Dear Mr. Pombo:

We started this blog a little over a year ago because we knew that you needed to be escorted out of Congress. You went to Washington in 1992, full of extremist, right-wing Wise Use ideology but, at least in theory, relatively uncorrupted. Well, it didn’t take you long to figure out that your property rights philosophy — that government had no right whatsoever to own land or regulate land use — dovetailed nicely with the agenda of the big-four extraction industries (oil, mining, timber and ranching) and that there was a lot of money to be made melding your underlying beliefs with their financial bottom line. It was a match made in heaven.

For eleven years, you made your way quietly as a junior member of Congress, aligning and enriching yourself behind the scenes with the most corrupt members of the Republican-led Congress. Your mentors were Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert and John Boehner; your compatriots were John Doolittle, Jim Gibbons, Duncan Hunter, Bob Ney. Your associates — Jack Abramoff, Indian tribes, casino interests, and the ubiquitous oil, mining, timber, ranching and development industries.

The truth is that you might have flown under the radar for a long time. But when you became the Chairman of the House Resources Committee, with oversight for the full one-fourth of America that is owned by We the People, your actions suddenly became an object of scrutiny from every direction. And when you thumbed your nose at America in favor of your corporate buddies, well, you had to know something was bound to give.

You love to whine about how unfair it is that all these environmental groups have “ganged up” on you. Waa-waa. How about standing up like a man and admitting that your actions were so shockingly corrupt and reprehensible that America — my America and your America — could simply no longer tolerate you? Patriots from all across this nation looked at you and saw a villain out to destroy our country, and, acting courageously, decided that the time had come to defend their country from your brand of evil.

You know, evil can come from within just as easily as from without. Yes, we may face challenges from terrorists, but we also face challenges from those within our own country who would subvert our government for their own personal gain. Challenges from people like you. You have tried to destroy the Endangered Species Act; you have tried to open our coastlines and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to gas and oil drilling; you have proposed selling millions of acres of federal land to mining interests at fire-sale prices; you have proposed selling off our National Parks. You have even worked behind the scenes to re-establish whale hunting, for God’s sake. At the same time, you have collected massive amounts of money from the special interests who would gain from your actions for your campaigns (which filter back to you through salaries paid to your family members) and your aptly-named Rich-PAC.

And then you act surprised when Americans finally step up and say “No.” Citizens have flocked to CA-11 from all over the Bay Area, from all over California, and from all over these United States to challenge your destructive actions, and you wonder why they’re all after you. Well, it’s a simple concept. Some call it love of country; some call it patriotism. Here, we call it “Saying No To Pombo.”

Tomorrow, the voters will decide your fate. You have no idea how much I hope that they send you packing. I know you find it hard to believe, but the writers at this blog are not political operatives; we are not paid hit-men; we are not part of any campaign. We are gainfully-employed, everyday citizens, working for free at SNTP and knocking ourselves out exercising our Constitutional right to spread the word about your destructive and corrupt behavior. I fervently hope that tomorrow night, Jerry McNerney is elected to Congress from CA-11 and we can all step away from our keyboards and move on with our lives. But if that doesn’t work out, rest assured that we will be with you for every step of the next two years. This is our country; it belongs to us; and we will not allow you to take it away from us. Not now, not ever.

Tags: CA-11, Jerry McNerney, Richard Pombo, election 2006