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Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA) is a nine-term member of Congress,
representing California’s 44th congressional district. Rep. Calvert’s ethics
issues stem from (1) his use of earmarks for personal gain; (2) his illegal
land purchase; and, (3) his connections to a lobbying firm under
investigation. Rep. Calvert was included in CREW’s 2006, 2007, and 2008
reports on congressional corruption.
Ken Calvert has always supported a
Conservative Christian position especially when it comes to Church and State
issues. It is apparent from the data collected, that the first
amendment may be in danger from his past and future actions.
Upon calling his office and asking about the
Ken's religion of
choice, we find that Wicca,
Shintoism,
Islam, and everything except Christianity
"..aren't "Real" religions." What is a real religion, Mr. Calvert?
What you have been practicing? Read the following and remember: "By
their Works may they be known."
(Remember it is best to investigate on your own when
looking at allegations about anyone. Don't believe us,
think for yourself and investigate for yourself! And remember, the
First Amendment Coalition does not represent any political party nor do we
recommend any political candidate, nor are we involving ourselves in the
political process.
Early
Life and Education
Kenneth Stanton
(Ken) Calvert (born June 8, 1953), an
American
politician, has been a
Republican
member of the
United States House of Representatives
since 1993, representing
California's 44th congressional
district. The district is
part of the
Inland Empire
and south Orange County areas of
Southern California.
Calvert was born in
Corona, California
to Marceline Hamblen and Ira D. Calvert, Jr., and still
lives in Corona. In 1970, shortly after high school, he
joined the campaigns of former state legislator
Victor Veysey.
Calvert worked in Veysey's Washington, D.C., office as an
intern after a 1972 victory.
Calvert received an
associate of arts degree from
Chaffey Community College
in 1973 and a bachelors of arts degree
San Diego State University
in 1975. After graduation, he managed his family's
restaurant, the Jolly Fox, in Corona for five years. He then
entered the real estate industry and ran Ken Calvert Real
Properties until he was elected.
Congressional Career
Elections
In 1982, the 29 year
old Calvert ran for the
United States House of Representatives
to represent a newly drawn district. He narrowly lost the
Republican primary to Riverside County Supervisor
Al McCandless,
who had been the choice of the Republican establishment.
McCandless went on to win the general election.
Calvert was first
elected to the House in 1992, when McCandless was re-elected
in a different district. Calvert won the general election
with 47% of the vote (a plurality, but he was the highest
vote-getter), defeating Democrat Mark A. Takano by 519
votes. In 1994, he was challenged in the Republican primary
by Joe Khoury and won renomination by only 51% to 49%. He
was re-elected in the 1994 general election with 55 percent,
again defeating Takano.
In 1996, he was
re-elected with 54 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat
Guy Kimbrough. In 1998 he defeated Democrat Mike Rayburn
with 55 percent of the vote. Calvert won again in 2000 with
74 percent of the vote, facing no major-party opposition.
Calvert was re-elected
in 2002, defeating Louis Vandenberg with 64 percent of the
vote. He defeated Vandenberg again in 2004 with 61 percent
of the vote. Vandenberg, a college administrator, was again
Calvert's opponent in the November 2006 election.
Calvert won with 59.6 percent of the vote; Vandenburg got
37.5 percent.
In 2008, he had a
surprisingly close race. He ran against Democratic candidate
Bill Hedrick,
receiving 51.8% of the vote.
Calvert declared victory immediately, but Hedrick waited
three weeks before conceding, due to higher than normal
turnout prolonging the vote-counting process.
Real estate investments
A map of Calvert's
recent real estate holdings and those of a partner, Woodrow
Harpole Jr., show many of them near the transportation
projects he has supported with federal appropriations. For
example, Calvert and Harpole own properties close to a bus
depot in Corona for which Calvert sought funding. According
to development experts, improvements to the transportation
infrastructure have contributed to the area's explosive
growth.
Calvert said he had
used earmarking solely to benefit his district. Those
appropriations, he said, have had nothing to do with his
investments or financial gains. Noting that property values
have climbed throughout the Inland Empire, he added: "They
haven't passed a law against investing yet."
Calvert's May 2005
financial disclosure statement showed that he owned eight
parcels of land, most in Riverside County, as of December
31, 2004.
On May 19, 2006, The
Riverside Press-Enterprise, the sixth largest newspaper in
California, editorialized that The Los Angeles Times got the
facts wrong and in fact, there was no impropriety on the
part of Rep. Calvert
[12].
Rep. Calvert has stated that all requests for federal
funding come from local entities.
March Air Reserve Base
In 2005, Calvert and
Harpole paid $550,000 for a 4.3-acre (17,000 m2)
parcel just south of
March Air Reserve Base.
Calvert's real estate firm, where Calvert's brother, Quint,
is the president,
and Halpole is vice president, received brokerage fees from
the seller, Rod Smith of
Greeley, Colorado,
for representing both buyer and seller in the deal. Less
than a year later, Calvert and Harpole sold the property for
nearly $1 million. During the time he owned the land,
Calvert used the earmarking process to secure $8 million in
federal funds for a freeway interchange 16 miles (26 km)
from the property, and an additional $1.5 million to support
commercial development of the area around the base.
Cajalco and I-15 interchange
In early summer 2005,
Harpole bought property with a group of investors at 20330
Temescal Canyon Road, a few blocks from the site of the what
was then a proposed interchange at Cajalco and I-15. The
purchase price was $975,000. Within six months, after the
bill passed that provided federal funding for the
interchange, they sold the parcel for $1.45 million.
Calvert's firm took a commission on the sale.
Jurupa CS District
In the spring of 2006,
Calvert and Harpole purchased 4 acres (16,000 m2)
of land from Jurupa Community Services District (JCSD), a
water and sewer district in northwestern Riverside County,
for $1.2 million, along with five investment partners who
jointly had a one-third interest. A newspaper investigation
reported in August 2006 that the district apparently never
first offered the land to other public agencies, a
requirement of state law intended to provide more
recreational land. The district's general manager said other
agencies were notified, but representatives of those
agencies said they received no such notice. The district
could not provide evidence of the notification, saying
relevant files had been misplaced.
The community services
district did not advertise or list the land for sale, a
practice required by counties and many other public agencies
seeking top dollar on behalf of taxpayers. District general
manager Carole McGreevy, who is stepping down from that
position in late 2006 and retiring in late 2007, said the
district proclaimed the land surplus in the early 1990s
after it was no longer needed for flood control. The record
of that decision was among the missing documents, as was the
updated appraisal that McGreevy said was done in May 2005.
The land could have
served as a community park in a predominately Hispanic,
lower-income neighborhood in
Mira Loma.
The Calvert partnership plans to build a mini-storage
business.[13]
In August 2008, the Jurupa Area Recreation and Parks
District (JARPD) filed a lawsuit against JCSD, alleging
fraud in the sale of the land. In August 2009, the FBI was
looking into the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for Calvert said he
had not been contacted by the FBI or a grand jury and did
not believe that he was a focus of any investigation.
Controversy
Calvert was named one
of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress by
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington. They accuse
him of gaining personally from
earmarks,
making allegedly illegal land deals, and having questionable
ties to a lobbying firm that is under
investigation by the
FBI.
Personal
In 1993 he was caught
by police receiving oral sex from a prostitute and attempted
to flee the scene.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise went to court to force the
Corona police to release the police report. Also in 1993,
Calvert and his former wife, Robin, were divorced after 15
years of marriage. In addition, his father committed
suicide.
After these experiences, Calvert said that the experiences
"have helped me mature greatly... and become a better
person."
External links
Republican Ken
Calvert, representing California's smog-shrouded 43rd Congressional District
in the U.S. House of Representatives, is on record as having earned 100%
ratings from the Christian Coalition. Calvert's rating from the
prostitutes'-rights group COYOTE is unavailable for publication, despite
documented evidence of Calvert's time in the field researching conditions in
the hooker workplace.
On October 8,
1998, Congressman Calvert rhetorically asked his House compatriots: "Did
[President Clinton] obstruct justice in a sexual-harassment case? Did he
intimidate witnesses? Did he abuse his Presidential power? Only impeachment
hearings will answer these serious questions."
Congressman
Calvert probably felt qualified to prejudge the Chief Executive because the
California legislator holds a particular insight into the psychology of a
man of position faced with sexual allegations from his social inferiors.
Would a politician dare to abuse the power of his office to squash public
disclosure of his sordid sexual practices? Ken Calvert knows beyond any
shadow of doubt that the answer is a resounding yes.
During the
early-morning hours of November 28, 1993, police officers from Corona,
California, spotted Ken Calvert engaged in sex in a parked car. The partial
truth of this encounter would be hidden until almost half a year later. For
months, Calvert denied that he had done anything wrong with the woman who
had been ensconced with him in the vehicle. Police later identified her as a
known prostitute, but at the time of the initial press report on the matter,
Calvert insisted that "nothing happened."
Corona police
would only reveal that the Congressman had been observed in his car with a
female and that the couple had exhibited no sign of criminal activity.
Corona Police
Captain John Dalzell explained that Calvert was not detained because "while
the officer saw certain things, he didn't see everything necessary to
support a finding that a crime was committed." According to Dalzell, the
responding officer's decision to send Calvert freely on his way "wasn't a
close call. He didn't even call for a supervisor." Such are the perks of
public office.
The Riverside
[California] Press-Enterprise doubted the explanation provided by Calvert
and the cops. The newspaper went to court to force the Corona police to
release the confidential report prepared by the cops at the scene of the
"noncrime." These officers most certainly recognized that they had
encountered their local Congressman with his genitals literally exposed.
The police report
is inconsistent with both Calvert's and the Corona P.D.'s versions of
events. In the words of assisting officers Steve Sears and Fred Austin: "I
observed a male subject in the driver seat....As I made my way to the driver
door, a female immediately sat up straight in the front passenger seat. It
appeared as if her head was originally laying [sic] in the driver's lap....
Both subjects were extremely nervous....
"I noticed that
the male subject was placing his penis into his unzipped dress slacks, and
was trying to hide it with his untucked dress shirt....The male subject
started his vehicle and placed it into drive and proceeded to leave. I
ordered him three times to turn off the vehicle, and he finally stopped and
complied....The male identified himself as Kenneth Stanton Calvert...and
stated 'We're just talking that's all, nothing else.'...I spoke with
[Calvert's female companion, Lore Lorena] Linberg separately. I asked her if
she had ever been arrested for anything, and she said, 'Yes, for
prostitution and under the influence of heroin.' Linberg said she had last
'shot up' approximately one week prior and is currently on methadone."
Once the facts had
been forced into the open, Calvert quickly responded with an apology, a
simple explanation and a denial. The Congressman acknowledged that he had
been caught in "an extremely embarrassing situation," then made the
extraordinarily hard-to-swallow claim that he had not paid for sex from an
established professional. Calvert further defied credibility by claiming
that he had "panicked and tried to drive away," but "came to my senses."
Calvert presented
a very plausible explanation for his conduct: "I was feeling intensely
lonely."
The lawmaker did
not, however, offer any explanation of why he had lied about an illicit
sexual contact for months, nor why he so vehemently begrudged another man's
use of sexi.e., President Bill Clintonto soften the hard isolation of
elective office.
NEXT From
Huffington Post October 20, 2009:
Rep. Ken Calvert Is an Embarrassment to
California -- Should He Step Down?
Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/rep-ken-calvert-is-an-emb_b_327679.html
Ken Calvert, who represents a suburban
Inland Empire district in southern Orange County and western Riverside
County (CA-44), has been on our
radar for a very
long time -- and yesterday's announcement of an
FBI investigation
of one of California's most
incorrigible political crooks
registered as more overdue than unexpected. A former real estate
speculator, Calvert first came to the attention of non-political junkies
when he was arrested -- a Republican "Family Values" hypocrite -- with a
young woman he didn't know in a parked car, his pants down around his
knees. (She turned out to be Lore Lorena Lindberg, a heroin addict with
several prostitution convictions.)
But even before that, Congressman
Calvert was involved with a series of shady real estate deals, the same
pay for play scam that led to the conviction of his buddy and political
ally Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and an
international espionage and bribery caper
in Saudi Arabia with convicted felons Cunningham and Thomas
Kontogiannis.
In Calvert's case, it's hard to
know where to start sorting through all the garbage. Probably the best
place to start is by looking at his real estate dealings and how they
have been impacted by his
earmarks
on the House Transportation Committee. To put it really simply, Calvert
would make sure millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on building
roads to worthless parcels of land that he and his shady business
partner, a character named Woody Harpole, bought for pennies and sold,
because of the government-financed improvements, for dollars.
If you look at Calvert's and
Harpole, Jr's real estate investments, it's impossible not to notice
that they cluster around transportation projects that Calvert supported
with taxpayer dollars -- like in a Corona area which has experienced a
good deal of bubble-like growth because of a bus depot Calvert got
funded. Calvert's firm, which his brother heads, bought a 4.3 acre
parcel near the March Air Reserve Base and Calvert immediately got to
work getting an $8 million freeway exchange built so he could sell the
land for double what he paid for it. Same thing happened with a site
they bought at Temescal Canyon Road near a proposed interchange at
Cajalco and the I-15. Calvert, according to the L.A. Times
profited handsomely
for his blatant conflict of interest. Calvert snickers when reporters
ask him about this stuff: "They haven't passed a law against investing
yet."
Even for a speculator like Calvert,
it was an unusually good deal.
During the time he owned the
land, Calvert used the legislative process known as earmarking to
secure $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles from
the property, and an additional $1.5 million to support commercial
development of the area around the airfield.
A map of Calvert's recent real
estate holdings and those of his partner shows many of them near the
transportation projects he has supported with federal
appropriations. And improvements to the transportation
infrastructure have contributed to the area's explosive growth,
according to development experts.
...What sets Calvert's actions
apart from the traditional efforts of lawmakers to bring federal
dollars home to their districts is that some of the spending has
gone for improvements near his private real estate ventures, and he
has used earmarking to secure the tax dollars... He also has secured
funds for a number of projects pushed by campaign contributors,
including employees of the Washington lobbying firm of Copeland
Lowery & Jacquez, his top political donor in the last election
cycle.
But the most serious questions,
ethics specialists say, involve Calvert's participation in real
estate ventures in which his earmarks for highway and other
improvements may have contributed to rising land values and created
at least the appearance that he personally benefited.
The latest bit of malfeasance
involves 4 acres Calvert and Harpole bought from the Jurupa Community
Services District in 2006 for $1.2 million. The land was purchased as
part of a sweetheart deal and was clearly done illegally, the district
neither looking for competitive bids nor offering it to other state
agencies. (The Riverside County Grand Jury has already ruled that
Calvert's acquisition violated state law.) A predominantly Hispanic
neighborhood, Mira Loma, wants to use the land as a community park and
baseball field; Calvert is determined to turn it into mini-self-storage
units. When Calvert came under scrutiny for the deal, he lied about it
and claimed he was a silent partner.
But, in the 2006 L.A. Times
story linked above, about another fortuitous land sale of Calvert's,
Harpole was quoted that he had to consult with Calvert when investing
Calvert's money: "[O]f course I have to consult with him if we are
looking at investing his money." Harpole also said at the time, "I told
him about one [deal] and he said, 'No, I don't think so.'"
Calvert's partnership negotiated an
extended escrow period of up to 15 months which worked to Calvert's
benefit since at the time real estate experts argues that prices were
rising 15 to 25 percent a year. Additionally, while the property was
still in escrow, a higher offer came in -- and was rejected --
bolstering claims that the deal was done to help curry political favor
with Calvert's office. All this led to the Riverside County Grand Jury,
in 2007, finding that the Jurupa Community Services District violated
state law when it sold the land to Calvert and his partners without
offering it to other local agencies first, including the Park District,
which had shown interest in the land. The Jurupa Park District announced
this summer that it would be forced to spend $1.7 million in 2009-2010
in expected legal costs tied to the Calvert land deal -- more tax
dollars Calvert is costing the hard-pressed residents of Riverside
County.
Calvert has always denied every
single crime he's been involved in. Even with his penis clearly in plain
view (according to the official police report) he told the arresting
officer he and the prostitute were "just chatting." He claims all his
perfectly routine real estate shenanigans are made to look nefarious
because of political vendettas against him. Last year, the voters in
CA-44 seemed to be having second thoughts about Calvert, who eked out a
razor thin victory against a little-known -- and massively outspent --
Bill Hedrick, 51-49%. Hedrick spent $191,461 or $1.48 per vote he
received. Calvert spent $1,150,432-- $8.85 per vote!
Calvert fought against this past
March's Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, even though over 16,000
families have been foreclosed on in his district and even though the 4
year projection rate for CA-44 is for over 53,400 families to lose their
homes. Now, with Calvert adamantly
opposing meaningful health care reform
against the wishes of his constituents (146,000
of whom have no health insurance coverage), it is likely that the latest
round of scandals will be the final nail in the coffin of his political
career. Bill Hedrick, in fact, is
running against him
again. Unfortunately, the big lobbyists and corporate special interests
who are so well served by Calvert's ethics-free operations have opened
the funding gates wide for him again and he's already up $773,633 to
Hedrick's $122,672.
Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/rep-ken-calvert-is-an-emb_b_327679.html
Calvert Makes
the Most Corrupt Members of Congress List Again.
Earmarking for Personal Financial
Benefit
In 2005, Rep. Calvert and his real
estate partner, Woodrow Harpole, Jr., paid $550,000 for a four acre piece of
land at Martin Street and Seaton Avenue in Perris, just 4 miles south of the
March Air Reserve Base in California. Less than a year after buying the
land, without making any improvements to the parcel, they sold the property
for $985,000, a 79% increase. During this period, Rep. Calvert pushed
through an earmark to secure $8 million for an overhaul and expansion of a
freeway interchange 16 miles from the property, as well as an additional
$1.5 million for commercial development in the area around the airfield.
In another deal, a group of investors
bought property a few blocks from the site of the proposed interchange, for
$975,000. Within six months after the earmark for the interchange was
appropriated, the parcel of land sold for $1.45 million. Rep. Calvert’s firm
received a commission on the sale.
By using his position to earmark funds
to increase the value of his own property, Rep. Calvert violated the
prohibition against using his position as a member of Congress to advance
his own financial interests and engaged in conduct that does not reflect
creditably on the House.
Relationship with Lobbying Firm
The former lobbying firm of Copeland
Lowery Jacquez Denton & White (“Copeland Lowery”) is currently under
investigation by a federal grand jury for its ties to Appropriations
Committee ranking member Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA). On May 23, 2006, as part
of its investigation into Rep. Lewis’ ties to Mr. Lowery, the FBI obtained
Rep. Calvert’s financial records at the same time that it pulled Rep.
Lewis’s financial records. Rep. Calvert helped pass through at least 13
earmarks sought by Copeland Lowery in 2005, adding up to over $91 million.
Rep. Calvert may have violated federal
law and House rules by accepting campaign contributions from Copeland Lowery
clients in exchange for earmarks.
Land Deals
A grand jury in Riverside County,
California has examined the 2006 land sale by the Jurupa Community Services
District to Rep. Calvert and his business partners and concluded the sale
was illegal because the district failed to first offer the land to other
public agencies.
In August 2008, the Jurupa Area
Recreation and Park District (JARPD) filed a lawsuit against the Jurupa
Community Services District for fraud and deceit for selling the property to
Rep. Calvert and his partners.
On June 16, 2009, the Riverside County
supervisors voted 3-1 to approve a zoning change to Rep. Calvert’s property,
reclassifying it from agricultural to commercial property. The change will
allow Rep. Calvert and his business partner, Stadium Properties, to build a
storage facility that will likely increase the value of the property.
Despite the increase in land value, JARPD continues to hope to be able to
purchase the property from Stadium Properties, but it is unclear if Stadium
Properties will sell the land. Rep. Calvert describes himself as a “passive
one-third partner” in the land partnership.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT ON REP. KEN CALVERT
(R-CA) >>
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