Tag Archives: Brian Bilbray

San Diego

CA-50: Who is Busby running against? Maybe both?!

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Who knows?  Bilbray says he’s the “presumptive” candidate. 

Neither of the two leading candidates claimed outright victory after Tuesday’s special election to finish the final eight months of Cunningham’s term. They were separated by less than 900 votes.

With 100 percent of the precincts counted, lobbyist and former GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray had 19,366 votes or 15 percent of the vote in California’s 50th District. Eric Roach, a venture capitalist who poured at least $1.8 million of his own money into the race, had 18,486 votes or 14 percent.

You also have to love that Roach’s money could only buy one vote for each $10.  $10/vote.  Wow, those are some expensive votes.  So, while neither Republican can decide who is the winner, they can spend lots of money to decide nothing.

But Roach hasn’t ruled anything out.  Anything.

“We are waiting for those final 10,000 votes to be counted,” said Roach spokesman Stan Devereux. “Then we’ll see if a recount is necessary.”

Devereux didn’t rule out the possibility that Roach might attempt a write-in campaign in the June runoff if he finishes behind Bilbray.

Well, I must admit that I thought Busby vs. Bilbray was my dream scenario for the runoff (if there had to be one.)  But I take that back.  My dream scenario is now Roach running a well-financed write-in campaign and handing the election to Busby.  Hey Eric, you want to spend another $10/vote?

Blog Roundup, Environment

California Blog Roundup, 4/13/06

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OK, here’s the California Blog Roundup for today. Teasers: 5 House Districts to watch, a smidge more on CA-50, more fun with Brian Bilbray, wobbly Governor (and not the good kind of Wobbly), some endorsements from a couple groups, news of the funny and weird.

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Brian Bilbray: Bought Outright or Just Rented?

So, it looks Francine Busby will be facing Brian Bilbray in the runoff for CA-50 on June 6.  His bio is interesting:  he was a house member from 1994 until 2000; he’s been a lobbyist since.  TPM Muckraker tells us about one of his clients, both while he was a member of the house and after:

In the mid-1990s, an unusual project called Bajagua landed on desks around Washington. Bajagua — a plan cooked up by two Southern California developers — was to pump water from Mexico to San Diego; process the water once; pump it back to Mexico; and process it a second time, then pipe it into Mexican households. …

Both the EPA and the State Department rejected the idea. But Bilbray believed! He also got campaign donations from the Bajagua project’s backers.

…Bilbray got to work: with another lawmaker, he crafted a bill in 1999 that forced the State Department to renegotiate with Mexico to allow for the project. It also handed the Bajagua brains the keys to a sole-source contract to build the Mexican plant. The bill passed in 2000.
…
In 2000, Bilbray lost his Congressional seat. For $35,000, the Bajagua guys snapped him up as their lobbyist. He pressed State to get the OK’s from Mexico and to issue his backers a contract to start building their plant.

Bilbray even testified before Congress on behalf of the Bajagua project. He didn’t bother to mention he was being retained by the project’s creators to sell the thing in Washington, however.

Wow.  Taking money both as a legislator and as a lobbyist to push legislation benefitting just one company that wants to build something nobody else wants.  I’m impressed.

The Republican Party should be proud of this candidate — he’s clearly a thought leader.

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Is brianisaliar.com Next

San Diego Politics continues to do an outstanding job reporting on the CA-50 congressional race. On Tuesday, San Diego Politics posted about howardisaliar.com, a website devoted to debunking candidate Howard Kaloogian’s claims that he was a major force in the Gray Davis recall movement. Kaloogian’s campaign has responded that howardisaliar.com is a liar, nana nana nana.

[Kaloogian operatives] stated that the allegations [on howardisalair.com] were not only false (they claim that Kaloogian’s recall committee was the first to file with the Secretary of State of California and the first to register an online website that collected “several hundred thousand signatures on recall petitions”) but that the anti-Kaloogian website was being run by operatives associated with Brian Bilbray’s congressional campaign without any proper attribution to the campaign.

Is former congessman and current candidate, Brian Bilbray a liar?  More follows.

So, the Kaloogian campaign claims that rival Republican candidate Brian Bilbray is behind the howardisalair.com website and that his campaign’s involvement with the site is a violation of Federal Election Commission rules.

The allegations made by these Kaloogian staffers about the howardisaliar website are relevant because the website in question contains no identification that it is sponsored by or approved by Brian Bilbray’s campaign. Therefore, the Kaloogian campaign staffers argue, Brian Bilbray’s campaign has not only engaged in dirty politics, but the Bilbray campaign has also done so in violation of FEC regulations.

Whoops. The Kaloogian forces have some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence that links not only Bilbray’s campaign to the website, but also Congressman Darrell Issa (CA-49), who has endorsed Bilbray and who was deeply involved with the Gray Davis recall.

Apparently the recall campaign engendered bad blood between the Issa recall committee and Kaloogian’s recall committee. A story by Dan Smith of the Sacramento Bee confirms this rift.  Issa’s consultant was at the time, and apparently still is, Republican strategist Dave Gilliard.  According to the Flash Report, Gilliard is now serving as the consultant for Brian Bilbray’s congressional campaign.

There is a lot more detail at San Diego Politics. Including an electronic smoking gun that links howardisaliar.com to the same Internet servers as the Bilbray campaign website.

It appears that North County Republicans are having a lot of trouble playing nice together.