Now for the reason I turned to Novakula in the first place (yes, he’s a partisan hack, but his sources are typically impeccable).  This weekend he reported on maneuvers within the House GOP caucus to keep Jerry Lewis in his post as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, despite being under federal investigation.  You’ll recall that Minority Leader John Boehner stressed ethics and honesty when elected by the caucus, and even demoted John Doolittle from Appropriations when the FBI raided his house.  There would appear to be a double standard, and reformers within the Republican Party are pissed.

The GOP leadership was so frazzled by this column that they sought to spin it on Friday, before it was even published.  They denied that the meeting ever occurred.  However, Lewis is still the ranking member of the Committee, so those denials only go so far.  So it appears he’ll remain in that position throughout his re-election effort.  And that effort has Howie Klein pissed:

It also looks like he’s gotten the same shill candidate, Louie Contreras, who didn’t run against him in 2006 to be his “opponent” in 2008– and the state of Art Torres’ California Democratic Party is so pathetic that they won’t even lift a finger to look into it.

So Lewis, probably the single most corrupt man in Congress, has the Republican nomination locked up and the Democratic nomination rigged. All he has to do is not get indicted. He’s spent over a million dollars in legal fees to keep that from happening.

Contreras actually jumped into the comments of that post and claimed that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell was supporting him.  He isn’t.  The San Bernardino Sun claims Tim Prince is running, though he earlier said that he would only run if Lewis didn’t.  I can add that there will be an additional “mystery candidate” in this race, and for now, that’s all I can say. (Tee-hee!!)