It's official: Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore will run for the seat of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010 - and he has a message for Arnold Schwarzenegger if the lame-duck governor covets the seat as well: Bring it on.
"Hey, let's do it," DeVore said of Schwarzenegger minutes after the Orange County legislator formally launched his congressional bid Wednesday via an Internet news conference.
"I welcome the competition," said DeVore, R-Irvine. "I think that in a closed Republican primary between a governor who's trying to enact the largest tax increase in California history vs. a guy leading the charge in preventing that tax increase, I know how most Republicans would vote."
Julie Soderlund, Schwarzenegger's political spokeswoman, declined to trade barbs with DeVore.
"The governor is completely focused on meeting California's serious challenges right now," Soderlund said. "He's not thinking about what he might do once he's out of office."
DeVore declared his congressional candidacy only about a week after winning his third and final term in the 70th Assembly District, representing Laguna Beach, Irvine, Newport Beach, Tustin and other portions of Orange County.
The six-year legislator, an Assembly Republican whip, said he plans to push during the congressional campaign for increased energy production, both nuclear power and offshore oil drilling.
DeVore said he expects Boxer and her Democratic Party to raise taxes on high-income earners in the next two years, which he predicts would make Boxer vulnerable at the ballot box.
"I think what they're going to do is raise taxes on businesses and on people at the higher income levels, precisely the people who invest and get our economy moving," DeVore said. "That's a recipe for disaster."
Boxer, a veteran Democratic congesswoman, served 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before moving to the Senate in January 1993.
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