LA Weekly

Arguably (I suppose), no modern congressman has attempted more to undo longstanding environmental protections than the Republican out of Tracy, Richard Pombo. Head of the House Resources Committee, he has worked to gut the Endangered Species Act, pushed for more offshore oil and gas drilling (a position even Schwarzenegger has to oppose), tried hard to weaken leasing restrictions for mining companies (the Senate did his plans in) and proposed selling off huge segments of National Park Service land.

Last I looked, his Democratic challenger, wind-energy consultant Jerry McNerney, didn't stand a chance of beating him. But with his 11st Congressional District increasingly infiltrated by displaced Bay Area liberals (thanks to the reckless subdividing of farmland his family benefits from), and Pombo's ties to Jack Abramoff lurking in the collective public mind, and dissatisfaction with Bush's administration growing every day, it's starting to look like Pombo could go down.

McNerney's campaign has released the results of their own internal poll, and the race is just about even, and only 32 percent of voters said they'd re-elect Pombo. Granted, this is not an unbiased survey, but, well, one can hope. With Bush campaigning for his rancher buddy in California today, there's also a slew of news stories discussing the potential for Pombo's defeat.

My fingers remain crossed.

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In the fury over the Cheney shooting and my own deadline scramble (my mercury story, "Things to do Before You Get Pregnant" is here), I missed the chance to blog Bettina Boxall's astute and thorough story about Tracy Republican Richard Pombo in Tuesday's L.A. Times. It's framed as an exploration of Pombo's ties to Abramoff, but it amounts to a measured expose of all the Congressman's lies: he's "exaggerated" the impact of endangered species protection on his own land (it was never declared "critical habitat" for the kit fox); he portrays himself as a rural rancher when in fact he wanted to sell off his own land to suburban sprawl; and the man is bought and paid for on nearly every issue he champions:

According to data compiled by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project, Pombo has, during his congressional career, collected more than $800,000 from agriculture, timber and fishing interests. The building industry has given him $205,000; oil and gas, $169,000; mining, $55,000; and casinos and gambling, $147,000.

Pombo watchers will want to cut this one out and carry it around in their pockets.

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