Duncan Hunter hails from inland San Diego County, somewhere abouts Alpine.  Pretty desert-type area.  It’s a fairly conservative place, but you can’t hold that against him.  You can hold his terrible website against him.  It’s got to be one of the worst in all of the Congress.  Something else you can hold against him: he’s one of the top recipients of lobbying dollars.  In fact he’s take more money than all but 65 Congressmen in the last year.  That puts him at about top 15%.  Good Work Duncan ol’boy!

But more specifically, he’s #2 on Van D. Hipp Jr.’s list.  Now, who is Van D. Hipp, Jr you might ask?  Well good question!

The report from Public Citizen indicates the Alpine Republican is Congress’ No. 2 recipient of contributions from Van D. Hipp Jr., chairman of American Defense International, a lobbying group whose clients have included Raytheon Missile Systems, Ruag Munition, Sarnoff Corp. and other defense-related companies. Hipp is profiled in the Public Citizen report because he is among the Hill’s top donors to lawmakers.

Hunter is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the nation’s vast and expensive defense programs.

Hipp has been with American Defense International since 1998. The company’s Web site indicates that the company represents more than 100 organizations in 11 countries on “government affairs” strategies, crafting messages to “decision makers” and “marketing a product or service to the federal government” – in other words, your standard lobbying activities.

In the scheme of things, that’s not a big chunk of change, but in the current lobby-reform climate, a Hunter-Hipp association is something watchdog groups are bound to pounce on.  … That is especially true since Hipp does not have a clean record. … About a decade ago, this former deputy assistant secretary of the Army was sentenced to five years’ probation and three months’ house arrest for taking illegal campaign gifts during a failed 1994 congressional campaign. He also was fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
That’s a bit more serious than your average Federal Election Commission slap on the wrist. No doubt those critical of Hunter’s close ties to imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham would be happy to point out that Hunter has ties to others who have run afoul of the law. (SD U-T 6/5/06)

Now, the article also goes on to say that all this money is no cause for concern.  Everybody does it and “‘lobbyist’ is not – last we checked – an inherently dirty word.”  Well, tell that to the people of the 50th who suffered the indignation and violation of trust of their former representative.  Lobbyist isn’t necessarily a bad word, sure…as long as there isn’t any money involved.  Until we have a process of clean elections, I’ll be sure to watch the lobbyists and where they are spreading all that cash.  We’d be naïve if we didn’t.  I’m sure a part of the reason why the focus is narrowing on the GOP is that thay control power.  I’m certainly not saying that Dems are immune to corruption.  That’s certainly not true (Exhibit A: Rostenkowski), but it is true that the GOP has not been hiding from all that loose money.  Congressmen need to know that there are consequences of every action.  Make sure you know who your john is before you whore our nation out.

While Schwarzenegger is inching up, it’s not great news for the Governator…or the Legislature:

The survey finds that there has been little change in overall voter evaluations of the job the governor and state legislature is doing. Currently, 46% disapprove of Schwarzenegger’s performance, while 41% approve, not much different from a 47% – 39% negative rating in April.

Voters remain even more critical of the legislature’s performance, with 51% disapproving and 26% approving. That’s not much different than the two to one negative to positive assessment it received in April.

Contributing to these poor evaluations is the fact that a majority of voters (57%) believes the state is seriously off on the wrong track, while just 32% feel it is moving in the right direction. This is a slightly more optimistic assessment than what was observed in April.(FieldPoll 6/5/06) 

Typically a number under 50% approval is a cause for serious concern for the incumbent.  Schwarzenegger has been languishing under 50% since June of last year.  While it will take a lot of work on the part of the Dem nominee, Angelides or Westly, it is certainly a reasonable outcome.  The matchups at this point still have a big name recognition factor in favor of the Governator.  We’ll see how that shifts after the campaign is in full swing.

As for the legislature, I think it’s one of the “hate the legislature, love your legislator” things.  There are few competitive races in either the Assembly or Senate. For info on interesting races, see Nathaniel, Burbank native’s review of the Assembly Races and the Senate Races.  Not a whole lot will change in the next session.  Term limits will mean faces will change, but votes likely won’t.  There are one or two pickup opportunities for the Republicans, mainly in SoCal, but don’t expect a lot of change.

But, the infrastructure bonds are fairing well…for now. 

The results indicate that there is currently greater than two to one support (58% to 25%) for Proposition 1e, the $4.1 billion bond for disaster preparedness and flood protection.

By a similar margin (57% to 24%) voters also support a $19.9 billion proposal, Prop. 1b, called the “Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality and Port Security Bond Act.”

A smaller, but still substantial, plurality of voters (48% to 34%) are also inclined to support Prop. 1d, a $10.4 billion bond for “Kindergarten through University Public Education Facilities.”

However, there is less support for Prop. 1c, a $2.8 billion proposal for “Housing and Emergency Shelter,” with voters dividing 39% in favor and 38% opposed.

Boy, would it be the GOP’s dream to get 1e and 1b passed without 1c and 1d, the school and housing related bonds.  It’s really what they wanted all along.  The Housing bonds were a real sticking point in the negotiations all throughout.  Many GOP arms had to be twisted to get that through the Assembly.

The interesting thing is that the California electorate tends to drift towards no as the elections get closer.  I’m curious if that will happen here as well.

From the DCCC Stakeholder:

Dear Friends and Bloggers,

I wanted to write a quick note of thanks for your engagement in my race — I’ve seen great posts sorting out fact from fiction on all the desperate Republican attacks, and just as importantly we’ve seen a huge surge in volunteers over the past few days thanks to all of you as well as the DCCC, DNC, Louise Slaughter and Jane Harman. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

However! We’ve got 300 volunteers lined up right now, and to give it everything we’ve got on Monday and Tuesday we need 400. I hate to ask, but if any of you can help us get there, we’ll all be eternally grateful out here.

Anybody in the San Diego area who wants to help can let us know by emailing us at volunteer-at-busbyforcongress.org or calling us at (760) 479-0114.

Thanks either way, and onward!

Francine Busby

Let’s make sure that we put everything into this one.  We certainly don’t want to be left next Wednesday wondering what could have been.  If you can help her send her an email at volunteer-at-busbyforcongress.org or talk to somebody you know that’s already volunteering.  Also, Moveon.org is having a virtual phonebank if you are outside of SoCal.