Early life, education, and business career

Calvert was born in Corona, California to Marceline Hamblen and Ira D. Calvert, Jr., and still lives in Corona. In 1970, shortly after high school, he joined the campaigns of former state legislator Victor Veysey. Calvert worked in Veysey's Washington, D.C., office as an intern after a 1972 victory. He graduated from Corona High School in 1971.

Calvert received an Associate of Arts degree from Chaffey Community College in 1973 and a Bachelor of Arts degree San Diego State University in 1975. After graduation, he managed his family's restaurant, the Jolly Fox, in Corona for five years. He then entered the real estate industry and ran Ken Calvert Real Properties until he was elected to Congress.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

In 1982, the 29-year-old Calvert ran for the United States House of Representatives to represent a newly drawn district. He narrowly lost the Republican primary to Riverside County Supervisor Al McCandless, who had been the choice of the Republican establishment. McCandless went on to win the general election.

Calvert was first elected to the House in 1992, when McCandless was re-elected in a different district. Calvert won the general election with 47% of the vote (a plurality, but he was the highest vote-getter), defeating Democrat Mark Takano by 519 votes. In 1994, he was challenged in the Republican primary by Joe Khoury and won renomination by only 51% to 49%. He was re-elected in the 1994 general election with 55 percent, again defeating Takano. Ironically, he now serves in the House alongside his former opponent; Takano was elected to Congress in an adjacent district in 2012.

In 1996, he was re-elected with 54 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat Guy Kimbrough. In 1998 he defeated Democrat Mike Rayburn with 55 percent of the vote. Calvert won again in 2000 with 74 percent of the vote, facing no major-party opposition.

Calvert was re-elected in 2002, defeating Louis Vandenberg with 64 percent of the vote. He defeated Vandenberg again in 2004 with 61 percent of the vote. Vandenberg, a college administrator, was again Calvert's opponent in the November 2006 election. Calvert won with 60 percent of the vote; Vandenburg got 38 percent.

In 2008, he had a surprisingly close race. He ran against Democratic candidate Bill Hedrick, receiving 52% of the vote. Calvert declared victory immediately, but Hedrick waited three weeks before conceding, due to higher than normal turnout prolonging the vote-counting process.

In 2010, Bill Hedrick ran against Calvert again. While most pundits such as Larry Sabato expected him to lose again, sources such as The New York Times ranked the race more competitive. The New York Times has ranked this race as solid Republican, to "Leaning Republican. " In the end, Calvert won by a 10% margin.

The National Journal's Cook Political Report named Calvert one of the top 10 Republicans most vulnerable to redistricting in 2012, largely due to his district's rapidly growing Hispanic population. Despite this Calvert defeated opponent Michael Williamson with 61% of the vote.

Tenure

111th and 112th Congress

On June 10, 2009, Calvert introduced H.R. 2788, the Distinguished Flying Cross National Memorial Act. This Act designates a national memorial at March Field Air Museum in honor of current and former members of the armed forces who have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Calvert worked to assemble a bipartisan group of 48 cosponsors for this legislation. On March 19, 2010, H.R. 2788 unanimously passed the House of Representatives. Calvert introduced H. Res. 377, a bill recognizing Armed Forces Day and the exemplary service of the members of the United States Armed Forces on April 29, 2009. This bill received 70 bipartisan cosponsorships and passed the House of Representatives unanimously on May 14, 2009.

Calvert introduced H. Res. 1219 to support the designation of a National Child Awareness Month to promote awareness of children's charities and youth-serving organizations across the United States on March 25, 2010. Calvert assembled 40 bipartisan cosponsors for this bill and on July 19, 2010 this bill passed the House of Representatives with unanimous support.

E-Verify

Calvert is the original author of the E-Verify law, the only employment verification program available to employers to check the work authorization status of newly hired employees. In 1995, he introduced H.R. 502, which was later included in the immigration reform bill, H.R. 2202. The immigration reforms were later wrapped into the FY1997 Omnibus Appropriations Act. The original program, known as the Basic Pilot Program, was only available to five states and employers used a call in system. In the 12 years since its implementation, the Basic Pilot Program, now known as E-Verify, has expanded nationwide and has over 100,000 employers using the system. Two states, Arizona and Mississippi, have made use of E-Verify mandatory. In the 111th Congress Calvert again introduced legislation to make use of E-Verify mandatory.

CALFED

As Chairman of the Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power, Calvert introduced H.R. 2828, The Water Supply, Reliability, and Environmental Improvement Act, which reauthorizes the CALFED Bay-Delta program. The CALFED Bay-Delta Program is a unique collaboration among 25 state and federal agencies that came together with a mission: to improve California’s water supply and the ecological health of the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. H.R. 2828 provides a long-term federal authorization for the western region for water supply and reliability. The bill became Public Law 108-361

The NASA Reauthorization Act of 2005

In the 109th Congress, Calvert served as the Chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee which oversees NASA. As Chairman Calvert introduced and passed into law the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-155), the first reauthorization bill of civilian space and aeronautics agency in five years. The reauthorization provided NASA with the direction and tools to implement President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration while stressing the importance of their earth and space science and aeronautics work.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Defense
  • Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (Chairman)
  • Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch
• Committee on the Budget
• Congressional Cement Caucus

Legislation sponsored

The following is an incomplete list of legislation Calvert sponsored:

• Distinguished Flying Cross National Memorial Act (H.R. 330; 113th Congress) - a bill that would designate a memorial located at March Field Air Museum in Riverside, California, as the Distinguished Flying Cross National Memorial, in honor of current and former members of the Armed Forces who have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Controversies

Real estate investments

Calvert's May 2005 financial disclosure statement showed that he owned eight parcels of land, most in Riverside County, as of December 31, 2004. In 2005, Calvert and Harpole paid $550,000 for a 4.3-acre (17,000 m2) parcel just south of March Air Reserve Base. Calvert's real estate firm, where Calvert's brother, Quint, is the president, and Halpole is vice president, received brokerage fees from the seller, Rod Smith of Greeley, Colorado, for representing both buyer and seller in the deal. Less than a year later, Calvert and Harpole sold the property for nearly $1 million. During the time he owned the land, Calvert used the earmarking process to secure $8 million in federal funds for a freeway interchange 16 miles (26 km) from the property, and an additional $1.5 million to support commercial development of the area around the base.

In early summer 2005, Harpole bought property with a group of investors at 20330 Temescal Canyon Road, a few blocks from the site of the what was then a proposed interchange at Cajalco and I-15. The purchase price was $975,000. Within six months, after the bill passed that provided federal funding for the interchange, they sold the parcel for $1.45 million. Calvert's firm took a commission on the sale.

On May 19, 2006, The Riverside Press-Enterprise, the sixth largest newspaper in California, editorialized that The Los Angeles Times got the facts wrong and in fact, there was no impropriety on the part of Calvert. Calvert has stated that all requests for federal funding come from local entities.

Jurupa Community Services District

In the spring of 2006, Calvert and Harpole purchased 4 acres (16,000 m2) of land from Jurupa Community Services District (JCSD), a water and sewer district in northwestern Riverside County, for $1.2 million, along with five investment partners who jointly had a one-third interest. A newspaper investigation reported in August 2006 that the district apparently never first offered the land to other public agencies, a requirement of state law intended to provide more recreational land. The district's general manager said other agencies were notified, but representatives of those agencies said they received no such notice. The district could not provide evidence of the notification, saying relevant files had been misplaced.

The community services district did not advertise or list the land for sale, a practice required by counties and many other public agencies seeking top dollar on behalf of taxpayers. District general manager Carole McGreevy, who is stepping down from that position in late 2006 and retiring in late 2007, said the district proclaimed the land surplus in the early 1990s after it was no longer needed for flood control. The record of that decision was among the missing documents, as was the updated appraisal that McGreevy said was done in May 2005.

The Calvert partnership plans to build a mini-storage business. In August 2008, the Jurupa Area Recreation and Parks District (JARPD) filed a lawsuit against JCSD, alleging fraud in the sale of the land. In August 2009, the FBI was looking into the lawsuit. A spokeswoman for Calvert said he had not been contacted by the FBI or a grand jury and did not believe that he was a focus of any investigation.

The JCSD and JARPD reached a settlement to the dispute on October 7, 2010 and the agreement stated that Stadium Properties, of which Calvert is one-third silent partner, had no knowledge that the JCSD had not properly noticed the sale of land.

Sex with known prostitute

In 1993, two Corona, California, police officers found Calvert with a prostitute in his car. Calvert told the police that he and the woman were "just talking." The Press-Enterprise later went to court to force the Corona police to release the police report. After the report was released, Calvert admitted to having sex in his car with the woman, although the police did not have enough evidence to arrest him, as there was no witness to any exchange of money.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]