We have confirmed that longtime Republican Congressman Jerry Lewis of the Inland Empire has been making phone calls to supporters today indicating that he is not running for re-election. We are not prepared to say this means he actually is retiring, since he has been rumored to be retiring before, and he keeps running again, and again.
Lewis of course is known as the “Minority Maker” as he was dubbed by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board for being a prolific proponent of egregious pork-barrel spending in Washington, D.C. The Journal credited Lewis with bearing some of the burden for the 2006 epic loss of the House by Republicans, because of GOP over-spending.
Lewis’ current seat was divvied up in redistricting and there were questions about which seat he would actually chose to run in. If Lewis does retire, this could set the state for moderate San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos to run. Ramos was a proponent of Governor Brown’s tax increase proposal last year, which was controversial in GOP circles. Also possibly running could be State Senator Bob Dutton, and also there is rumor that if Lewis doesn’t run, Congressman Gary Miller might slide over and run for one of the two “Lewis” seats. Also Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt and Assemblyman Paul Cook… Lots of potential candidates in this area.
Again, we can confirm that Lewis is telling people he will retire this year. We can only cross our fingers and hope it’s true. Don’t miss this video below as a reminder of the big spending ways of the “Minority Maker”…
January 10th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
[…] district east of Los Angeles. The politics blog Flash Report reported on Tuesday that Mr. Lewis was calling supporters to tell them that he was retiring at the end of this term after 34 years in […]
January 12th, 2012 at 10:29 am
[…] Jon Fleischman: *Breaking* U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis Calling Supporters: “I am retiring.” […]
January 12th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
[…] this year in the new district he’s been given in the Inland Empire. The Flash Report reported earlier this week that Lewis had been telephoning donors to tell them he was retiring, a scoop we reported. Lewis […]