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==Misc.== |
==Misc.== |
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Rohrabacher was an influencial activist in the radical [[anarcho-capitalist]] movement, starting from about [[1969]], though he drifted towards the mainstream along with [[Charles Koch]], the billionare who helped fund his political campaigns.{{fact}} |
Rohrabacher was an influencial activist in the radical [[anarcho-capitalist]] movement, starting from about [[1969]],[http://www.free-market.net/resources/fnn/2004spring/sek-iii-riggenbach.html] though he drifted towards the mainstream along with [[Charles Koch]], the billionare who helped fund his political campaigns.{{fact}} |
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He worked for awhile as an editorial writer for |
He worked for awhile in the early 1970s as an editorial writer for The Register (today called [[The Orange County Register]]) [[newspaper]] in [[Santa Ana, California]], then a conservative newspaper with a libertarian bent. [http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/rohrabacher_profile_000519.html] |
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In addition to surfing, Rohrabacher is an amateur musician who in the late 1980s appeared, alongside Cox, to sing at the Orange County Press Club's musical lampooning annual political events. |
In addition to surfing, Rohrabacher is an amateur musician who in the late 1980s appeared, alongside Cox, to sing at the Orange County Press Club's musical lampooning annual political events. |
Revision as of 22:21, 6 January 2006
Dana Rohrabacher (born June 21 1947) in Coronado, California, is an American politician, who has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1989, representing the 46th District of California (map).
Education
Rohrabacher graduated from Palos Verdes High School in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, attended Harbor Junior College, and received his bachelor's degree in history from California State University, Long Beach in 1969. He received his master's degree in American Studies from the University of Southern California.
Tenure at the Reagan White House
Prior to his election to Congress in 1988, Rohrabacher served as Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. For seven years he was one of the President's senior speechwriters. During his tenure at the White House, Rohrabacher played a leading role in the formulation of the Reagan Doctrine. He also helped formulate President Reagan's Economic Bill of Rights, a package of economic reforms that the President introduced in a speech before the Jefferson Memorial.
Congressional Career
With Reagan soon leaving office, Rohrabacher left the Administration in 1988 to pursue the open House seat recently vacated by Dan Lungren. With the fundraising help of friend Oliver North, Rohrabacher was able to win the Republican primary and capture the seat, centered around northern coastal Orange County. A friend and fellow White House aide, Christopher Cox, won a seat in the same election in southern Orange County. The pair remained close, though Cox - now chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission - rose in the party hierarchy while the more iconoclastic Rohrabacher charted his own course.
Rohrabacher was Chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science Committee from 1997 until January 2005, having received a two-year waiver to serve beyond the six-year term limit.
As a senior member of the International Relations Committee, Rohrabacher led the effort to deny Most Favored Nation trading status to the People's Republic of China, citing that nation's dismal human rights record and opposition to democracy. His subcommittee assignments are East Asia and Pacific, and Middle East and South Asia.
Political Views
Rohrabacher is a staunch opponent of illegal immigration. He authored California's Proposition 187, which sought to deny immigrants without proper documentation any government services, including education for their children. In 2004 he proposed a bill to withhold emergency room services to people who cannot prove their immigration status. The proposed bill was overwhelmingly defeated [1].
Rohrabacher supports giving Washington, D.C. residents the right to vote for congressional representation as Maryland residents.
Controversies
Involvement with Taliban regime
During the summer of 2001, Mr. Rohrabacher met Taliban Foreign Minister Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil in Doha, Qatar.[citation needed] This is contrary to the Logan Act, which prohibits citizens from conducting diplomacy without an official capacity. Purportedly the meeting was in an attempt to increase the amount of foreign aid sent by the United States to Afghanistan, and to negotiate the construction of an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. After his diplomatic overtures were apparently rejected, Mr. Rohrabacher became one of the most fervent public opponents of the Taliban.[citation needed]
Close associate Grover Norquist and other Rohrabacher supporters have claimed that the meeting was incidental and not pre-arranged.[citation needed]
Mr. Rohrabacher had a history of communication and support of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan dating back to the Cold War, when he openly supported the groups that would later coalesce into the Taliban regime for their active opposition to the Soviet Union, including fighters under the command of Osama bin Laden.[citation needed] In the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, he was reported as saying that the Taliban were not terrorists or revolutionaries, that they would develop a disciplined society that would leave no room for terrorists, and that the Taliban posed no threat to the United States. [citation needed]
In a prescient Sept. 11, 1998 editorial to the Washington Post, Rohrabacher strongly rebuked the Taliban for their obstinacy in providing refuge to Osama bin Laden, mass killings of Shi'ites and ethnic Uzbeks, Turks, and Tajiks, and restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and children:
- "It has been no secret that bin Laden has been sheltered by the Taliban. The Clinton administration was mute while one of the most violent anti-Western Muslim sects spilled into Afghanistan from their Pakistan-based "religious schools" and took control of the capital. We remained paralyzed while they moved to destroy moderate Muslim forces. While administration officials expressed concern of the Taliban's complete denial of rights for women, it was little more than lip service. Even modest support from the United States for moderate Muslim forces in Afghanistan and serious political pressure on Pakistan could have thwarted the takeover of this strategically important country by these militant extremists. The danger of the spread of fanaticism expressed by the newly independent republics of Central Asia was smugly ignored."[citation needed]
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mr.Rohrabacher claimed that the attacks were due to incompetency by the Clinton administration. [2]
Possible ethics violations
On November 4, 2005, The Los Angeles Times reported that Rohrabacher "used his influence to open doors in Washington for a Hollywood producer pitching a television show after the producer paid him a $23,000 option on a screenplay." [3] The producer, Joseph Medawar, has since been indicted on fraud charges by the FBI and has plead not guilty. The question is whether the producer paid him the money for the screenplay or if the money was for the introductions to congressional and federal officials conducted by Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher claims that the introductions were done in good faith and were nothing that was not done regularly for legimate causes, and that the introductions have only become an issue because of Joseph Medawar's misdeeds.
Links to Jack Abramoff
Rohrabacher is also connected to indicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has been charged with fraud in connection with his purchase of the Suncruz casino cruise line. Rohrabacher was listed as a financial reference for Abramoff. "I don't remember it, but I would certainly have been happy to give him a good recommendation," Rohrabacher said. "He's a very honest man."[4]
Family
In August of 1997 Rohrbacher married Orange County political operative (and fellow surfer), Rhonda Carmony. On April 27, 2004, he and his wife became parents to triplets.
Misc.
Rohrabacher was an influencial activist in the radical anarcho-capitalist movement, starting from about 1969,[5] though he drifted towards the mainstream along with Charles Koch, the billionare who helped fund his political campaigns.[citation needed]
He worked for awhile in the early 1970s as an editorial writer for The Register (today called The Orange County Register) newspaper in Santa Ana, California, then a conservative newspaper with a libertarian bent. [6]
In addition to surfing, Rohrabacher is an amateur musician who in the late 1980s appeared, alongside Cox, to sing at the Orange County Press Club's musical lampooning annual political events.
In the late 1960's and early 70's, Rohrabacher was influenced by the anarcho-capitalist ideas of Robert LeFevre, who had moved Rampart College, to Orange County, California.[citation needed] Rohrabacher would perform at various meetings and conferences, playing the four-string banjo and singing his original libertarian-themed songs including "Individual Man": "I don't own nobody. Nobody does own me. I'm just an individual man, just want to be free..."[citation needed]