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Pombo: Noon It's bedlam at the Tracy soccer field where Pombo stops to watch Rená, his 13-year-old daughter. Nine games are under way simultaneously on a massive expanse of grass that Pombo helped, as a Tracy councilman, convert from a flood basin into fields. Annette Pombo, his wife, is team mom and missing the game is not an option no matter how close the election. And except for two journalists and an aide looking on, the campaign fades into the background for the next hour. Between plays, Pombo, like any parent, loves to talk about his children. Rená, pronounced Renee,...

For most of the press and pundits and, certainly, the party establishments, last week's election was a numbers game. It wasn't so much about personalities and candidates and ideas as it was about how many seats it took for a change in power in the House and Senate. For many, lost in the power politics of Election Day was the fact that some very good men lost their jobs – and with those lost seats, the American people lost dedication, experience and principle. Anyone who knows me understands that I do not suffer fools nor have much patience with politicians....

Around midnight, Jerry McNerney was talking to supporters when a campaign staffer thrust a cell phone in his hand and hustled him out the back door. The crowd at his election-night party started to buzz: was Richard Pombo calling to concede their hard-fought race for California's 11th congressional district? No such luck. It was only Bill Clinton on the phone. "He came out for me," McNerney said, standing alone on a clear night as TV news vans hummed in the lot behind him. "He liked that I offered an alternative view on energy." That might be an understatement. Fourteen years...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Richard Pombo, the Tracy Republican who heads the House Resources Committee, stirs conflict with almost every major initiative he launches, from offshore drilling to Indian gambling. Few members of Congress have as much influence over the nation's environmental laws as Pombo. And no topic has been more contentious than his legislation to overhaul the Endangered Species Act. The House approved Pombo's sweeping rewrite of the 1973 law on a 229-193 vote in September. It was widely denounced by environmentalists as a disturbing retreat from habitat protection and a paperwork nightmare for agencies seeking to revive the country's...

For political junkies, June 6 has been circled on the political calendar for months. Eight states hold primary elections today. There are important races for gubernatorial nominations in California, Iowa and Alabama, a contested Senate primary in Montana and a number of competitive House primary battles. All in all, it's almost too much of a good thing. There are so many good races out there and not enough time to give each of them their due. In an attempt to bring readers the essential, need-to-know information about today's races, The Fix is providing the primer below. Remember: This is not...

The long-simmering stew between national environmental groups and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, has spilled onto the powerful House committee chairman's Web site. Environmentalists contend Pombo is improperly torching his political adversaries and spreading lies on the committee's taxpayer-funded Web pages. "Propaganda is legal," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, "but the taxpayers shouldn't be paying for it." Pombo argues that his sites -- one titled "Earth Day" and a second focused on reforms of the Endangered Species Act -- shine light on eco-myths and the fund-raising machine behind a movement that spends millions of dollars to block environmental policy...

Prospects are fading for a rewrite of the nation's endangered species protection law this year as key senators hesitate to move anything that would have to be meshed with legislation written last fall by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy. Some senators have expressed concern that any bill they pass, even if it gains bipartisan consensus, would still have to be blended with Pombo's aggressive rewrite. And Pombo's bill goes way too far in easing environmental protection, according to many critics. For example, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., the chairman of a key subcommittee, has said he fears any Senate bill might be...

My but it's getting crowded in Congressional District 11, what with all the progressive and environmental groups trying to boot incumbent GOP Rep. Richard Pombo out of office. Anti-Pombo forces are converging from all over the country with ad campaigns, robo-calls, RVs, offers of ground troops and even a Web site where Bay Area liberals can sign up for car pools to the Central Valley. None of this surprises Pombo. The idea, he says, is to tie him and his money at home rather than allow it to flow into the coffers of vulnerable Republican candidates elsewhere. Here's a look...

A Washington watchdog group has called on Congress and the IRS to investigate Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, for a laundry list of what it calls the lawmaker's ethics violations.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- CREW -- on Thursday released a 13-count ethics complaint and a letter it sent to the Internal Revenue Service.Pombo called the charges a politically-motivated assault timed to appear just weeks before the June 6 primary election, where he has two opponents."I have never engaged in any illegal or unethical conduct whatsoever in my nearly 14-year career in the House, nor has any evidence been...

House Democrats said Tuesday that they would run newspaper advertisements this week criticizing the ethics of six House Republicans, including Representative Randy Cunningham of California, who is under investigation by a grand jury looking into his ties with a military contractor.... Mr. Wade paid $1,675,000 for the house and sold it nearly a year later for $975,000, for a loss of $700,000 in one of the hottest housing markets. Mr. Cunningham said he "showed poor judgment" in selling his house to a friend who did business with the government. Moreover, he said, "I showed poor judgment in not listing the...

Recent Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) polling shows that seven Republican members would be easily defeated if their reelection took place today, the committee’s chairman told House Democrats yesterday at a closed-door meeting. While Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) did not name the members, who are from districts “around the country,” he said all polled at 43 percent or less when voters were asked if they would vote today to reelect their congressional representative, sources at the meeting told The Hill. Emanuel said three of the Republicans polled below 40 percent, including one, from a Western state, at 32 percent and...

SACRAMENTO -- Federal records show that Rep. Richard Pombo used campaign funds to pay his wife and brother a total of $255,916 over the past two years -- or 25 cents for every dollar the Tracy Republican raised for his re-election effort. Reports filed with the Federal Election Commission also show Pombo's campaign paid the congressman's wife, Annette, an additional $39,938 from 2001 to 2002. His brother Randall received $169,299 during the same period, bringing the total payments to the family since 2001 to $465,153. While it is not unheard of for members of Congress to hire relatives, experts say...

In California, there's always been a certain tension -- even hostility -- separating north and south. San Franciscans tend to think of Southern Californians as beachgoers and movie stars full of silicone and tofu. Angelenos don't understand why people in the Bay Area are so serious. Now a new divide is opening up in the Golden State's 20-member Republican delegation -- this time over the possible recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and who should succeed him if the governor gets bounced. Northern California Republicans lean toward Rep. Darrell Issa, whose district lies just north of San Diego, while those...