Debbie Cook

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher should do less apologizing for Jack Abramoff and offer more criticism of his friend, the disgraced Washington lobbyist who was sentenced to four more years in prison Thursday, according to Rohrabacher’s Democratic rival for Congress, Debbie Cook. “You would hope your friends would help keep you out of trouble and keep you from avoiding the errors of judgment Abramoff made, and I don’t know that Dana has ever done that. He has just defended him,” Cook said.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s campaign has agreed to debate his challenger, Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, before they face off in the November elections. But the campaigns spar as they appear to agree in principle. Cook’s campaign challenged Rohrabacher this week to at least three town-hall style debates, with at least one in a Los Angeles County area like Long Beach or the Palos Verdes Peninsula — areas that are in the 46th Congressional District, along with Orange County cities like Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Costa Mesa.

Debbie Cook, the democratic challenger for Dana Rohrabacher?s long-held 46th District congressional seat, will attempt to bridge a large part of the fundraising gap between her and Rohrabacher with an unusual fundraiser Aug. 28. She will host not one, not two, but 200 simultaneous house parties throughout the 46th Congressional District, which spans much of Orange County and Los Angeles, all on the day when Barack Obama plans on giving his nomination...

Of all the issues Debbie Cook and Dana Rohrabacher disagree on in their congressional campaigns, perhaps the most stark are their stances on the environment. Democrat Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, has earned a reputation as an environmentalist while GOP incumbent Rep. Rohrabacher for years has ridiculed global-warming theories. So it comes as little surprise that Cook recently received a second big environmental endorsement in her campaign. The California League of Conservation Voters announced it is joining the Sierra Club in backing Cook in the election, citing the candidate’s fight to preserve the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and stop the Orange County Sanitation District from dumping partially treated sewage off the Huntington Beach coast.

Debbie Cook invests in oil companies even while she champions environmental issues (“Cook defends her oil stock,” April 17). In her defense, she says: “I don’t blame the oil companies, … We’re the consumers. People are looking for a scapegoat to blame others for these kinds of problems. We’re the energy hogs. We’re the problem and we’re the solution. … I can be an advocate against dying and still invest in mortuaries and that does not make me a hypocrite.

Huntington Beach Mayor and congressional candidate Debbie Cook is a prominent environmentalist and pointedly warns fossil fuel supplies are limited and will become ever-scarcer in years to come, with drastic consequences. She has spoken around the world as an environmental expert, calling a heavy reliance on oil and other fossil fuels dangerous in the long term. But at the same time, she has invested in oil companies like Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, according to economic interest forms filed March 25 with the City Clerk that council members must fill out. Cook said it was old news about long-disclosed retirement accounts, and she dismissed the idea her investments might be hypocritical, saying the government retirement fund CalPERS had heavy investment in oil as well.

A Sacramento judge Friday tossed a lawsuit to keep congressional candidate Debbie Cook from using her title as Huntington Beach mayor on the June primary ballot. A second lawsuit brought by Orange County Republican lawyer Mike Schroeder on behalf of his client Keith Carlson, treasurer of the Orange County Republican Party and a Huntington Beach resident, went before a judge at 1:30 p.m. Friday. By the end of the day it was dismissed, both on its merits and a technicality: Schroeder had failed to serve papers to Cook, as required.