Richard Pombo Faces a Green Avalanche

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted January 27, 2006.

... But this year, many environmental leaders are saying that one of the best deals for green donors can be found in the congressional election in California's 11th District -- in the campaign to defeat Rep. Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee ...

Pombo's 11th District is a Republican anomaly in the otherwise heavily Democratic Bay Area of Northern California. The 11th contains some of the agricultural Central Valley and stretches into the Bay's tech corridor, spreading across four counties. In the more than 12 years he's been in Congress, Pombo's district has become home to some of the most horrendous stretches of strip malls and cultureless housing tracts in California. According to the East Bay Express, Pombo's father and uncles have made tens of millions of dollars selling farm and ranch land to developers. And on Pombo's watch, his district also has come to have some of the worst air quality and drinking water in the country.

While Pombo, who embodies the Republican archetype of the fake rancher, waxes on about "the land" and the generations of Pombo farmers, he has quietly worked his legislative powers to sell his family's acreage to the government for an unnecessary freeway add-on.

And it should come as little surprise that Pombo has danced with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He ranks fifth on the money list of politicians who have taken money from the Abramoff's cash nexus, raking in $54,500. In exchange, Pombo had his fling with the Mariana Islands and played cowboy and Indian casinos. But these political sins don't come up to the ankles of the work he's done to destroy the environment as chair of the House Resources Committee, which then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay cherrypicked him to run in 2003 ...

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/31381/

with the possible exception of bugman delay and I'm not even sure about him. He affects the whole cowboy persona (big hat, fancy boots etc) which may have played well with the farmers and developers who supported his campaigns in the past but as the area has grown it has taken on more of a bay area, high tech, atmosphere and the majority of the new residents would most likely be somewhat put off by Pombo's pseudo-hick schtick. He has a viable primary opponent and with open primaries it could be a great opportunity to get rid of this slug forever.

No, I'm not making this up.