Contenders for Doolittle's House seat spar at Auburn forum

Rep. Doug Ose touted his long ties to the Sacramento region and the 4th Congressional District, even though he never lived there.

State Sen. Tom McClintock, whose Thousand Oaks district is 400 miles away, declared that he is answering the call of local voters for conservative leadership.

And upstart GOP candidate Suzanne Jones of Citrus Heights stressed that her community was once part of the 4th District "but the district moved away from me – not me away from the district."

So it went Monday in an introductory candidates' forum that was literally an introduction for the candidates hoping to replace retiring Rep. John Doolittle.

At a question-and-answer forum sponsored by the Soroptimist Club of Auburn, leading Republican contenders McClintock and Ose provided the political fireworks.

McClintock accused Ose of being a champion of pork-barrel "earmarks" during three terms in Congress representing Sacramento's neighboring 3rd District. Ose depicted McClintock as a career politician helping himself to regular pay raises and legislative financial perks.

But the most critical arguments they appeared to be making to voters had to do with what they were even doing in this race – and congressional district – to begin with.

"I want to introduce myself to many of you because, frankly, you don't know who I am," Ose began.

He proceeded to assure the few dozen 4th District residents in the audience that he has lived in the greater Sacramento region since Folsom Dam was built, since an Auburn dam was authorized and since a former Roseville football star – now New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi – "was running through my high school's backfield."

Ose also touted his congressional record in supporting improvements to Interstate 80 in the 4th District and projects benefiting communities "up and down the Sierra spine." He boasted of flying home from Washington nearly every weekend.

McClintock, who noted that his family rented a home in the 4th District community of Rocklin for three years, acknowledged "that I do represent a Southern California Senate district." But he said he was in the race because he was approached by local voters and Republican groups that "assured me that the people of this district care far more where a candidate stands than where he lives."

The presence of the two highly touted GOP contenders seemed to amuse the spokesman for Democratic candidate Charlie Brown.

"Charlie will be here every day fighting for the people of this district as he has every day living, working and raising his family here for the past 17 years," said Todd Stenhouse, who appeared at the forum on behalf of Brown, a Roseville resident. "… I also, of course, want to welcome our friends Doug and Tom to the 4th Congressional District."

Ose recently rented an attached guest house in Granite Bay so that he can vote in the district's June 3 Republican primary. McClintock will not be able to vote for himself because he must maintain his voter registration in his home district as long as he is in the state Senate.

McClintock, casting himself as a leading fiscal conservative, characterized Ose as part of a "Republican Congress that voted for the biggest entitlements since the Great Society."

He charged that Ose "was a champion" of congressional spending and a proliferation of earmarks that are "destroying our national treasury."

Ose, a wealthy developer who said he refused pay raises while in Congress, assailed McClintock for taking legislative pay hikes and tax-free per diem income for out-of-district expenses while living virtually full time in Elk Grove, just miles from the state Capitol.

In an interview, McClintock noted that "virtually every" state lawmaker who moves to Sacramento from another part of California accepts living expense money. "The charge that a legislator forfeits per diem by bringing his family to Sacramento is utterly bizarre," McClintock said. "In short, this is a phony issue."

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• Call Peter Hecht, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5539.