| 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 to
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.[2]
Calvert won with 59.6 percent of the vote; Vandenburg got
37.5 percent.[2]
In 2008, he had a surprisingly close race. He ran against
Democratic candidate
Bill Hedrick, receiving 51.8% of the vote.[3]
Calvert declared victory immediately, but Hedrick waited
three weeks before conceding, due to higher than normal
turnout prolonging the vote-counting process.[4]
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.[11]
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,[13]
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.[11]
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.[14]
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.[15]
Personal
In 1993 he was caught by police receiving oral sex from a
prostitute and attempted to flee the scene.[16][17]
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."[18]
References
-
calvert
- California Secretary of State,
2006 general election results, U.S. Congress
District 44, accessed November 14, 2006
- California Secretary of State,
2008 general election results, U.S. Congress
District 44, accessed December 8, 2008
- Riverside Press-Enterprise,
[1], accessed December 8, 2008
- 1996 Congressional Quarterly
Almanac
-
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c104:15:./temp/~c1049CzcDF
-
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.19.IH
-
http://www.calwater.ca.gov/calfed/about/index.html
-
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR02828:@@@D&summ2=m&
-
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d109:10:./temp/~bdynlx::|/bss/d109query.html
-
a
b
Tom Hamburger, Lance Pugmire and Richard Simon,
"Rep. Calvert's Land of Plenty: He has earmarked
funds for Riverside County projects near properties
he sold for a profit.", Los Angeles Times,
May 15, 2006
- The Riverside Press Enterprise
Editorial "False Alarm" May 19, 2006
-
a
b
David Danelski and Sandra Stokely,
"Sale of park site draws questions",
Press-Enterprise, August 17, 2006
-
Susan Crabtree. "Rep.
Calvert denies he's subject of FBI investigation".
The Hill.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/63757-rep-calvert-denies-hes-subject-of-fbi-investigation.
-
http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/summaries/calvert.php
- Alex Brant-Zawadzki,
Of Pork and Ken: Local congressman likes toll roads,
money, blowjobs", Orange County Weekly,
February 16, 2006
-
http://www.redstate.com/files/calvertarrest.jpg
- Robinson, Jack. "Two years
have brought Calvert crises, lessons."
Riverside Press Enterprise. November 3,
1994. Page B01.
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
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