- but Musgrave has been in hiding.

Not congratulating the victor may be rude but it's far from unheard of from Republican losers. But Musgrave has gone way beyond that, refusing to even thank her dedicated-- if delusional-- campaign staff for their hard work on her behalf. She's hardly a Buddhist or a monk-- she's a Pentecostal Assemblies of God fanatic-- but wouldn't it just be a national tragedy if she set herself on fire on the steps of Capitol Hill? No one in recent times has put more pure hatred and vitriol into tormenting gay families than Marilyn Musgrave and making their lives more difficult and dangerous.

TIME TO GET REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT MAKING SURE JERRY McNERNEY REPLACES DIRTY DICK POMBO IN CONGRESS

From the first tiny sample of votes counted by THE MISSOULIAN on Tuesday night, it was obvious that Jon Tester was the overwhelming choice of Democrats in Montana and that the senate race in that state was not going to be close. The first raw votes I looked at showed Tester with more votes than the other 8 candidates-- Democrats and Republicans-- combined. I like seeing a DLC hack sliced and diced as much as anyone, but there were other important races just getting going while the Tester campaign was unpopping the champagne. Last month I wrote a column about why primaries are crucial if we are to have any hope at all of holding our wayward representatives responsible for their job performance once they get into office and if we are going to pick candidates who represent our interests and not the interests of careerist politicians in Washington who blithely, arrogantly ignore consumers, workers, constituents to cater to the whims of their coporate benefactors (bribers).

And who did I pick as the example of crucialness? "The most important primary on June 6 is in northern California when Democrats have to decide who to pick to take on one of the dozen worst Republicans in Congress, Richard Pombo, the man who would like nothing better than to sell the national parks in order to give bigger tax cuts to the wealthy business interests who have underwritten his political (and financial) rise. The primary in a classic case pitting an independent-minded grassroots progressive against an Inside-the-Beltway shill who Rahm Emanuel and his clique are attempting to impose on the district. Jerry McNerney is wearing the white hat here and Steve Filson is the Establishment puppet."

And on Tuesday night, right out of the shoot, the voters in CA-11 told Rahm Emanuel, Ellen Tauscher and the Inside the Beltway power structure where they could shove their puppet candidate who they tried imposing on the district-- and broke Party rules to support. Auguring well for November, Jerry and all the anti-Pombo candidates drew 52,086 primary votes; Pombo got 29,030.

It would have been incredible to see Marcy Winograd pull off an even less plausible upset and knock out entrenched, well-financed incumbent-- the self described "best Republican in the Democratic Party," Jane Harman. But that was a real stretch. I'm really proud that so many of us believed in her and helped her try. She came closer than any political pros thought she could and shot a warning over the bows of the men and women who run in Democratic districts as Democrats and then get back to DC and forget who they're supposed to be representing.

In fact, this Tuesday I'm going to introduce you to another courageous and progressive grassroots activist who is taking on another Democrat who revels in joining the GOP for votes-- but only on the most important issues, like Iraq and bankruptcy. I interviewed her yesterday and I'm still digesting all the information she gave me.

No doubt by now you've read why Jon Tester's victory over John Morrison was so important in the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party and, ultimately, for our nation. Jerry McNerney's win in the San Joaquin Valley and the East Bay was no less significant. In the end McNerney scored a healthy 52.6% in the 3 man race. A coprorate-oriented DCCC-hack managed to grab 28.5% (all those donations to the DCCC that real Democrats think go to fight Republicans... what a waste! Never, never give a dime to the DCCC or the DSCC). The rest of the votes, 18.9% went to another excellent progressive candidate, Steve Thomas. In other words, the clueless Washington Insiders managed to waste a ton of money and energy and goodwill, while losing over 70% of the vote to real Democrats.

Jerry had no money. But beacuse of his strong progressive message, he did have grassroots support and netroots support-- enough to run a winning campaign against all the DCCC could through against him. And remember, they were successful in doing the same thing to Christine Cegelis that they tried doing to Jerry. His grassroots team and dedicated supporters put together an on the ground strategy that DCCC money can't buy. (Republican money can though-- as Busby found out while she watched helplessly as the National GOP dumped over $10 million dollars into an unprecedented media blitz and smear campaign against her.)

But the primary was the easy part! Now Jerry and his team will have to face the well-greased Pombo machine-- one of the dirtiest, most unscrupulous-- and well-healed-- political thrashing machines in the country. This isn't a game for Pombo. He and his family have become fabulously wealthy while he has risen in the ranks of the Republican caucus. For Pombo ideology is a means to an end and the end is his big fat bugling purse (yes, that's why Adam did the photo like that).

As for Jerry, he has to watch and see what strings DCCC help will be tied in. Will they insist on the loser consultants they use to tame and homogenize populists? He'll need their financial assistance and the drip, drip, drip of temptation will be hard to resist. It will be a lot less hard to resist if the grassroots steps up to the plate. Recent polls show that Jerry is leading Pombo. But Pombo hasn't even started yet. His smear tactics are legend and he's got Karl Rove desperate to keep him in Congress and in the chair of the House Resources Committee. The Republican ex-congressman who ran against Pombo in the primary laid out a great case for why the campaign to retire him was one of the most important races in America; he was right a week ago and is just as right now:

Pombo has been named by non-partisan watchdog groups as:
"One of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress"-COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON (CREW)
"One of the first six inductees to the Congressional Hall of Shame" - PUBLIC CITIZEN

Richard Pombo is among the top recipients of money from admitted felon and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates.  (Source: Time)

Pombo owes his chairmanship of the House Resources Committee to indicted former majority leader Tom DeLay. Pombo, who votes in lockstep with DeLay 92% of the time, actively tried to change House Ethics Rules to protect DeLay (House Resolution 5) and donated thousands of dollars to the DeLay legal defense fund.

Pombo used his official powers to protect a large donor, Charles Hurwitz, thwarting a Federal investigation in what federal regulators called, "a seamy abuse of the legislative process." (Source: LA Times 1/8/06)

At a time when the average yearly income in San Joaquin County is $20,682, Pombo has funneled over half-a-million dollars in campaign funds to his wife and brother. As Chairman of the House Resources Committee (which oversees Native American affairs), Pombo has received over $500,000 in donations from Indian tribes, many with ties to Abramoff. 

He has joined DeLay in voting to absolve the manufacturers of the toxic gasoline additive MTBE from any responsibility for cleaning up an estimated $20 billion worth of polluted water in Northern California-- water that our entire state needs for agriculture and economic growth.

Pombo, a member of the congressional leadership, has helped move us from budget surpluses in 2000 to trillion-dollar deficits. 

Pombo, who never served in the military, claims to support our troops but has repeatedly voted against VA and health care benefits for returning veterans, including prosthesis research for amputees (House Resolutions 1815, 2528, 1268, 27, HconRes 95 and HJRes 107).

Though his district has higher than national average gas prices, Pombo supported giving $8.6 billion in tax subsidies to oil and gas companies (House Resolution 6). It's no surprise that Pombo's largest political donations come from these same companies.

Between now and November, Jerry, like Tester and other grassroots progressives with strong, unadulterated messages, need to show somnolent voters why they are different from the Pombos and DeLays-- and different from the Rahm Emanuels and William Jeffersons as well. It costs money to get a message out and Republican elected officials who have helped make millions and millions of dollars for a small handful at the public expense now have that small handful who will do anything to keep the gravy train flowing. So if you've never tried it before, maybe this is a good time to take a look at ACT BLUE and make a personal committment for whatever you can afford. If you can afford $5, that is cool. If you can afford more, that's cool too. We aren't the greed-obsessed multimillionaires Bush's tax cuts have made richer and richer... but there are a lot more of us than there are of them. We can still turn this thing around (oh, that's a song).

And one more thing, today we're not asking you to give Jerry McNerney or any other candidates on the ACT BLUE Page money for nothing. Nope, if you're up for the walk of life, I have a nice fresh box of CDs, a brand new greatest hits collection from one of the biggest-selling bands of the 80s. And if you don't know who they are from the hints in the last 2 sentences... well, just give because you love America and love democracy. First 20 McNerney donors get the CD... and the next 20 get something else.

IF YOU THOUGHT "DUKE" CUNNINGHAM WAS BAD, WAIT TIL YOU MEET RICHARD POMBO

Does this sound vaguely familiar? Attach yourself to the most venal, most vicious powerbroker around and serve him slavishly. As he tramples the opposition and amasses more and more power, you benefit massively for your loyalty to the Dark Side. This pretty much describes the relationship between California far right extremist Richard Pombo and Tom DeLay. And it has allowed a slimey and uncharismatic Pombo to make himself over into a congressional powerhouse. DeLay rewarded his faithful protégé with the ultra lucrative chairmanship-- over the heads of 5 more senior Republicans-- of the House Resources Committee. Pombo, charged with protecting the rights of Indian Tribes has been able to PREVENT any investigations into DeLay's and Jack Abramoff's shady dealings and millions of dollars in rip-offs (while Pombo accepts bribe money from Abramoff). And Pombo has been able to continuously legislate in favor of oil, gas, pesticide, agri-business and other extractive and exploitive industries and polluters. Pombo has one of the worst environmental records in Congress, not an easy achievement in this particular Congress. After former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Whitman grew disgusted with the Bush Regime's blatant predatory attacks on the environment she resigned as head of the EPA (Environmental Protect Agency, a Cabinet position). As Bush proved himself to be the absolute worst enemy of the environment of any president in living memory, Whitman wrote a book called IT'S MY PARTY TOO. She was clearly referring to Pombo and his repulsive ilk when she wrote that "to cede the battle for environmental protection to the anti-regulatory ideologues is to ignore our obligation as stewards of the environment for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren."

But Pombo has turned his ideological fanaticism into a very profitable part of the DeLay pay-to-play racket in Congress, enriching himself and his family, as well as his cronies, by selling his votes and enacting legislation in exchange for campaign donations, junkets, and other gifts. In fact Pombo has tranferred something like 25% of his campaign donations over the past couple of years to his wife and his brother-- over $250,000 in 2003 and 2004 alone! That's the kind of operation that makes Randy "Duke" Cunningham look like a small-time piker. I mean how many presidential pardons did "Duke" actually sell and how many houses and boats can one man pass along at inflated prices as a way of sucking up bribes? The Pombo-DeLay game, on the other hand, has no ceiling. You hustle "contributions" from the industries you are charged with overseeing, you let the industries' paid representatives write the actual legislation, or at least the parts pertaining to them, and then you skirt election laws by turning over large parts of those donations/bribes/blackmail to your wife and brother. Forgetting about Rove for a moment, can you think of anything more unethical?

How has Richard Pombo served the voters of California's 11th Congressional District (Stockton, Lodi, Tracy, Ripon, due east of San Francisco)? Well he's been working hard to overturn the Endangered Species Act, restart commercial whaling (which doesn't mean much in his landlocked district), allow for intensive logging of our national forests, gut the Clear Air and Clean Water acts, overturn bans on highly toxic pesticides (which is an issue among the Central Valley residents he supposedly represents), and, predictably, allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Meanwhile his campaign coffers are overflowing with contributions from every sort of right-wing and Big Business special interest-- especially Agribusiness, Oil & Gas, Logging, Mining, the Chemical Industry, Casinos, and Big Tobacco. Pombo hates regulating Big Business and Big Business loves Richard Pombo. And if all this love insures that one day he'll die a very very rich man... well, who's to stand in the way of love?

This past April the L.A. Times pointed out the kind of filial love Pombo has for his parents when they reported that "Aides to California Rep. Richard W. Pombo pressed officials of the U.S. Department of the Interior last year to suspend environmental guidelines opposed by the wind-power industry without disclosing that Pombo's family had a substantial financial stake in wind energy. The guidelines, issued in 2003, seek to reduce the number of birds killed by the spinning blades of wind turbines, such as those that flank the Altamont Pass east of Oakland.
Pombo (R-Tracy), heads the House committee that oversees the Interior Department. His parents own a 300-acre ranch in the Altamont Pass and have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from wind-power turbines on their land over the last 17 years — much more than the family gets from cattle on that land." Is that a loving son or what? I mean would you risk breaking the law to further enrich your parents like that? Oh, but don't think Pombo is all about love. Get him-- or DeLay-- angry and he'll show the other side of his nature. Pombo viciously killed the widely supported (non-partisan) Long Island Sound Stewardship Act last year in retaliation against a Connecticut Republican viewed as not loyal to DeLay. Pombo turned his fury against Chris Shays for leading a group that voted against protecting Delay's leadership in the face of Delay's possible indictment for campaign financing abuses. Pombo used his power as Chairman of the House Resources Committee to bury the bill, even after it passed UNANIMOUSLY in the Senate, to punish Shays (one of the sponsors); and the hell with sound Sound stewardship; Pombo hates that crap anyway. It's great "Duke" Cunningham won't be running again and it's great that he's likley to spend a good amount of time in prison but America is in grave danger as long as monsters like Richard Pombo are still prowling-- and despoiling-- the land.