Free Republic

A fight to replace Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is raging full force, with six candidates jockeying for position, burning up the phone lines and twisting arms. The dominoes are lined up: If Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, retires from Congress this year, McCarthy will announce that he's running for the seat held by his mentor. McCarthy will then launch his campaign and, in coming weeks, step aside as GOP Assembly chief. McCarthy would be replaced by Sacramento Assemblyman Roger Niello, a fast-rising neophyte, or by George Plescia of La Jolla, Rick Keene of Chico, Sharon Runner of Lancaster, Mimi Walters...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Republican Rep. Bill Thomas, the powerful and mercurial chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced Monday he will retire from Congress after this year. Thomas, 64, who has spent more than a quarter century in Congress, made the announcement at a news conference in his hometown of Bakersfield. The development was widely expected because, under House Republicans' self-imposed term limits for committee chairmen, Thomas cannot serve after this year as head of the influential committee that writes tax laws. "Today I am announcing that I will not seek reelection to the United States Congress," he...

Republican Rep. Bill Thomas, chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, was set to announce Monday whether he would retire from Congress or seek a 15th term. Thomas, 64, scheduled a morning news conference in his hometown of Bakersfield, Calif., amid speculation that he would leave the House of Representatives. Because of House Republicans' self-imposed term limits for committee chairmen, the mercurial but brainy former college professor is serving his last year as head of the powerful committee that writes tax laws. GOP officials are working under the assumption that Thomas will retire, according to a Republican election...

Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), one of the most influential members of the California delegation in Congress, is holding a news conference Monday to announce whether he will run for reelection this year amid predictions the 14-term congressman will retire. Speculation is widespread that Thomas may leave Congress because, under House rules setting term limits for committee chairmen, this year is the last he can serve as head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Members of the California Republican Assembly began arriving in Bakersfield Friday to compare notes on their unhappiness with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and endorse candidates in the June 6 GOP primary election. The CRA is the largest and most active organization of conservative Republicans in the state. "This is the destination convention for grass-roots Republicans," said Karen Norton, president of the group's Bakersfield chapter and the chief convention organizer. The group will also bash Bakersfield's moderate Republican congressman, Bill Thomas. One of the resolutions to be debated and voted on demands that Thomas retire. "We're hopeful that Bill Thomas is soon...

Conservative Republicans who are upset with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are heading to Bakersfield this weekend and are certain to vent their feelings. However, most experts say a full-blown conservative revolt against the GOP's only major candidate for the state's highest office is unlikely. The California Republican Assembly, which represents the conservative wing of the Republican Party, will gather at the DoubleTree Hotel starting Friday for its election-year nominating convention. CRA president Mike Spence was among conservatives who until recently were threatening to lead a movement to withdraw the Republican Party's endorsement of Schwarzenegger. However, that threat appears to have been...

Thomas may want DeLay's old job Critics quickly trounce rumored idea, pointing out Kern congressman's foibles A rumor posted on a Wall Street Journal weblog that Congressman Bill Thomas may run to succeed scandal-plagued House Majority Leader Tom DeLay sent shudders through both conservative Republicans and Democrats this week. Thomas, R-Bakersfield, did not respond to repeated e-mail and telephone requests for comment. However, other accounts of the contest to succeed DeLay have not mentioned Thomas as a candidate. Two other GOP congressmen, Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Boehner of Ohio, have a head start with active campaigns already under...

Another prominent House Republican may be about to join the race to succeed Tom DeLay, who stepped down permanently as House Majority Leader over the weekend. Bill Thomas, the brainy and often bombastic chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, is contemplating running in the Feb. 2 election, which will be decided by a secret vote of the 231 House Republicans. Mr. Thomas views the current frontrunners, Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt and Education Committee Chairman John Boehner, as too closely tied to the status quo. If he ran, according to former aides, he would likely garner enough support...

What kind of legacy will Kern County's longtime Republican congressman, Bill Thomas, leave behind? There is no indication that retirement is in the near future for the volatile politician known for his razor-sharp intellect, temper tantrums and heavy-handed control of Kern County Republican politics. Thomas declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But as Thomas approaches his 64th birthday, on Dec. 6, speculation about his place in the history of Kern County and the nation has gotten a jump-start. It was prompted by the federal transportation spending bill, which was unveiled a few weeks ago and quickly passed...

2006 Congressional Election Cycle Has Begun  50 Republican Incumbents Undeserving of Support by Pro-life Voters   The Republican National Coalition for Life PAC is currently receiving phone calls from Republican candidates for Congress in the 2006 Republican primaries. Our usual practice is to mail our Candidate Questionnaire to Republican candidates in each district as soon as the filing deadlines are reached. When we receive the results of the questionnaire, they are recorded on our website at www.RNCLife.org so that voters can see for themselves it those seeking to represent them in Washington are truly pro-life. We hope that this service...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Supporters of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's redistricting initiative asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn two lower court rulings and put the measure on the November special election ballot. Attorneys for political activist Ted Costa and other official sponsors of the initiative said a Sacramento Superior Court judge and an appeals court majority erred in ruling that the initiative failed to make the ballot because supporters used two versions in the qualifying process. One version went on petitions signed by voters. The other went to the attorney general to prepare a title and summary of...

Rep. Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is the ultimate legislative poker player who keeps his hand shielded even from partners. But he showed a few cards during the recent Republican retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. His fellow Republican congressmen were astounded.

WASHINGTON -- While President Bush always has planned not to tackle tax reform until 2006 after the Social Security change is passed, the most influential tax drafter in Congress has been quietly planning to put Social Security and tax reform together. Rep. Bill Thomas of California, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has been working with fellow Republicans on his committee to combine the two massive reforms. Thomas keeps secret the details of his plan, but colleagues say it is a workable concept. The conventional wisdom has been that Social Security and tax reform are such...

...Mr. Bush... has called... for personal retirement accounts in Social Security. His opponent John Kerry, the darling of the self-regarding intelligentsia, called for the brain-dead policy of no change in a Social Security regime that any sensible person understands is in the long run unsustainable. Mr. Bush wants something better. Mr. Bush has also called for an expansion of market-based health-care reforms like health savings accounts. And he has called, in exceedingly vague terms, for broad-based tax reforms, freeing up savings from taxes to encourage investment and wealth accumulation. ...Mr. Bush... has risked giving his policy proposals too little political...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 -- Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa (5th CD), issued the following press release: Iowa Rep. Steve King applauded Chairman Thomas today for agreeing to hold a hearing on major tax reforms, including the FairTax. As news sources reported yesterday, Representative Bill Thomas, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced that his committee would consider replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax. "I have been working to move to a national sales tax, or FairTax, even before I was elected to Congress", said King. We should abolish all federal income taxes, including the regressive...

Before Congress left town Friday for its Fourth of July recess, Rep. Bill Thomas of California pulled off one of his patented legislative assassinations. Washington's most cunning parliamentarian, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Thomas eradicated the Freedom of Speech in Churches Act without openly opposing it. In the process, he fired an early shot in a destructive civil war looming for Republicans. The bill would stop the Internal Revenue Service from using existing statutes to muzzle clergymen who talk politics in their churches. That stoppage is pressed by Christian conservatives, who say they have been discriminated against by federal...

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, issued the following statement regarding John Kerry's health care plan: "John Kerry's health care plan would raise taxes and increase government bureaucracy without doing anything to decrease health care costs for American families. "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that premiums for medical malpractice insurance would have dropped by an average of 25 to 30 percent under legislation passed by the House of Representatives last year. Kerry skipped a vote on a similar bill in the Senate and has opposed or voted to...

<p>The United States imposes on its businesses and workers one of the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. In addition to this high tax rate, rising health care costs, virtually unlimited liability exposure and the outdated manner in which U.S. businesses are taxed on their worldwide income have combined to put American companies and American workers in a dangerously uncompetitive position.</p>

<p>Health care for the uninsured is shaping up to be the next big issue this election year, and President Bush staked his claim on Tuesday, outlining a handful of proposals to help the uninsured get medical coverage.</p> <p>Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he intends to push all of the proposals in Congress this year, including refundable tax credits to help poor Americans buy health insurance — a proposal that has been pushed in the past and that aides say has a price tag of about $89 billion over 10 years.</p>

<p>Washington -- His voice trembling nearly to tears, Bakersfield Republican Bill Thomas -- one of the most acerbic and imperious members of Congress -- made an extraordinary apology on the House floor Wednesday for what he called his "just plain stupid" decision to ask Capitol Hill police to eject Democrats from a meeting room Friday.</p>