CA-11 House Election: Environment and Corruption
California 11: Danville, Pleasanton, Morgan Hill, Tracy, Lodi (map)
Democrat: Jerry McNerney, mathematician, wind turbine engineer
Republican: Richard Pombo, incumbent since 1992 (2004: won 61%–39% over McNerney)
Poll D +2: McNerney 48%, Pombo 46% (9/26)
Outlook: tossup ▲ (from leans Republican)
Post updated: November 2
Final result (11/8): Democrat 53%, Republican 47%
Jerry McNerney continues to make inroads on Richard Pombo's lead in the 11th District of California. Though it's a gerrymandered monstrosity, designed by the state legislature to be safely Republican through 2010, demographics and party affiliation in the district have been changing rapidly (GOP down almost 5% in 12 months). Building on that Democratic-leaning tendency are Pombo's newly publicized corruption, his unpopular stances on Iraq and the environment, and general disgust with Bush and his party. McNerney—a Mister-Smith-goes-to-Washington candidate—has a real chance to win: two recent polls are statistical ties, within the margin of error.
On September 27, at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, Bay Area Democrats held an inspiring rally for McNerney and another excellent congressional candidate, the laconic Charlie Brown, who is running in District 4 (east of Sacramento). Both spoke with unpolitician-like directness; their honesty and rough edges—as well as their progressive ideas—are a refreshing contrast to the polished lies of the GOP incumbents, John Doolittle (of the 4th) and Pombo.
Pombo's right-wing corruption is reason enough to vote for someone else. One of McNerney's supporters at the Grand Lake was Pete McCloskey, for years the maverick Republican congressman from Palo Alto. McCloskey ran against Pombo in the GOP primary in June, and when he lost quickly began working for McNerney. Pombo is an über-Republican, a strong supporter of private property rights and opponent of environmental legislation; the League of Conservation Voters rates his voting record at 3 percent. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, he has proposed selling outright 15 national parks and related sites—as well as selling corporate naming rights to visitors' centers and hiking trails, in order to raise revenue.
Pombo has fought for oil drilling in Alaska's sensitive ANWR and in currently forbidden offshore sites, and he has called for evisceration of the Endangered Species Act. His website also emphasizes cutting taxes, forbidding gay marriage, limiting immigration, and increasing security by denying constitutional rights to terrorism suspects—the usual Bushite line. But his website sidesteps any mention of George Bush or the Iraq War, attempting to hide his strong support for both.
Pombo was an acolyte of Tom DeLay, and his corrupt ties to Jack Abramoff are well known, as Anthony York writes in Capitol News (Sacramento):
Last year, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Pombo one of the "13 most corrupt members of Congress." Pombo also has come under fire for paying both his wife and brother as fund-raisers for his political committee.
He has also been accused of manipulating the legislative process to benefit himself in at least two instances, refusing to investigate sweatshops in the Northern Mariana Islands and demanding regulatory breaks for wind turbines. In the former case, Abramoff siphoned money to his campaign fund; in the latter, he asked the EPA to suspend wind-turbine regulations even though his parents had a financial interest in an Altamont wind farm.
McNerney is a neophyte politician who has nothing in common with the sleazy Pombo. He first ran for office two years ago, on a shoestring, and gave the entrenched incumbent a creditable race. This year, he is much better prepared, with a strong campaign insfrastructure, thousands of volunteers, and seven newspaper endorsements, from the Modesto Bee, Independent (Tri-Valley), San Jose Mercury-News, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, Pleasanton Weekly, and Danville Weekly.
Unlike Pombo's illegal political manipulations to make money from alternative energy, McNerney is connected with wind turbines as an experienced environmental engineer and CEO of a startup company that plans to manufacture them, and he supports other energy-efficient, non-oil-based policies. His entry into politics, just two weeks before the 2004 primary election, resulted from a call to duty from his son, an Air Force officer. His attitude toward corruption is summed up in his call for a tough ethics reform proposal that would include, as he puts it:
- No secret meetings with lobbyists
- No outside financial relationships
- No privately funded travel
- No gifts
- No exceptions!
McNerney supports rapid withdrawal from Iraq, limiting wiretaps, and rewriting the Patriot Act. He has outlined progressive proposals in a number of other areas, including the improvement of education and healthcare, and the protection of reproductive freedom and labor unions. He has garnered a wide range of endorsers, including General Wesley Clark and McCloskey.
Even with the close polling numbers, Pombo's incumbency and the Republican tilt of his district continue to give him a small putative advantage. On the other hand, the district—with almost 50 percent minority population— is on the edge of the famously liberal Bay Area, and in 2004 Bush beat Kerry by only 3 percent.
With the Democratic tidal wave this year, a good turnout for McNerney may well give him the edge. You could feel the energy last month at the Grand Lake, with rousing speeches from Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and and ex–San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. There was also rousing comedy from Will Durst, who said, "Speaking of Iraq, George Bush says failure is not an option. Who knew it was standard equipment?"
On October 27, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added McNerney (along with the 4th District's Charlie Brown) to its "Red to Blue" fundraising program. That will certainly help, but to beat Pombo and his corporate millions, McNerney needs money from you too. You can contribute here. The race has moved, in the last 6 weeks, from likely Republican to a tossup, and with a final push we can return Pombo to private life. The biosphere would smile.
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