Darrell Issa

Five U.S. Representatives from Southern California have made Roll Call’s annual list of the 50 richest members of the U.S. Congress.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: TomDeLay.comFormer U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) will be the keynote speaker for the Riverside County Republican Party's annual Liberty Dinner on Oct. 4.

DeLay, who left office in 2006 after being indicted the previous year in connection with a campaign finance scandal, has since started a group that seeks to unite conservatives. He also provides frequent guest political commentary on TV and radio.

U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthyWASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy is one of the few people who will become so animated when talking about congressional elections that he leans forward in his seat in mid-conversation and touches the arm of the person he is speaking to.

“I believe everyone is addicted to something in life,” he said in an interview with PolitickerCA.com, and the first term Republican congressman said for him “it just happens to be politics.”

McCarthy’s enthusiasm and energy for politics, coming at a bleak time for house Republicans, has made him something of a standout in his freshman class and the party in general. Already, the Bakersfield congressman has been placed in an advisory position at the National Republican Congressional Committee and has been tapped to head up the party’s Platform Committee at the national convention in September. He’s a member of the Young Guns, a group of Republicans whose mission is to prop up house challengers around the country.

Jackie Speier kept her promise, beginning her career in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday with a scathing speech on the War in Iraq. Speier was sworn in yesterday as the Congresswoman from California’s 12th district, two days after she won a massive 77% in a special election to replace the late Tom Lantos.

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Democratic Party spokesman Roger Salazar is taking a shot at Republican U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa for comments he made Wednesday that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center was “simply” a plane crash and suggesting that New York City had already received sufficient assistance from the federal government for what was a “fire”.

“It’s just another example of how detached Darrell Issa is from reality,” says Salazar.