Rep. Jerry Lewis: Choosing His Committees, Choosing His Opponent?

Now for the reason I turned to Novakula in the first place (yes, he's a partisan hack, but his sources are typically impeccable). This weekend he reported on maneuvers within the House GOP caucus to keep Jerry Lewis in his post as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, despite being under federal investigation. You'll recall that Minority Leader John Boehner stressed ethics and honesty when elected by the caucus, and even demoted John Doolittle from Appropriations when the FBI raided his house. There would appear to be a double standard, and reformers within the Republican Party are pissed.

The GOP leadership was so frazzled by this column that they sought to spin it on Friday, before it was even published. They denied that the meeting ever occurred. However, Lewis is still the ranking member of the Committee, so those denials only go so far. So it appears he'll remain in that position throughout his re-election effort. And that effort has Howie Klein pissed:

It also looks like he's gotten the same shill candidate, Louie Contreras, who didn't run against him in 2006 to be his "opponent" in 2008-- and the state of Art Torres' California Democratic Party is so pathetic that they won't even lift a finger to look into it.

So Lewis, probably the single most corrupt man in Congress, has the Republican nomination locked up and the Democratic nomination rigged. All he has to do is not get indicted. He's spent over a million dollars in legal fees to keep that from happening.

Contreras actually jumped into the comments of that post and claimed that State Superintendent Jack O'Connell was supporting him. He isn't. The San Bernardino Sun claims Tim Prince is running, though he earlier said that he would only run if Lewis didn't. I can add that there will be an additional "mystery candidate" in this race, and for now, that's all I can say. (Tee-hee!!)

The Bermuda Triangle

It's nice that the California Democratic Party is targeting three members of the Southern California "Culture of Corruption" caucus (Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Ken Calvert) with a website. It'd be nicer if they supported the grassroots candidates that are running in those respective districts (Ron Shepston, Tim Prince, Bill Hedrick). After all, THEY'RE the ones who need name ID and recognition, not the Republicans.

I'm not sure what the CDP is after here. They've got just a few seats to go to grab 2/3 support in the state legislature, yet perusing through their site you see almost no mention of that. When you hear Art Torres speak, he never really talks about State Assembly or State Senate seats, only the Congress. Why does our state party see its role as solely to support federal or statewide candidates? One would think that party building would start locally. Building the Democratic bench in the state legislature would bubble up to the Congressional seats, too, yet the CDP seems determined to go the other way around.

I'm not totally criticizing it, I just wonder why this party has a different way of looking at its role than, say, New Hampshire or North Carolina does.