CA-11: "A National Disgrace to the Republican Party"

I'm telling you, a couple House seats in California are poised to flip (and yes, there would be plenty more if the Dems and Repubs didn't make that corrupt redistricting bargain in 2000). And one of the best opportunities is Jerry McNerney. The San Jose Mercury-News endorses him today:

There are times when voters realize the best thing they can do in a race is to hold their noses and vote for their party's candidate.

In the 11th Congressional District race involving Richard Pombo, Republican voters must avoid that temptation. Instead, they should cast their ballots for Democrat Jerry McNerney.

Pombo, the seven-term congressman from Tracy, will take delight in proclaiming that we oppose his re-election because we don't like his radical views that call for eviscerating smart environmental laws.

He's right.

But the case for why Democrats and Republicans should support McNerney's candidacy in the sprawling 11th Congressional District goes far beyond Pombo's desire to sell off national parks, drill for oil off the Pacific Coast and make the Endangered Species Act extinct.

Pombo is a national disgrace to the Republican Party. His unseemly connections to scandal-ridden lobbyist Jack Abramoff should be an embarrassment to all Republicans. A Washington watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, put him on its list of the 13 most corrupt Republicans and Democrats in Congress. And his questionable connections to oil companies, gambling interests and mining companies have been well documented.

It's past time that mainstream Republicans let Pombo know there isn't a place for his kind of politics in their Big Tent.

That pretty much lays it on the line, doesn't it? One thing the Merc didn't mention in their endorsement, but did in their news section, is that Pombo is trying to literally give away the natural resources of this state.

Tucked into a massive energy bill that would open the outer continental shelf to oil drilling are provisions that would slash future royalties owed to the federal government by companies prospecting in Rocky Mountain oil shale deposits.

Sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, and passed by the House earlier this year, the bill would amend an existing requirement that the federal government receive a ``fair return'' from oil companies that hold oil shale leases on public lands. Instead, Pombo's bill would reduce royalties from the customary 12.5 percent of annual revenue to 1 percent.

Further, the bill could cut the reduced rate by as much as 80 percent if the price of oil fell. Over many years of oil production, the royalty discounts could amount to tens of billions in lost federal receipts, said James T. Bartis, an analyst at the Rand Corp. who wrote a widely used study of the economic prospects of the developing oil shale industry.

In this time of record oil company profits, the last thing they need is a break on royalty payments.

Richard Pombo is a dangerous man who would destroy 40 years' worth of environmental regulation with the flick of a pen. He's also completely unaccountable to his constituents, so much so that his campaign blog is PRIVATE and inaccessible to anyone but supporters.

Meanwhile Jerry McNerney is a wind energy farmer whose son serves in the Air Force, and who as a citizen rather than a corrupt politician would be a welcome presence in Washington.

We're taking at least one House race in California, maybe three. Book it.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall links to the above Say No To Pombo post about Rep. Pombo's blog being private, based on a tip from... ME!

It's all so very exciting.