Former Brea Mayor and councilmember Brett Murdock today announced he is running for Congress, challenging a seat held by Rep. Ed Royce in CD-39. Murdock was considering a run for State Senate, but will give Congress a try instead.
Here’s the announcement:
Brett Murdock, a lifelong Orange County resident, attorney, professor, small business owner, and former Brea City Councilmember and Mayor, today announced his candidacy for California’s 39th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by Congressman Ed Royce.
“I am running for Congress to empower middle class families, help local businesses succeed, and fight against the reckless policies of Washington politicians,” said Murdock. “Like many folks in our community, I have supported Congressman Royce in the past. But I can no longer stand by and allow Washington extremists like Royce to put politics before people. Working families deserve a representative that will stand up for them, find common ground, and move our country forward.”
California’s 39th Congressional District, which includes portions of Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino Counties, is one of the best pickup opportunities in the state for Democrats. By registration, Republicans outnumber Democrats by only six percent. President Barack Obama nearly carried the seat in 2012, as did Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Murdock is a lifelong Orange County resident and twenty-year small business owner. He teaches American Government at Cal State Fullerton. He was elected to the Brea City Council in 2010, and served as Mayor in 2014. In these roles, Murdock worked with leaders from both parties to keep local neighborhoods safe and improve the delivery of city services.
Murdock’s long history of community involvement includes serving as President of the Orange County Division of the League of California Cities, Chair of the Orange County Council of Governments, Chair of the Orange County Waste Management Commission, and Chair of the Operations Committee of the Orange County Sanitation District. He’s also an active member of the Brea Rotary Club, and the President of a non-profit organization that provides and maintains low-income housing for seniors.
Murdock holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Chapman University School of Law. Brett lives in the City of Brea, with his wife, Roni, and their two children.
Murdock’s campaign team will be led by General Consultant Melahat Rafiei. Rafiei is a former Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Orange County, and she has helped Democrats win tough races throughout the region. Derek Humphrey and Anna Sowle of Overland Strategies, who have worked extensively in Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino Counties, will serve as the campaign’s direct mail consultants. Rounding out the team is pollster Jonathan Brown of Sextant Strategies & Research, who conducted survey research for Former Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva’s 2012 and 2014 campaigns.
The absolute expression of arrogance. One majorly bungled term on Council, Koreagate, zero interest or skills in public engagement, twice cited by the FPPC and recipient of the worst reelection performance by a seated mayor in the history of Orange County. And now he has aspirations for Congress? Is there no limit to his delusions of grandeur? Poppycock.
Keep on gracing this site with your foam-flecked pearls of wisdom, Rick. I want our host to truly understand who and what he chose as his ally.
Rick comments here as you do; does that make you my ally?
Rick, who briefed you on me back when you began your detailed (albeit deluded) critique? Did our host, who now seems to be disavowing you?
Not disavowing anyone; critique of whom exactly?
I’m guessing Rick knows how to use “Google”
Koreagate? Explain?
Oh, this is going to be funny. Don’t forget to include “Part 2,” Foamy Splutterer!!
Welcome to Brea politics — and to learning about the guy you’ve been palling around with, chum!
Greg, I have a name. Try to use it. If you want to keep posting here, I suggest you use it.
I posted Mr. Murdock’s press release.
Like someone said before, in first grade they teach the FIRST sign of “bullying” behavior is to disparage the victim with a nickname or slur. That’s exactly what this guy is doing here. In real life a nice shot to the nose corrects this, thats not so easy with keyboard cowboys.
When you can’t support your arguement you revert to these lightweight tactics.
I have to ask
Hello, suddenly and conveniently appearing stranger. I suggest that you check out Mr. Clark’s site before coming to any conclusions about “bullying.”
I see nothing on Mr. Clark’s site that rises to your level of contempt
When Don Schweitzer was Mayor, he, City Manager Tim O’Donnell and Brett Murdock took a two week junket, on taxpayer’s dollars, to Ansong, Korea and Hanno, Japan. It created a firestorm of public protest but the OCDA let them off the hook because “intent to defraud” is too hard to prove.
There are plenty of keywords for you or any interested reader to toss into Google if you’d like all the sordid details.
It created a firestorm in Rick Clark’s belly and ended up singeing his beard. Most normal people, though, didn’t see what the fuss was.
But I would LOVE for this race to come down to a comparison of Murdock and Royce when it comes to who has taken more junkets! Do you *absolutely promise* to vote for the candidate who has taken fewer, Rick?
Pitch in and defend the Democratic candidate whenever the mood hits you, any other Dems here.
A Congressman should travel internationally; I have no problem with that. City officials going to Korea, like Sukhee Kang and Steven Choi, should also go because that can make valuable international business connections. You’ll have to offer more color on the purpose of Mr. Murdock’s trip overseas
Junket was tied to Sister Cities problem that, instead of allowing the group to manage their own issues, Schweitzer made it a “city” problem. The Sister Cities groups are neither a city program or project… it simply wasn’t our concern. They manufactured the “need” to go. All three. Schweitzer, Murdock and O’Donnell.
FYI – All but one prior Sister Cities visit by Brea’s electeds were done at their expense and used no city funds. Once, then Mayor Roy Moore was faced with multiple “invitations” in a single year and Council approved covering airfare on one trip.
This issue burned in far more bellies than mine. The misuse of public funds left such a bad taste in voter’s mouths that they virtually ran Murdock out of town on a rail in 2014.
It appears that Humpty Diamond has, amongst other things, a very short memory. I’ll bet his stepdaughter could fill in the massive blanks in his memory.
The 2014 result did not come about — other than in Mr. Clark’s fevered brain — due to any voter concern over the absurd “Koreagate.” It came about because Dwight Manley and one other man (known as now-Mayor Marty Simonoff’s “blood brother”) dumped more money into a series of attack fliers and BS posters all over town against him than I’m told Brea had ever seen before. Only a dolt like Mr. Clark could overlook that massive disparity in money — especially “Independent” Expenditures — and claim that no, it was due to some non-story he “broke.”
That IE was funded by the Tait Family Trust and FivePoint among others
Wrong again there Humpty Diamond. The original Clean Sweep effort considered Koreagate and many other egregious acts in there effort to dump Murdock.
Mr. Manley’s involvement, cooping a movement that wasn’t his, was an eleventh hour attempt in the final days of the campaign – well after all absentee ballots were returned.
The first vote results clearly showed Murdock’s abysmal performance and his defeat rested firmly at the bottom throughout the balance of the vote count.
Like you, Murdock is a legend in his own mind and it isn’t surprising that you birds of a feather are flocking together.
Is Diamond promoting a Democrat for a change? Oh, his stepdaughter is getting paid. And by Bao’s campaign too. Give her credit for helping pay the rent while “daddy” wanders the apartment in his underwear. There’s an image.
I cant remember the last Democrat he supported without reservation
You have a poor memory, although even if you did remember you wouldn’t admit it.
In 2014, I had no reservations about supporting the entire slate of statewide officers (with the possible exception of the Lite Gov.), Loretta Sanchez, Linda Sanchez, Alan Lowenthal, Tony Mendoza, Sharon Quirk-Silva, Bao Nguyen, Wendy Gabriella, Joel Block, Anne Cameron, Jorge Lopez, Dr. Jose Moreno, Nader Shahatit, Ron Varasteh, and I were at home looking at my list of endorsements rather than hunting and pecking on my phone, I could come up with many more — and that’s just covering those representing parts of OC.
But thank you for documenting the extent of your biases.
and Tom Tait and James Vanderbilt and Doug Pettibone and de facto endorsements of Andrew Do and Janet Nguyen.
De facto endorsements of Do and Nguyen? You have gone insane. Solorio was a lost cause and came very close to bringing Sen. Tony Mendoza down with him — which WOULD have been a Democratic tragedy. People who wanted to throw more Party resources down the rathole of his campaign were the disloyal idiots. As for Do — Correa could have cleaned Do’s clock in a recount, given the dirty Janet machine, and HE crapped out! I was pushing for him to do so — or for any client to do so, given the near-certainty that Lou wouldn’t have the guts to go after corruption — and the DPOC was too afraid to go forward.
The depths of your ignorance about actual OC politics never fails to astound.
The depths of your inability to see no one pays attention to your advice never fails to astound. I forgot, did you endorse Lorri Galloway in Anaheim, Larry Agran or Melissa Fox in Irvine? What about Sharon Wallin for IUSD?
I didn’t endorse Galloway, as anyone familiar enough with Anaheim to know that it has potholes (i.e., not you) knew that she was not running a serious campaign (outside of the Plumbers Hall), and only stood to enough Democratic votes away from Tait to elect an unreconstructed racist and proto-fascist like Lucille Kring.
I endorsed Melissa and pushed for a fusion ticket to keep her from being dragged down by Agran’s plummeting popularity. I like Larry, but anyone paying attention to what was actually happening in Irvine (i.e., again, not you) rather than believing their own PR should have known that he had been successfully poisoned by his opponents (after being successfully duped by his friends) and was not going to win last year. I’d have to check, but like many others I think that I endorsed him anyway — thereby unfortunately contributing to the loss of credibility as an independent voice that kept Melissa Fox off of the Council.
It’s sad that — as election returns showed — that from all the way out here I knew what was going on in your city better than you did. (And I wrote about it at the time.) Happily, the momentum is currently, finally, in the other direction. It’s too bad that Irvine Dems didn’t call a smarter political play last year and let Larry sit on the bench for a term while his opponents overreached.
But now you’ve gotten us off topic.
People (Democrats) in my city think you’re a joke. Please don’t think you have an iota of influence here.
I pretty sure Joe Shaw and Ms. Galloway would disagree with your representation of her last campaign. She ran a positive campaign on issues.
People in your city would not tell you the truth about anything that might go against your prejudices for fear that you would bite them.
Of course, Galloway would say that she ran a good campaign. Look at the numbers, including the ones on her expenditure statements. They speak for themselves.
I’m pretty sure that Joe wouldn’t want to be judged by the result in that race. She ran no campaign at all for the most part, other than some signs with old photos of her in the fiery red dress. And she took NO POSITION on the important issues facing Anaheim except “we need a female Mayor.” It was STARTLING!
And she’s paid by the campaigns of several people who are in our host’s camp rather than mine when it comes to County Democratic politics. She’s good at her job, so she’ll have enough business regardless. I don’t care whether she works with Murdock; it does not affect my (favorable) opinion of him, which I’ve explained elsewhere.
I wouldn’t offer “pay for play” because of a concept that you may find unfamiliar: ethics.
Anyway, I’m glad that you seem to have changed your mind, and now think that I AM a good father after all.
where do you get the idea I think you’re a good stepfather? Be clear. I don’t. I think these kids are shortchangedsignificantly. I’ll send over my daughter’s hand me downs … so “your” daughters don’t have to shop at Good Will.
Was I replying to you or to Pinky? Pay better attention.
I honestly don’t care about your opinion of me in any respect. I do, however, miss the days when you at least pretended to believe in “leave family out of it.” But those days were different: people were going after you, which is what you find inexcusable.
I thought you were replying to me. Hard to read on a cell phone.
My comment isn’t directed at your family. It’s directed at you, and your prolix confession. I feel sorry for your step-kids because they pay the penalty of your folly.
Come at me Greg. I’m not the least bit afraid of you.
How ironic it is that Greg openly admits his personal needs (blogging, “social justice”, his so called activism etc…) outweigh his children’s needs and wants. I am sure his fellow bloggers disagree (at least those raising/w raised their own children). Meanwhile you have a handful of Mothers in Anaheim, who’s criminal Sons were killed by police during the commission of crimes and their Mothers stand by them.
The Mom’s in Anaheim march for their dead sons despite the fact that they were hardened criminals. That’s unrepentant love. Greg, with advanced degree’s won’t even get a night job (or a day job) to pay for choir (p, I read that too!) I respect the laborer who pulls a weekend shift and the Mom who babysits on the side so the kids could improve their lot in life more than the blogger who sits in Brea denying his own.
Clearly you have never fed a baby.
Before addressing a comment that foul, I would want to be able to hold a real person responsible for its content. What parts of your comment would our host like to either endorse or disclaim?
(“I’m not your monkey” in 5, 4, 3….)
I neither endorse or disclaim this individual’s comments…I have no opinion on his opinion of you; sorry, but I don’t dance for period and certainly not on your command.
Any comment from you or anyone else here — Pinky? — on just this sentence:
Who here agrees with Vasquez that children’s (in my case, all adult children within 18 months) needs AND WANTS are more important than working for social justice?
“This is a Democratic blog,” you keep saying. Is THAT a Democratic position? “Spoil the child”? I’m proud that my kids also understand that they have a responsibility to use their talents to change the world in a positive way. That’s what I always thought that “Democratic values” were about.
My kids know they have a responsibility to work towards positive change. That is a Democratic position. Do not presume that your imposed parental self-sacrifice on your stepchildren somehow places you in a different position. I am hopeful my kids are the ones who offer help, not needing it themselves.
I have no problem coming after you. I’m not going to drag your daughter into it, as you just attempted to do.
The rest of your comment is contemptible (although less so than your site troll just above.) Yeah, my kids grow up in OC, but unspoiled and with a good work ethic and a sense of social responsibility and the sacrifices one may have to make for it. How very sad for them.
Contemptible? How so, while most people shake their head at the “FTP” crowd and support the police in protecting society from drug crazed, gun wielding assailants, I am actually commending their Mothers for blind love, like we only read about in scripture.
YOU, not anyone else went on your diatribe about your children. Nice try at spinning.
BTW, one can be socially responsible and still have money to go to the movies or Disneyland, it’s not a crime to have a job and a little bit of money.
I feel no need even to respond to that tripe. I guess you’re losing your touch, “Vasquez.”
My children grow up in OC with a good work ethic and a sense of social responsibility and sacrifice as well; I spoil them because I sacrifice to spoil them.
Does the word “spoil” suggest anything to you about how good it is?
In this context, it means I can ( and do) give my children opportunities and experiences you are unable and unwilling to do for your stepchildren. I won’t apologize for supporting the passions each of my kids have or organizations that fuel those passions
The comments are directed at you; not your family. You never once seem to put them first.
None are so blind as those who will not see.
Look in the mirror
You realize your daughter is fair game. Since she pays rent and all
To defeat an incumbent you need to give details; something more than ‘focus group’ approved pretty words: 1) “empower middle class families”, 2) “help local businesses succeed”, 3) “and fight against the reckless policies of Washington politicians”. What does any of that actually mean?
We know you’re for regional governance: 1)” President of the Orange County Division of the League of California Cities”, 2) “Chair of the Orange County Council of Governments”
You were not re-elected in the 2014 Brea City Council election; you came in 4th of 6.
https://www.ocvote.com/fileadmin/live/gen2014/sov_for_web.pdf
Didn’t have time to scroll through 2,451 pages of election results… but your points are well taken. As I recall the count ran Cecilia Hupp 4,544; Steve Vargas 3,847; Glenn Parker 3,301; Brett Murdock 2,592; Michael Kim 2,400; and the Tea Partier who didn’t even run a campaign got 2,139.
Murdock, thanks to the Clean Sweep effort, got his a** handed to him.
Does this guy still live in his mom’s house? C’mon, lets get someone who actually had a job prior to City Council aside from life guard or lawn mower.
Rapid fire responses to innocuous comments.
Maybe Cuckoo wasn’t such a far-fetched nickname after all.
NOTE: It is possible to be diagnosed with “Mono-Polar” depression AND “Bat-Sh!t” crazy. The two are not mutually exclusive. Which has been my point all along, this dude is unhinged, and I am “Given To Understand” that this was roundly discussed this past week at Monday’s DEMOC meeting. Kinda makes me want to join the “inner circle”.
I am going to re-watch “Aviator” to get into the zone.
I wasn’t at the meeting, nor was I on the agenda. Sounds like a lie. I’d blame your sources — if I thought that you had any real ones.
But, if true — that would be quite a sad commentary on DPOC! (Who DOES that?) But still no actual identifiable source steps forward….
every comment you make about our party is a sad commentary
Hey, you’re the one who claims that they spent most of a meeting with just a year left before the general election balloting begins back-biting. I have too much respect for most of the people there to believe it — but not ALL of them…. That’s how you want to party to be, though, so at least you’re clear about your priorities.
(I miss typing “2015.”)
Happy to place you on moderation if you want.
What a sad waste ……..
Mr. Vasquez, your last comment was deleted for a claim you made about something you said Mr. Diamond said. I found no reference to it in the post you referenced and it crosses a line. If you are presenting facts, be specific about where these derive from
Mr. Vasquez, facts please. Second comment deleted from this string
I accept that. Honestly, I can’t even remember what it was. I don’t really care. It was likely incendiary, given the mood around here. It is your website and I post here at your permission. I am not your “buddy”, “teammate” or any of the other delusional crap people may imagine.
I will say this, that the temperament here (with regard to Diamond) and in general is that of the NFL fan sites. The guy appears to look for attention beyond beating off to Madam Secretary episodes.
I tire of allowing Diamond the attention he desires. There is something warped about an individual who constantly seeks attention through offering himself up to this type of battering.
Greg regularly rips Lou Correa, Jose Solorio, Jordan Brandman and Larry Agran new ones with a “they’re wrong, I’m right” attitude. Well they have all won elections. Greg has not.
As far as Mr. Murdock goes, perhaps he can ask Greg where Greg got all the emails in Brea to announce TheBrean blog because it points back to Murdock’s donor list.
Murdock won’t raise the money Diamond says he will
All Murdock wants to do is add a run at Congress to his resume. Like just about everything else on it, it’s mostly smoke and mirrors anyway. The two of them together hardly add up to a single productive human being.
Why do people give Diamond air to breath? He creepily thrives on this stuff.
I do indeed like having air to breathe. I’m not sure why you consider that “creepy.”
It’s not the air, it’s your attention addiction that’s creepy