Letters to the Editor: Kevin McCarthy is the kind of politician who lets democracy die. He is a political careerist who has built his career on breaking the law. He is a danger to the Constitution and the Republic. And he has been for a long time.
Kevin McCarthy is a two-timing bastard. He ran for Congress in 1994, and now he is being re-elected. I’m not talking about the re-elected Democrat. I’m talking about his Republican opponent. Congressman McCarthy served in the California Assembly. He has been a Republican since he first ran for office. He voted for President Reagan in the last election, and he voted against Obama’s stimulus package in the last election. So, he’s clearly been a Republican his whole life.
Now, he’s running against Democrat John Fritchey. Like McCarthy, Fritchey was elected to the California Assembly. Like McCarthy, Fritchey helped pass Proposition 32, the state constitutional amendment that allows for gay marriage. It passed with a vote of 55%-45%. Like McCarthy, Fritchey ran in his own way, and he won with more votes than his opponent. Unlike McCarthy, this time they won with less than 50%.
How much did this vote cost them? McCarthy is one of the most expensive members of Congress. The district he represents is in a district that has a poverty rate of 41.6% compared to a national poverty rate of 14.7%. That’s how bad the housing problem is in his district. He voted to raise the cap on the Federal Housing Authority subsidy for housing to $100,000 per family. When Congress raised the limit to $300,000, Republicans got mad. When he voted to raise it to $500,000, they got mad again. When Congress raised the limit to $1 million, he became the most popular sitting member of the House.
On a national level, the Republican Party is in total ruins. They got hammered in the last election. They didn’t do badly in California. They got hammered in the last election in Washington state. Now, their popularity in California is down. They are having fewer people in their rallies. When I first ran for Congress in the 1990s, I got over 90% of the votes in Southern California. But over time, the enthusiasm for my supporters dropped and the money ran out
