About a week ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) was a "close associate" of Tom DeLay under investigation by the FBI. The FBI suspects that Pombo did favors for an East Coast tribe that wanted Federal recognition in order to open a casino; Pombo, who represents a central district in California, had no constituent interest in the case…but he pocketed over $30,000 representing the tribes’ interest.
This weekend, the LA Times reports that Pombo is also under investigation for working with fellow California Republican John Doolittle and Tom DeLay to sabotage an FDIC investigation into the financial dealings of notorious anti-environmentalist Charles Hurwitz. Hurwitz engineered the leveraged buy-out by MAXXAM of Pacific Lumber, which led to the huge logging controversy over the Headwaters redwood forest. Richard Serrano and Stephen Braun report that:
Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained by The Times show.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.
The investigation was ultimately dropped.
The effort to help Hurwitz began in 1999 when DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC denouncing the investigation of Hurwitz as a "form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees."
When the FDIC persisted, Doolittle and Pombo — both considered proteges of DeLay — used their power as members of the House Resources Committee to subpoena the agency’s confidential records on the case, including details of the evidence FDIC investigators had compiled on Hurwitz.
Then, in 2001, the two congressmen inserted many of the sensitive documents into the Congressional Record, making them public and accessible to Hurwitz’s lawyers, a move that FDIC officials said damaged the government’s ability to pursue the banker.
The FDIC’s chief spokesman characterized what Doolittle and Pombo did as "a seamy abuse of the legislative process." But soon afterward, in 2002, the FDIC dropped its case against Hurwitz, who had owned a controlling interest in the United Savings Assn. of Texas. United Savings’ failure was one of the worst of the S&L debacles in the 1980s.
Doolittle and Pombo did not respond to requests for interviews last week. They publicly defended Hurwitz at the time, saying the inquiry was unfair. Hurwitz’s lawyer said Friday that the FDIC had been overzealous. This summer, a judge in Texas agreed and awarded Hurwitz attorney fees and other costs in a civil suit he filed. "They sought to humiliate him," U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, said in the ruling. The government is appealing the decision.
In key aspects, the Hurwitz case follows the pattern of the Abramoff scandal: members of Congress using their offices to do favors for a politically well-connected individual who, in turn, supplies them with campaign funds. Although Washington politicians frequently try to help important constituents and contributors, it is unusual for members of Congress to take direct steps to stymie an ongoing investigation by an agency such as the FDIC.
It’s unclear from the story what documents the Times saw, if they came from Abramoff, and if Abramoff will testify to any of these "seamy" abuses of the legislative system. But the potential for an influence-peddling charge already looks quite plausible.
Interestingly, a Jail Hurwitz! launched by an Earth First! outfit in Garberville charged Pombo and Doolittle with that crime…back in 2001, when the Congressmen sabotaged the FDIC investigation by revealing the agency’s confidential records.
Pombo is a powerful Republican (chairman of the House Resources Committee) and has been re-elected in his Republican-dominated district seven times. A story by the first-rate on-line site Muckraker suggests that he still has an excellent chance to win re-election this year, despite the fact that the Sierra Club and other enviro groups are organizing to defeat him.
[Cathy] Duvall is currently spearheading a high-priority Sierra Club effort to publicize Pombo’s environmental record. "It is our No. 1 public outreach campaign for spring and summer," she says. "We are also researching and laying the groundwork for a potential political campaign in the fall."
Defenders of Wildlife is moving aggressively with its own education-outreach project, which includes the Pombo’s in Their Pocket website alleging that the rep has a quid-pro-quo relationship with his corporate contributors. Defenders has also been running print and TV ads in Pombo’s district over the last two months, criticizing his assault on the ESA and his proposal to sell off national parks, and the group has more ads in the pipeline.
"We will very likely lead an aggressive campaign against Pombo to put an end to his legislative assaults," [Mark] Longabaugh says [of the League of Conservation Voters].
Sierra Club and Defenders are in discussions about pulling together a coalition of at least half a dozen environmental groups that would pool resources to hire organizers and canvassers for Pombo’s district. "We are anticipating that by this spring we could have political organizers in the field," says Longabaugh, who’s been in California this week surveying the scene.
Insiders predict that the total spending on the battle for Pombo’s seat — including the rep’s own spending and money from outside groups — could exceed $5 million, with more than $1 million coming from the environmental community. As of September, Pombo had raised $713,430 for the campaign.
But that’s not all! According to this story by Nick Juliano in the Tracy Press:
[Democratic] party strategists think they have a winner in [Steve] Filson, 58, a commercial airline pilot and U.S. Navy veteran from Danville.
“For a new guy that’s come along with no track record in the public eye in a political race, I think we’re doing real well,” Filson said Friday.
His military service and moderate profile have made him the clear favorite of Democratic heavy hitters — he has received campaign contributions from groups associated with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer and Bay Area Rep. Ellen Tauscher.
But the best news for enviros of all is that it appears likely that Pete McCloskey, a co-author of the Endangered Species Act (that Pombo has devoted his legislative career to sabotaging), and a former Marine who represented the district for sixteen years, is preparing to run against Pombo.
So, to recap. Pombo faces an investigation by the FBI that is proceeding down two separate tracks, quite possibly based on testimony by pariah lobbyist Jack Abramoff; an energized Democratic party, a local poll that show that less than a third of his formerly-loyal constituents plan to vote for him in November, a massive environmental campaign against him that may well be able to outspend him, plus likely serious opposition from his own party.
Pombo told the Tracy Press that "I run every campaign the same way." But he’s not talking about his opposition, the investigations, or his association with Delay, Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, or pay-offs from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. Is it really any wonder his words sound a bit hollow?
Kit Stolz 