I have known Ken Calvert for a very long time. Back when I was a youth activist in politics, he served as Chairman of the Riverside County GOP. I’ve run into him from time to time since his election to Congress. As a matter of fact, he endorsed my candidacy for Vice Chairman South of the State GOP just last year. For my interactions with him, Calvert has been a really nice guy.
That said, there is certainly a tension out there because Calvert is a very big proponent of this Appropriations-driven model of governance that we have in the House of Representatives. It is some sort of mentality that seems to boil down to this: our constituents are taxed so much that our job is to drive home as much federal spending back to our districts as possible. Of course this is a totally flawed outlook — conservatives should not argue to increase spending to "mitigate" high taxes, but should fight to lower the taxes.
Anyways, when the GOP took control of Congress in the big "Contract with America" 1994 sweep that propelled Newt Gingrich into the Speaker’s chair, Republicans started to go down the wrong road with an embrace of the Washington lobbyists (heck, a special "K Street Project" was developed to get the slimy and greedy lobbyists to hire Republicans — which worked too well). Republicans began to be the party of the favor-factory, pushing more and more earmarks, with the most outrageous and egregious earmarks being supported in some sort of collective "you don’t question my earmarks and I won’t question yours" kind of mentality. Earmarks were laced into big appropriations packages as some sort of "gateway drug" to allow conservatives to vote for big-time spending (or else be on record opposing the pork for their districts).
We need a sea-change among Republicans on Capitol Hill. The obsession with federal spending has to end — and be replaced with an obsession for federal austerity. We should probably advocate ending in its entirety the existence of an Appropriations (Spending) Committee, and let the various policy committees recommend spending in a less centralized fashion. The "Appropriations" Committee has really become a magnet for big spenders. (I have visions of alcoholics bellying up to their favorite bar…) In fact, in a rather high-profile way, Republicans who oppose earmarking are routinely kept from sitting on this spending committee. (We wouldn’t want someone at the bar that only drinks lemonade, right?).
Anyways, the startling segment of last weekend’s Geraldo Live program that focused on Congressman Calvert’s land deals and their nexus to his role as a federal legislator was depresssing to watch, and disturbing – as is the story in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. It is my hope that the Congressman has some explanations for all of this.
The issue, of course, is not whether Calvert did anything illegal. I really don’t think he did. He’s smarter than that. The issue is one of judgment — of continuing to engage in real estate business deals, after being elected to Congress, that from the most charitable point of view look awful. When you take the very real and actual criminal acts of a scoundrel like convicted former Congressman Duke Cunningham into account, we need to have a lot more common sense being used by our Republicans in the House when deciding what, if any, outside business "opportunities" they are going to pursue. "Will this in any way have a potential to have an appearance of impropriety?"
So — action items? I guess to individual members of Congress, like Calvert, I would say — review your personal business matters, and apply some sort of common-sense test here, remembering that the Republican Party is being judged right now in the Court of Public Opinion. And to House Republicans as a whole, I would recommend a huge deemphasis on federal spending, and a re-embrace of true economically conservative fiscal values, starting with a pledge to stop earmarking now, as individual Republicans, and to end it for the institution if given a majority once again. It is worthy of note, by the way, that Senator McCain, our GOP nominee for President, is a huge critic of earmarks and has pledged, if elected, to veto them all (regardless of whether they are authored by Democrats or Republicans).
How prolific has earmarking become? Read it here.
As an officer of the California Republican Party, I am charged with working to see that our party elects and re-elects Republicans with the goal of enacting Republican policies into law. Changing the way that we do business, as a party, on Capitol Hill is essential to winning anything. If we maintain the status quo, no matter what the State our County GOP Committees try to do, we will lose ground. Our ability to pro-actively promote the Republican Party is more than mitigated by the ability of our elected officials to "muddy up" our image with pork-barrel politics.