By: Erica Felci

The Riverside County Republican Party chairman has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate how Democratic congressional candidate Steve Pougnet reported travel and other expenses on his campaign finance reports.

In a complaint received by the commission this week, Chairman Ken Minesinger says the Palm Springs mayor advanced his campaign committee for the 45th Congressional District at least $9,459.13 for travel expenses and $786.23 in nontravel expenditures during the third quarter of 2009.

Since the advances total more than $200, Minesinger says they should have been reported as advances and debts to the Friends of Steve Pougnet committee on Oct. 31, 2009.

Instead, the complaint says they were reported “months after they were made,” in forms filed on Jan. 31.

“The (Pougnet campaign) committee has shown blatant disregard for the reporting requirements,” Minesinger’s complaint reads.

A spokesman for the FEC — an independent regulatory agency that oversees federal campaigns — confirmed on Wednesday that the complaint had been received. The office does not comment on complaints or whether there is enough merit to investigate.

“We haven’t received anything from the FEC,” Pougnet’s campaign manager Jordan Marks told The Desert Sun.

Pougnet is the lone Democrat to challenge U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a Palm Springs Republican.

The 45th Congressional District spans Riverside County and includes most of the Coachella Valley.

The 2010 campaign, already garnering national attention, includes Republican challenger Clayton Thibodeau of Hemet. American Independent candidate Bill Lussenheide of Menifee has also expressed an interest in running, but has not formed a campaign committee with the FEC, according to online records.

The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office is looking for volunteers to assist with preparations for our upcoming Victims’ Rights March.

The event is aimed at remembering those lost to violent crime and provides a rallying cry for victims and their families to have their rights upheld in the criminal justice system.

To view past Victims’ Rights videos and previous march wrap-ups, view the DA’s videos page: Victims’ Rights Videos

If you are interested in volunteering to help prepare for this important and complex event please respond to Events@RivCoDA.org with your name, contact information and time available.  We will be mailing invitations next week, March 15-19^th and will need your help!

Together, we can help make a victim’s voice heard!

For more information please visit the Victims’ Rights Week Page

As you may have read, the Administration is now pushing for an amnesty bill in Congress which I absolutely oppose.

As of today (3/10/10), I will not be able to communicate directly with you for 90 days due to House restrictions on communications in an election year. However, if you sign up for my e-newsletters by clicking here or answering this survey, I can send you breaking news from Washington.

The next couple of months are shaping up to be critical with possible movement on items I oppose such as government-regulated health care, deficit spending, an amnesty bill, and others. The only way for you to get the unfiltered message from me, is to sign up!

Sincerely,

KEN CALVERT
Member of Congress

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Cordially Invites you to a Reception and General Membership Meeting/Presentation Featuring

Assemblyman Paul Cook

ON

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Reception:  630pm, Meeting:  7pm

AT

The Historic Mission Inn

3649 Mission Inn Avenue

Riverside, CA. 92501

HELP US ATTAIN VICTORY IN 2010!

All Registered Republicans Attend At No Charge

Light Refreshments, No Host Bar

For questions about the event or for information on The Republican Party of Riverside County:

http://riversidegop.com/

Follow us on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/RPRC

Subscribe to our Blog at:  http://riversidegopblog.com/

By JEFF MILLER

Published in Orange County Register, 2/13/2010

I may be a couple seasons behind in keeping up with the TV drama “Lost”, but when you serve in the Legislature, you really get a sense of what it’s like to be one of the show’s characters.  What my colleagues may lack in tattered wardrobes, makeshift housing and a 360-degree ocean view, we more than make up for in uneasy alliances, ominous plotlines, recurring disbelief and one overwhelming and inescapable question: How did we get here?

Where is here?  It’s a mysterious place of billion-dollar deficits, millions of job losses and thousands of excuses leading to a single inevitable conclusion.  If Sacramento does not change its ways, things will only get worse.  And no, neither the Congress nor the Obama Administration is flying in anytime soon to whisk us away to safety.

The first step to any recovery is to admit you have a problem.  And California state government has a problem.  We spend too much, tax too highly and regulate too often.  Like any binge, it was fun for some while it lasted, and now the bill is coming due.  Buying a round of drinks for friends is one thing, but buying a round for everyone you’ve ever met every day for a decade will surely put you into bankruptcy.  This is where we are today.

A leading concern for my Republican colleagues is the Democrats’ obsession with – and only with – balancing the budget.  In the abstract, this is a laudable goal.  But it will do nothing to deal with the fact that this simply cannot go on.  Our fiscal condition is not in peril because the budget is out of balance – in fact, it is just the reverse.

For months now, many leading figures in the Capitol have looked at our massive budget deficit the way a losing gambler looks at a six-figure IOU held by a Vegas casino: As something to desperately pay off, lest the pit boss decline your marker (or worse).

The problem with this desperate short-term approach is that even if successful, it virtually guarantees it will happen again … and again.

Some of my colleagues express serious doubts about our future direction, others an evident frustration about the daily drumbeat of how we are going to make do with less, rather than spend and appropriate more – summed up by a sort of “I didn’t sign up for this” expression of discontent with the job.

While the atmosphere in the Capitol may be dour, I do not share the ennui that has embraced the building.  In fact, the real winners in this debate will be the ones who energetically and enthusiastically offer real solutions and a better vision of California’s future.

If we do not shrink government, reduce the business burden and create new opportunities for California, it will not matter how many tough choices we make, or how often we pledge to make them.  The only solution is to create an opportunity environment that is centered on job creation and private sector strength.  We’ve tried the other way, and this is where it got us.

The Legislature and Governor must commit to a “Jobs First” focus in which small businesses and larger employers – not big government – are empowered and encouraged to expand facilities, invest in new equipment and create the new employment that is an indispensable part of any economic recovery.

Of course, the screams of the others’ opposition will be loud and long.  But they must not drown out what we all know to be true or halt the momentum that is emerging across the country.  Even the President’s State of the Union address offered that his number one priority this year is job creation.  It will be disappointing if my Democrat colleagues choose this policy choice to go rogue and decline to follow the White House’s lead.

What else will it take?  Rather than the usual partisan sword-fighting, banker’s hours and three-day work weeks, this should be a year of unprecedented cooperation in the Capitol.  It may be a long, lost art, but even the surviving passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 have employed it in times of maximum duress and shared circumstance.

We are all on this island together, swimming is not an option and there is no alternate reality that will explain it all to us.

Last week, as a Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and the Environment, I participated in a budget hearing with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson.

One of my many concerns about the EPA’s budget is the proposed $56 million, including $43 million in new funding, for regulatory programs to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. While I strongly support air pollution controls to clean our air, using the Clean Air Act to regulate “greenhouse gases,” especially CO2, is the wrong way to go especially since Mexico, China and India will not do the same.

Similar efforts in California to regulate greenhouse gas emissions have motivated businesses to board up their windows and move to more business-friendly states, such as Nevada and Texas. Surprisingly, the EPA Administrator defended the California policy by saying it has created jobs in California; however, the 12% unemployment rate in California tells a different story. I told Administrator Jackson that my fear is that if we adopt the California model for regulating greenhouse gas emissions on a national basis we will wind up driving millions of jobs overseas to countries like China and India. Unfortunately, at the end of the hearing it became quite clear that the Obama Administration will continue to pursue a regulatory process that threatens our economic security. Clean air and economic growth are not mutually exclusive but the Administration’s plans for CO2 and other gases is not the right choice.

I also questioned the Administrator about her agency’s expenses during the recent Copenhagen Climate Summit, which many Executive Branch employees and Members of Congress attended at a significant cost to American taxpayers. Please click here to read an article on my exchange with Administrator Jackson and take this quick survey to share your thoughts.

Sincerely,

KEN CALVERT
Member of Congress

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