CA-04: The Latest on Doolittle

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

The Hill is reporting that friends and colleagues - including former Rep. Richard Pombo - are urging John Doolittle to resign.

Republican operatives fear that if Doolittle does not retire at the end of this Congress and survives what would be a bruising GOP primary, they will lose the nine-term lawmaker's seat. Doolittle is under an ethics cloud, having had his Virginia house investigated by the FBI last year. Several prominent Republicans are seeking to defeat him in the primary.

According to three well-placed Republican sources, former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) - who lost his seat amid ethics allegations - has called on longtime friend Doolittle to not seek reelection in the interest of keeping the district a GOP stronghold. In the last Congress, Pombo was a panel chairman while Doolittle was a member of GOP leadership.

This suggests that the decision has not yet been made by Doolittle, but that the GOP establishment has a definite interest in telling everybody that he's decided to resign to force the issue.  Of course, California Republicans have been calling on Doolittle to be a good soldier and step down for quite a while, so it's unclear how much of this is new news.  It remains to be seen what will happen, and I'll wait to see what the man himself will say.