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CREDO SuperPac has announced the eighth member of its 'Tea Party Ten' members of Congress that it will seek to defeat in the 2012 elections, Dan Lungren of California. The 10 are chosen on the basis of their extreme positions and rhetoric and the fact that they are vulnerable. Most of them were elected in the 'wave' election of 2010 and could easily lose in 2012 if they have strong challengers.
Sometimes the actions of elected representatives become so odious that urgent action is required. Many of the Tea Party-affiliated House Republicans were elected in 2010 on a wave of concern about a very troubled economy and with millions of dollars in expenditures by political groups associated with Karl Rove or the Koch brothers. Their actions in Congress have been beyond the pale.
They voted to deny the science on global warming, to change the very definition of rape, to deny funds to Planned Parenthood for the provision of contraception, to expand tax breaks for the top 1%, and to eliminate Medicare and leave seniors and the disabled at the mercy of the insurance industry.
Lungren was announced Wednesday as the latest Republican added to the campaign. His headline reads "California's Rick Santorum":
For more than 30 years, Dan Lungren has stood for Tea Party extremism and radical assaults on equality. When the Obama Administration refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, Dan Lungren was happy to sink $1.5 million of our tax dollars into a contract with a former Bush Administration official to uphold this discriminatory law. But denying equal rights to lesbian and gay couples is about the only thing Lungren wants to fund. He voted for the Ryan budget to slash social services and end Medicare as we know it. He voted to defund Planned Parenthood, cut Pell Grants for one third of University of California undergraduates, cut $125 million from K-12 education in California, and eliminate Headstart funding for 14,000 low income children in his district. His position on women's issues are even more extreme: Lungren has sponsored legislation that would have outlawed abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and is so anti-woman that he called the Obama Administration's new regulations on no-cost birth control an "assault" on the First Amendment.
Lungren joins Mike Fitzpatrick (PA), Joe Walsh (IL), Frank Guinta (NH), Sean Duffy (WI), Steve King (IA), Chip Cravaack (MN) and Allen West (FL) on the list. Two members of the Tea Party Ten remain to be unveiled.
Those interested in getting Lungren and the rest of the Tea Party Ten out of office can sign the CREDO pledge or contribute.
