SANTA CLARITA (CNS) - Online news show host Cenk Uygur today announced his candidacy for the Santa Clarita Valley congressional seat formerly held by Katie Hill saying he is running “to get money out of politics.”
Uygur, a Democrat who hosts the online news show “The Young Turks,” wrote on his campaign's website that he is running because after reporting “for years about the corruption happening in Washington ... I am more convinced than ever that we have to get money out of politics! And in order to do that we must start a national conversation around the issue.
“Call it what it is -- corruption!” Uygur wrote. “Corporate PAC money has another name; a bribe. Corporations don't give money to politicians for their health or for charity. They do it for return on investment.
“I'm going to call out that corruption and help end it! When we end corruption in Washington, we are going to go back to representing the people. I'm running to help bring our democracy back to the people.”
Uygur's announcement he was seeking the 25th Congressional District seat came one day he was criticized by Hill, who resigned Nov. 1 after the House Ethics Committee announced it had begun an investigation into Hill over allegations that she had a relationship with one of her staffers.
Hill has denied the allegation, although she conceded having a relationship with a female member of her campaign staff -- a relationship that was apparently shared with her now-estranged husband.
When it became known Wednesday that Uygur had filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission for a campaign committee and author and conservative filmmaker Mike Cernovich was also considering running, Assemblywoman Christy Smith, D-Santa Clarita, who announced her candidacy Oct. 28, tweeted, “Here's an idea. How about all of you man spread in your own damn districts?! #CA25 belongs to #CA25.”
Hill then retweeted that tweet adding, “A local gal flipped a decades- long Rep seat to win by 9 pts. local gal is the only one who can keep it blue and the only one the community deserves. I called ChristyforCA25 before I resigned to make sure she would run. Boys, please be gentlemen and step aside. She's got this.”
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