Jack Abramoff

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A former legislative director to retiring U.S. Rep. John Doolittle (R-Roseville) has been indicted on public corruption charges, according to Roll Call.

Lobbyist Kevin Ring, who was on Doolittle's staff from 1993 to 1998, was formally charged Monday in Washington, D.C., with 10 counts of corruption relating to work he did as a colleague of convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Ney was released from a Cincinnati halfway house Friday morning, after spending 17 months in federal custody after pleading guilty to charges connected to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Ney, a Republican who was first elected to Congress during the 1994 GOP wave, represented the 18th Congressional District in the eastern part of the state and during his tenure on Capitol Hill, rose to the chairmanship of the House Administration Committee.

Ney pleaded guilty in 2006 to receiving gifts from Abramoff in exchange for aiding the clients of the lobbyist, who is now in federal prison. Facing the prospect of a House explusion vote following his guilty plea, Ney resigned. Democrat Zack Space won Ney's seat during that year's election, defeating state Sen. Joy Padgett.

U.S. Rep. John Doolittle’s final six months in office provide something of a sad bookend to a career of a man who was once considered a hero among California conservatives and a rising star within the Republican Party. In a state that is largely dominated by the Democratic Party, Doolittle rose from the state senate to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he would eventually become House Conference secretary, the sixth-highest ranking position in the chamber.

Forget Jack Abramoff and Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Tom DeLay and Mark Foley could prove to be the least of the Republican Party's worries. Disturbing surveys, and even some GOP strategists, are beginning to suggest a new trauma for their party, one that could portend a return to the dark winter of the so-called permanent minority, when Democrats held control of Congress for four decades.

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The DSCC took another swipe at US Senate candidate Bob Schaffer today on the Mariana Islands controversy. In a press release issued today DSCC spokeman Matthew Miller rips Schaffer for allowing "human rights abuses to continue," while the Schaffer campaign manager, Dick Wadhams accused Schaffer opponent, Mark Udall, of being a hypocrite on the Mariana controversy.