LOS ANGELES – Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of California gave environmentalists fits with his unmasked disdain for the Endangered Species Act and his reverence for private property rights.
On Tuesday, they got their revenge.
Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and others spent more than $1 million to shove the seven-term incumbent out of office Tuesday at the peak of his power as chairman of the House Resources Committee, which writes many environmental laws.
Pombo will be replaced in Congress by Democrat Jerry McNerney, a little-known wind energy consultant with a doctorate in math. McNerney has written novels but has never held elected office and lost badly to Pombo two years ago.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Tracy, where he and his family have a ranch, a subdued Pombo said he had called McNerney to offer congratulations. He declined to take shots at his opponent, Democrats or the environmental groups that bedeviled him.
“I knew I was going to be a target of these outside groups, but it didn’t change what I did as a member of Congress,” Pombo said.
“I’ve fought for the things I believed in, and I’ll go home with my head held high. … Obviously, my opponent spent a huge amount of money. But today it’s all about congratulations.”
McNerney ended with 53 percent of the vote to Pombo’s 47 percent, an outcome considered nearly unthinkable until recent weeks. But the newcomer said Wednesday that he wasn’t surprised.
“I’m honestly telling you I knew that I would win this race and it was just a matter of sticking with it,” McNerney said. “I knew that if we stuck with our guns, the missteps of these leaders would catch up with them.”
Environmental groups, meanwhile, were crowing.
“Rep. Richard Pombo’s loss represents the most significant electoral victory the environmental movement has seen in decades,” exulted Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife action fund. “It should now be clear to all that we have the political strength to take on and defeat extreme anti-environmental politicians, even powerful chairmen of congressional committees.”
Pombo is a conservative cattle rancher who wears cowboy boots and once described moderates as people who “just can’t make up their mind what they believe in.”
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