Career Prior To The U.S. House
In 1979, Doolittle worked as an aide to State Senator H. L. Richardson, the conservative founder of Gun Owners of America and the Law and Order Campaign Committee.
In a 1980 race for the California State Senate, Doolittle, then 29, stunned everyone by narrowly defeating Democrat Albert S. Rodda, dean of the state Senate and chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
In 1981, the Democratic state legislature's redistricting plan, which used creatively drawn districts to squeeze out Republican lawmakers, dumped Doolittle into a Democratic district, where he lost to then-Assemblyman Leroy Greene in 1982. But by a quirk of redistricting, Doolittle was able to keep his original seat until 1984, when he won another term by beating Ray Johnson, a Republican turned independent from Chico. An administrative law judge later found him guilty of violating campaign finance laws when his campaign helped his Democratic opponent, to pull votes away from Johnson. Doolittle easily won re-election in 1988. From 1987 to 1990, he was chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
Read more about this topic: John Doolittle
Famous quotes containing the words career, prior and/or house:
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“A diff’rent cause, says Parson Sly,
The same effect may give:
Poor Lubin fears, that he shall die;
His wife, that he may live.”
—Matthew Prior (1664–1721)
“Go out of the house to see the moon, and ‘t is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who could ever clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: ‘t is only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)