Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA 50th District) is your classic political opportunist. This carpetbagger ex-lobbyist from San Diego moved to North County to capture a district vacated by his fallen comrade Duke Cunningham and tends to change his political stances in a quite, well, mercurial way. He must get up every morning and stick his pinkie in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.
Until very recently, he liked to talk real tough about energy independence, but this week he was one of two California House members not to sign the offshore drilling bill. Now I am personally against this bill, for reasons that I won't belabor this post with, and would like to think that he is showing some nad and has had a reasonable change of heart. However next week he is liable to pull another flip flop and leave me dumbfounded again.
Bilbray tries to be all things to all people. A native of Coronado he likes to pose as a surfer. The following information about Bilbray was gleaned from Wikipedia:
As mayor, Bilbray attempted to build a yacht marina in the Tijuana Estuary and to build a 1.5 mile breakwater off of the beach of Imperial Beach. Both projects were stopped by the opposition of local environmentalists and surfers. The Tijuana River Estuary is now a National Estuarine Research Reserve and California State Park. The breakwater project was halted with the help of the then fledgling Surfrider Foundation. Bilbray often took on a bureaucracy that he felt was sometimes too slow. For example, frustrated when sewage from Mexico caused closure of his city's beaches and government agencies did too little to solve the problem, Bilbray summoned the news media, hopped aboard an earthmover, and began building a dam.
From 1985 to 1995, Bilbray was a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. He was a principal architect of the calamitous trash-to-energy recycling plant in San Marcos, a debacle that, for the county, was the equal of the city of San Diego's pension disaster.
Since his loss to Congresswoman Susan Davis in 2001, Congressman Bilbray has maintained residences and properties in Imperial Beach, California, Alexandria, Virginia, and Carlsbad, California. In response to requests to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, by the local Democratic Party and neighbors of the congressman, a San Diego County grand jury was convened to investigate claims against Bilbray's declared residency for the special and general elections in 2006. The investigation was dropped in May 2007.
Bilbray was also involved with now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff; Bilbray benefited from congressional trips arranged by Abramoff for lobbying purposes, including the Federated States of Micronesia, a former territory of the United States.
Bilbray said he knew Abramoff through a surfing buddy, and that the relationship was “very tenuous.”
Bilbray loves to play hawk or chicken hawk. He has taken a very tough anti-immigration stance that tends to resonate with many here in San Diego County. He has also voted with George Bush 93% of the time. I hope that voters in the 50th will see through his phony attempts to appear moderate and elect Nick Leibham in the 50th District.
Robert Sommers
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