FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23rd, 2024
CONTACT:
Coby Eiss
[email protected]
ICYMI: LA TIMES RELEASES NEW DETAILS TYING KEN CALVERT EARMARK ABUSE TO HIS OWN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS
Report “rais[es] questions about the extent to which [Calvert] personally benefits from the earmarks he’s secured”
CORONA, C.A. — Yesterday, the LA Times released a damning new report detailing how Republican Congressman Ken Calvert has directed millions of dollars in earmarks to the 41st District that would conveniently increase the value of properties that Calvert and his business partners own around Riverside County.
The report found that a number of earmarks secured by Calvert are located within just a few miles of his properties, begging the question of whether Calvert is deliberately targeting earmarks to increase the value of properties that he owns. It’s just the latest in Calvert’s long history of using public resources for personal benefit. In 2006, the LA Times had another report, “Rep. Calvert’s Land of Plenty,” which revealed that Calvert and his business partners had abused the earmark process to increase the value of a lot in Riverside for hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit – a scandal that became the subject of an FBI investigation and raised concerns among his own colleagues as to whether he was fit to serve on the House Appropriations Committee. Fox News had a seven-minute segment on the scandal. And in 2010, Calvert and his business partner were the subject of another FBI investigation after purchasing property in Mira Loma as part of a no-bid land deal that was regarded as a “political favor” to Calvert.
“It’s clear that this is a pattern of practice for Ken Calvert,” said Rollins. “Over the last 30 years, Congressman Calvert has abused his office to increase his own net worth by up to $20 million. No wonder why he’s been ranked one of the most corrupt members of Congress time and again. Voters across Riverside County are sick of career politicians who exploit their taxpayer-funded jobs to enrich themselves, while everyday folks in Corona and across the 41st District are facing rising costs, including skyrocketing rents that make it harder to make ends meet. In Congress, I’ll support beefing up ethics reforms, banning members from trading stocks, banning former members from lobbying, and instituting term limits so that we can clean up D.C. and get Congress back to working for the people instead of working for themselves.”
Read more below.
Los Angeles Times: Rep. Ken Calvert has secured millions for his Riverside County district. Do his own properties benefit?
Laura Nelson | July 22, 2024
-
- Since Congress brought back the legislative process known as earmarking in 2022, few lawmakers have been as successful at securing funds for their district as Rep. Ken Calvert.
-
- Those $16 million in planned improvements fall within several miles of rental properties that Calvert owns, raising questions about the extent to which he personally benefits from the earmarks he’s secured.
-
- Calvert’s real estate portfolio includes 10 commercial rental properties in the Corona area, 20 acres of land in Riverside County, two properties in Arizona and his residences in Corona and Washington. His California properties are valued at as much as $26 million and generated between $320,000 to $805,000 in rental income for Calvert last year, according to his financial disclosures.
-
- Questions over his real estate deals have resurfaced as Calvert faces a reelection fight against Democrat Will Rollins.
-
- Rollins, who previously prosecuted national security cases for the Justice Department, has taken aim at Calvert’s history of real estate deals in his home district. Calvert, he said, is proving the “widespread perception that people go to Congress to become rich.”
-
- A review of Calvert’s financial records also show that the congressman failed to disclose the purchase of a commercial rental property in Corona in 2016.
-
- Investment properties are relatively common in Congress, experts say, but having a real estate portfolio in your home district can raise a host of ethical quandaries.
-
- Congress banned earmarks in 2011 after a series of high-profile scandals, including the infamous “bridge to nowhere” project in Alaska and several lawmakers who ran into legal trouble after steering funds to their districts.
-
- Calvert came under scrutiny in the same era, along with Inland Empire Rep. Gary Miller and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), for profits they reported from real estate deals near projects funded through congressional earmarks.
-
- In 2005, Calvert and a business partner bought a vacant 4.3-acre lot near an Air Force base in Riverside County for $550,000. In August 2005, President George W. Bush signed a highway bill that included $8 million to build an interchange with Interstate 15, and $1.5 million to support commercial development of the area around the airfield.
-
- Calvert and his partner sold the land several months later for $985,000, a 79% profit.
-
- Calvert has mostly prioritized projects designed to address traffic congestion. That includes $2 million toward widening a bridge along Magnolia Avenue that connects downtown Corona to a light-industrial area to the east. […] Calvert owns half a dozen properties within two miles of the bridge, including the automotive repair center, a strip of office suites and a self-storage facility.
-
- Calvert also secured $3 million for the addition of toll lanes in the center of Interstate 15 that will extend nearly 15 miles through Corona, El Cerrito and Temescal Valley. The northernmost point of the project is about four miles south of Calvert’s rental properties.
-
- The routes and stops haven’t been decided yet, but one of the two Metrolink lines running between L.A. and Riverside stops in downtown Corona a few blocks from several of Calvert’s properties.
###
Will Rollins is a Palm Springs resident and Southern California native. A former federal counterterrorism prosecutor, he is now running for Congress in California’s 41st Congressional District.
