CA-04: enlisting with Lt. Col. Charlie Brown

One of the most beautiful congressional districts in the nation, CA-04 lives in the northeastern corner of California, straddling the Sierra foothills. It is a solidly Republican district, with Bush besting Kerry 61-37 in 2004, and Republicans enjoying a 48-30 voter registration advantage.

Yet in this supposed Red bastion, Doolittle was unable to win an outright majority in 2006, instead winning a narrow reelection with 49.1 percent plurality of the vote.

His Democratic tormentor? Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charlie Brown, who has reupped for a second stab at a race he came tantalizingly close to winning in 2006. He is also the second candidate added to the combined MyDD/Swing State Project/Daily Kos Blue Majority ActBlue page. Donna Edwards was introduced yesterday.

Brown's greatest ally in his quest is Doolittle himself, the epitome of the corrupt bastard. He is lawyered up thanks to the Abramoff scandal, which enriched him to the tune of about $65K, including $14K directly from Abramoff himself. It was a neat little arrangement.

Abramoff's connections to Doolittle are also of interest to investigators, sources said. Doolittle's former chief of staff, Kevin A. Ring, went to work with Abramoff. Doolittle's wife, Julie, owned a consulting firm that was hired by Abramoff and his firm, Greenberg Traurig, to do fundraising for a charity he founded. Two sources close to the investigation said that Ring, while working for Abramoff, was an intermediary in the hiring of Julie Doolittle's firm, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions Inc., which last year received a subpoena from the grand jury investigating Abramoff.

That "charity" of Abramoff was actually a front group to launder Abramoff's lobbying efforts.

That's not all. Doolittle is so addicted to lobbyist money that he demanded a town in his district hire a lobbyist in order to get federal transportation money. Without a lobbyist, Doolittle will do little (no pun intended) to help out cities in his district.

Sharon Atteberry, city administrator for the city of Oroville, which received $450,000 in the recent spending bill, said she had also been urged to hire a lobbyist by Doolittle's staff. She said she personally went to Doolittle's office in Roseville to ask for the money. She said she thought that probably helped.

"They encouraged us that a lobbyist is very important to any city or county government," she said. "We will consider that in the future."

And yet, there's more! His wife, Julie, has been used for years to funnel campaign contributions (including tainted funds like the Abramoff money) into the family bank account.

Julie Doolittle was paid on commission as she raised money for her husband's campaign, a practice that gave the family a 15 percent cut of all donations raised. Other fundraisers earn a flat fee [...]

Federal records show that she earned more than $100,000 in commissions raising money for her husband's campaign committee during the last two years. According to a tally by The Sacramento Bee, she earned an additional $86,000 raising money for Doolittle's political action committee.

And she's got more cash coming:

Rep. John Doolittle's campaign committee reported Thursday that it owed the Roseville Republican's wife nearly $137,000 in fundraising commissions lingering from the 2006 elections, and that its year-end debts exceeded cash reserves by $166,000.

The consequence is that Doolittle now is soliciting contributions and planning fundraisers for his 2008 campaign that, in the early going at least, will be raising money largely to pay off his wife's company, which is operated out of the couple's suburban Virginia home.

And there's more. So, much more. You want a link to Cunningham? You got it. Lobbyist-funded foreign junkets? Yup. Obstruction of justice? Sure. And yes, there's even the requisite FBI raid of his home.

Ack! What a freakin' nightmare of a congressman! And his ethical problems aren't getting any better. Yet Doolittle and his wife can't let go of their cash cow and he refuses to resign.

Meanwhile, Charlie Brown's grassroots army continues to grow. And Northern California activists, fresh from helping topple Richard Pombo in CA-11 in 2006, are taking a close look at shifting resources to this race. Sure, Rep. Jerry McNerney (one of our candidates last cycle) will face a tough reelection fight, but activists are hungry to cleanse Northern California of Republicans who'd rather pad their pockets (literally) than represent their lobbyist-free constituents.

Brown bucked his districts Republican leanings to come inches from the huge upset. He hasn't stopped running since Election Day 2006. His grassroots army continues to grow, the GOP brand continues to disintegrate, people are abandoning the GOP in droves (including in rural districts like this one), Iraq continues to drag Republicans down, and Doolittle's ethical problems multiply by the week.

So Doolittle either 1) holds out and faces a stronger Brown from an even weaker position, 2) resigns, and gives Brown a stong shot at a special election seat (which we've gotten pretty good at winning), or 3) he gets primaried out and Brown gets a lesser-known opponent without the advantages of 10-term incumbency.

NorCal activists and the California netroots got the ball rolling on this race last cycle. Hopefully we can all get together to finish the job this cycle. Contribute early to his race, and let's put pressure on Doolittle and the Republicans to hold on a seat that they've taken for granted for too long.

Interested on keeping a close eye on this race? Calitics will be the go-to place.