Sanchez vs. Tuchman?
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., may face another well-known GOP contender in next year’s congressional elections.
First grade teacher Gloria Matta Tuchman, who helped spearhead California’s controversial 1998 initiative to drastically scale back bilingual education, is forming an exploratory committee to consider entering the race in the state’s 46th Congressional District, according to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
In the 1996 election, Ms. Sanchez, a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, ousted longtime incumbent Robert K. Dornan, an outspoken conservative. She defeated him again in a rematch last year.
In her unsuccessful bid for state schools superintendent last year, Ms. Tuchman pushed for a back-to-basics curriculum and for a voucher program for students in low-performing schools. (“Calif. School Chief’s Race a Study in Contrasts,” Oct. 28, 1998.)
Gun Money
Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has become the target of a watchdog group that contends he’s a top recipient of gun-lobby funds.
Mr. Frist, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, received $186,619 between 1994 and 1998 from groups and individuals categorized as supporting “gun rights,” according to the Public Campaign, which focuses on campaign-finance reform. The Public Campaign based its findings on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, another nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spending.
The Public Campaign purchased newspaper ads targeting 10 members of Congress--all Republicans--who received the most contributions from the “gun rights” interests. No other members of the House or Senate education panels were named. The ads ran last month in The New York Times and Roll Call, a Capitol Hill weekly.
But Sen. Frist’s office called the ads “deceptive” because they included indirect contributions from groups, such as advertising against an opponent, over which he did not have any control. His press secretary, Margaret Camp, said the senator received about $10,000 to $15,000 in direct funds from gun-lobby groups.
And while Sen. Frist supports the right to bear arms, he has supported some gun-control measures, Ms. Camp added. “He votes what he believes,” she said.
--Joetta L. Sack federal@epe.org
