Well, my mother always told me when you can’t say anything nice, you know.  Anyway, it appears that Joe Baca has survived an attempted coup at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Rep. Joe Baca came out on top of a recent flap over his chairmanship of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, earning a vote of confidence from the group at a special meeting Tuesday.

A splinter group of the all-Democratic caucus challenged his chairmanship and questioned his leadership and decorum, particularly when it comes to women. (S.B. Sun 3/7/07)

You know, as atdleft pointed out, perhaps the OC Weekly article was unduly hard on Loretta Sanchez.  I mean after all, there are several California Congress members that are closer to the Republicans than her.  How do I know? I went to Progressive Punch (House Scores) In fact, one of those with a less progressive than Loretta is Joe Baca. (Baca also scores lower on the National Journal rankings)

Did you know that Joe Baca supports drilling in ANWR? I didn’t, but then I looked up his progressive punch score, and I saw that Mr. Baca has a very low environmental score (63).  I drilled down and found out that he votes with the gas guzzlers every time ANWR comes up for a vote.  Loretta Sanchez? She has voted consistently against drilling in ANWR.  Good work, Loretta. And Loretta has managed to out-progressive Baca despite the fact that Baca’s district (CA-43) has a Cook Score of D+13 compared to CA-47’s score of D+5.

On the question of why there isn’t a strong push to primary Baca?  Well, he reaches out to the grassroots.

Gil Navarro, a Democratic activist in the Inland Empire, said local Latinos remain strongly behind Baca. What other congressmen, Navarro asked, would regularly attend a meeting of Rialto Democrats, as Baca still does?