Sunday Read: Asian American challenging Devin Nunes who made public the classified "memo"

JANZFORCONGRESS CAMPAIGN

Thai/American attorney Andrew Janz is hoping to upset Rep. Devin Nunes.

AN ASIAN AMERICAN is challenging Rep. Devin Nunes, the GOP congressman who sparked a firestorn by releasing a classified memo from the Senate Judicial Committee against the strong recommendations of the FBI.

Charging voters are “fed up” with Nunes, Fresno County Deputy District Attorney Andrew Janz declared his intention to run against Nunes in April 2017.

“Congressman Nunes has given me the best gift a first-time candidate with almost no name recognition can receive, he has made himself the poster boy for what’s wrong with Congress and put a national target on his back,” Janz said in a statement.

Since Nunes' classified memo was released on Friday (Feb. 2), the campaign for Janz has raised $130,379 and is just shy of 4,000 individual contributions.

Nunez' handling of the confidential memo put him at the center of the controversy which led the Sacramento Bee to call him "Trump's stooge" in an editorial last week.

Janz has made Nunes role in releasing the partisan memo against the FBI's strong protestations into one of the major talking points of his underdog campaign.

"I'm not a politician; I've never considered running for Congress until recently," Janz told The Fresno Bee in April of last year when he first declared his candidacy. He said that previous ethics concerns stemming from Nunes's handling of classified information related to the Russia probe spurred him to run.

"I deal with confidential information on a daily basis," Janz said. "I'm in a profession that's all about ethics." Janz's work as a Deputy D.A. gives him a strong law-and-order background that plays well in California's Central Valley.

Janz is definitely fighting an uphill battle but Democrats have targeted the district as one they could flip. The 22nd Congressional District is one of the few California districts where the GOP with 42.8 percent of voters identifying as Republicans have an edge. Only 32.8 percent identify as Democrats, but a large percentage, more than 19, who have indicated no party preference could bolster Janz's efforts, according to the Fresno Bee.

Janz is the son of immigrants — his mother from Thailand and his father from Northern Canada — who met in the Peace Corps, and English is his second language. Janz grew up in Fresno where his father worked as a laborer and his mother worked in a hospital.

He said Nunes, who enjoys being in the national spotlight, has been out of touch with voters in a in impoverished  agricultural-based district that’s home to a large immigrant community — both Latino and Asian. 

District residents scheduled their own town hall meeting recently because Nunes would not meet with them to address the region’s concerns, including GOP efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act. Nunes failed to show, “and he didn’t even send a staffer,’’ Janz said. “He’s dismissed people as paid activists … but these are hard working people of the district. They’re not paid agitators.”

Two (left and below) of the 
billboards against Devin Nunes 
paid for by Andrew Janz's 
campaign.

As of January 22, 2018, a total of eight candidates have declared their intention to challenge Nunes for the seat, including six Democrats, one Libertarian, and one member of the American Solidarity Party. The overall race rating for this seat from three separate media outlets was Safe Republican, but that was before the memo controversy.

A Public Policy Polling survey conducted in January 2018 on behalf of the Janz campaign of attorney found Nunes leading a generic Democratic candidate 50-45. The November Midterms will pit the two top vote-getters in the June Primary against each other, regardless of party affiliation.

“The notion that Devin Nunes is unbeatable is a myth,’’ Janz said in an interview. “He’s been more concerned about defending himself regarding allegations of misusing classified information than he is with the concerns of the voters here — water, health care and crime. He’s not talking about these things.”

Janz added, "I think with this being a potential wave election, we're going to be able to usher in a new generation of leadership in Washington, and I hope to be a part of that."

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