Rep.Jerry Lewis (R) CA to retire..

[monmouth]

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jerry Lewis says he will step down when his term ends, becoming the third California Republican to announce retirement in recent days.

Lewis, 77, is the former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. He's known for steering hundreds of millions of federal dollars to his district over the years.

The district includes much of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Lewis says in a news release he decided to retire after talking with his family. But his path to re-election was made tougher through redistricting.

First elected to Congress in 1978, Lewis has served in Congress longer than any Republican in California history.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/12/jerry-lewis-retiring-california-congressman_n_1202344.html

[Tikki]

1. This is such great news...

Three down....




Tikki

[DJ13]

2. Does that mean no more telethon?

[yellowcanine]

6. No that's Jerry LEE Lewis

[Cleita]

3. Don't break out the champagne yet.

I'm sure he has groomed his successor, who is a shoo-in to win in our gerrymandered Congressional districts. It happened to me. I did gym flips when my Congressman Bill Thomas retired, however, waiting in the wings was his well tutored heir apparent Kevin McCarthy, who is the House whip or third in line in power from the Boner. A cockroach couldn't lose, if he were a Republican, in my district.

[white_wolf]

5. That's strange. I always thought California was solidly progressive.

That's part of the reason I'm planning on moving there once I'm done with school. Please, tell me I'm not wrong.

[yellowcanine]

7. Ronald Reagan and Dick Nixon came from California.......

Nuff said.

[Cleita]

9. The coast is liberal mostly, until you get to Orange County down

to the border. Inland is mostly conservative and Tea Bagger type Republicans/Independents. Move to the Bay area if you can and LA on the West Side is very liberal as well, but unfortunately, we have way too many conservatives. Although I live on the coast, my district is gerrymandered into Bakersfield in Kern County, Republicans of the worst description.

Also, our government is broken. Our legislature is ruled by the minority Republicans because 2/3rd vote is needed to pass anything, so we really don't get stuff done that needs to be done. Our state government has become a joke ever since Darryl Issa and all his money allowed the Pukes to overthrow our Governor Grey Davis, who had just been elected to a second term. And the reason he was able to get Davis overthrown was because Enron had screwed us on an energy crisis we had that they took advantage of.

If I were you I would look to Portland, Oregon for real liberalism, that's if you can stand the rain, but welcome to CA anyway.

[white_wolf]

17. Mainly I want out of the South. TN is hell to live in.

Calaforina seems like it would be a nice place to live with the warm weather and the beach. I'm also thinking of NYC since I like cities.

[Cleita]

19. You will like it here then. Bay area might be too cold but Southern California is drier and warmer.

Just stick to the coasts. That's where most of the good cities are anyway.

[joeybee12]

4. Enjoy your retirement you worthless POS

Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.

[leveymg]

8. I thought he was indicted with Cunningham and Abramoff. Shoulda, coulda . . .

[banned from Kos]

10. When Rove fired US Attorney Carol Lam that shut down the investigation on Lewis

they claim she wasn't prosecuting Democrats.

[leveymg]

11. You and I and about three others know about that

but I recall the excuse was she wasn't persecuting enough "illegal aliens" for alleged voting fraud, or some such nonsense.

[banned from Kos]

14. yeah, you are correct as to the official Bush White House excuse

I was just interpreting the Rovian dialectic.

I never, ever believed the Bush White House (as you no doubt didn't).

[cascadiance]

18. Oh, she went after illegal immigration, but not in the way they wanted her too....

Instead of focusing on prosecuting illegal immigrants, she went after those who hired them, as this case shows. And of course, The Republicans probably didn't like the embarrassment that this firm was hiring illegals to build the border fence of all things... Note the comment at the end of the article trying to rationalize putting in more guest worker programs to let them bring in cheap labor here...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6626823

Also, another congress crook that I personally believe she was going after when she got hired was Duncan Hunter, who had a lot of similar legal questions on his ethics that Randy Duke Cunningham as noted in these stories...

http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/metro/20061008-9999-1n8duncan.html

His brother appears to have gotten a "sweet deal" through some of his enablement of corruption in San Diego...

http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/metro/20070303-9999-lz1n3mcmillin.html

I think one of the big reasons he ran for president that session after she got fired was to in effect google bomb news search hits on himself to turn up more on the election than on these sort of investigative articles that showed his ties to corruption which probably many here didn't hear about at the time with this sort of "coverup". Heard from the guy who ran against him before the election that her office was after him then, but might have cut a "deal" to have it come out after the election so that they wouldn't lose the seat in the general election and could run a special election afterward. Sounds like part of the plan of firing her was to shut down the prosecution effort of him altogether. Of course he's since retired and now his son by the same name has the seat.

And of course, Republicans probably didn't like that Carol Lam switched her party registration from being a Republican to an independent when she was the local U.S. attorney there.

Still enjoy to this day having come up with the idea and helping Progressive Post to give her a DU-like treatment of flowers on Valentine's day a few days before she left her position there. I hope she still values that gesture to help her feel like what she did was worth doing then.



http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070216/news_1m16lam.html

[leveymg]

20. I liked the flowers to Carol Lam campaign.

There are a few good people in government. But, they usually get fired, and you have to wonder about the rest.

Only the bad retire old. e.g., Rep. Lewis. (Well, of course, there are exceptions like Joe Moakley who prove the rule)

[lpbk2713]

12. At 77 he probably figures he's stashed enough payola away by now.

And it's probably getting difficult coming up with lies and alibis at his age too.

[Demonaut]

13. never thought he was funny

i like the other one

[librechik]

15. criminal--good riddance

[no_hypocrisy]

16. Mods, drinks for The House!