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Home Woes May Not Cost Richardson Her House Seat
By Laura E. Davis
LONG
BEACH – Like many voters in this port city and the gritty urban
areas of Rep. Laura Richardson's political turf, Johnetta Walker
is disenchanted with the lawmaker whose meteoric rise has been marked
with personal financial failures.
Richardson's ambitious one-year ascent from City Council to state
Assembly to Congress gained national attention in May when one of her houses
was sold in foreclosure, followed by news of several loan defaults.
"How can you be a leader of anything if you can't be a leader of your
home?" asks Walker, a bus driver who lives in here in Compton.
Walker says she won't vote for Richardson in November, but her effort
will most likely be in vain. A disorganized field of last-minute challengers
and no recall option means there's little angered constituents can do to
unseat the financially troubled Democrat.
After news came out about the foreclosure and sale of Richardson's
Sacramento home, which she bought in January 2007 after winning a seat
in the state Assembly, a pattern of years of financial irresponsibility
emerged.
A few days before the June primary, the Long Beach Press-Telegram
reported that Richardson, who won her House seat last year in a special
election, had been issued multiple defaults on two Southern California
homes. Five of those occurred in the previous 13 months, when Richardson
was using $177,500 of her own money to finance her political career.
Despite a challenger's news conference highlighting her problems,
the lawmaker coasted through the primary with nearly three-fourths of the
vote, setting her up to run unopposed in November.
Democratic voter registration in her 37th Congressional District – which
includes parts of working-class South Central Los Angeles, Carson, Compton
and most of Long Beach – outnumbers Republican registration 59.3
percent to 17.5 percent, and Republicans didn't bother to field a candidate
this year.
Yet her decisive primary victory and apparent clear sailing in November
failed to end criticism.
The local paper reported that she didn't pay car repair bills for
years, failed to disclose certain financial details – including a
loan from a strip club owner – and she leased the priciest car in
the House at taxpayers' expense. She also once had a real estate license,
suggesting she should have known how to better handle her properties.
A Washington watchdog group called for a House Ethics Committee investigation
into Richardson's personal finances, citing her history of defaulting on
home loans and suspicions of special treatment when her bank rescinded
the sale of her foreclosed Sacramento home. She and the bank denied the
allegation after the property was returned to her, but it has fallen into
disrepair and was recently declared a public nuisance.
As Richardson's problems surfaced this summer, so did three challengers:
two write-ins, Lee Davis and Peter Mathews, both of whom lost to Richardson
in the primary, and independent Nicholas Dibs, a school teacher and political
novice.
The three candidates say they were encouraged to run by people unhappy
with Richardson and point to voter discontent as signs that their challenges
could be successful.
"I walk the streets and people say, ‘Please run as a write-in.
We will vote for you. We don't want her,’" said Davis, publisher
of the community paper the Wrigley Bulletin and News.
Richardson – who voted for a mortgage debt forgiveness bill that
later passed – has portrayed her foreclosure as an example of how
even a member of Congress can suffer a plight plaguing tens of thousands
of hapless Americans.
But that explanation hasn't impressed many of her constituents who
have been quick to share their opinions publicly or post them on news Websites.
"
If she can't take care of herself, then how is she going to take
care of other people (while serving) in Congress?" said Juliana Flores
as she left her job at a Target store in Carson.
Some voters say they will do more research on Richardson to determine
whether she can separate her own problems from her political duties.
"
You always want to make sure someone is capable of handling their
personal issues and the issues of the public at large," said Ed Smith,
a manager of a fast food restaurant." I don't vote for someone just
because they're the only one running for a particular position."
Write-in candidate Mathews, a college professor who has made several
bids for Congress, pointed to a July poll in the Press-Telegram,
taken before Davis and Dibs had officially become candidates, that had
57 percent
of respondents saying he has a chance of beating Richardson."
But Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University
of California at San Diego, said independent and write-in candidates rarely
win seats in Congress because they usually can't match the money, name
recognition and organization of incumbents or candidates backed by a party.
He added that Richardson's three challengers may actually be working
against each other.
"It makes it virtually impossible to beat her because it will divide
the opposition," he said.
Richardson refused to be interviewed for this story, but campaign
spokesman William Marshall Jr. issued a prepared statement. While ignoring
her reported indiscretions, the statement said Richardson has consistently
gained voter support because of her legislative record and noted some of
her achievements in less than a year in Congress.
"She will diligently repeat her resounding (primary) victory of over
74 percent," the statement concluded.
Richardson has received the backing of some of her powerful Democratic
colleagues, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and popular local lawmaker
Rep. Maxine Waters, who represents an adjacent district. In addition, House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., held a Capitol Hill fundraiser for
Richardson in June.
If Richardson is re-elected, recall would not be possible, either,
since the Constitution does not allow it for members of Congress.
That leaves the 2010 Democratic primary as the next chance for voters
to remove Richardson from her seat.
"There's only a remote danger in the general election this year, but
a very serious danger in the 2010 primary," said Jack Pitney, a government
professor at Claremont McKenna College." Ambitious politicians in
that area are going to be carefully weighing a primary against her."
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