Tom Umberg

To preempt an embarrassing disclosure, a married state legislator from Anaheim who has announced his candidacy for the state Senate revealed Wednesday that he had carried on a four-year affair with a woman he met through politics. Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg and his wife, Robin, who campaigned for him last fall while he served with the U.S. Army Reserve as a terrorism prosecutor, said they were making public the relationship because the woman had threatened to publicize it.

California's bullet train agency on Thursday formally requested a multibillion-dollar appropriation to start construction next year, after dozens of people from across the state attacked the $98-billion project's cost, rationale and effects on communities. The California High Speed Rail Authority board adopted a funding plan, which seeks to tap $3.3 billion in federal grants and $2.7 billion in state bonds to begin building an initial 140-mile segment of track through the Central Valley.

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and other Republican candidates are "dancing a jig" on the grave of Polly Klaas to push their own agenda on crime, the murdered girl's grandfather charged Tuesday at a campaign event for Democratic challenger Tom Umberg. Joe Klaas lashed out at Lungren, Gov. Pete Wilson and GOP senatorial candidate Mike Huffington and is appearing in an Umberg television commercial that blames Lungren for contributing to 12-year-old Polly's death.

An assemblyman has quietly introduced legislation to allow an Orange County community college district to sell its public television station to a well-connected local foundation for less money than a Dallas-based televangelist network has offered. The bill was introduced in late June by Tom Umberg (D-Anaheim) after a court ruling voided the 2004 sale of KOCE-TV to the foundation because it was not the highest bidder, as the law requires.

You've heard of the absentee voter? Tom Umberg will have to be the absentee candidate. Umberg is the Democratic nominee for assemblyman from Santa Ana, who held the same seat from 1990 to 1994, interspersed with stints in the Army Reserve. Now the Pentagon has ordered him to report to the office of military commissions, the unit prosecuting suspected terrorists in custody at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His new job starts Sunday.

Assembly candidate Tom Umberg, an Army Reserve officer and one of the Democrats' top hopes for winning a Republican seat in November, has been dispatched to a military base in the California desert in the Middle East crisis mobilization. Umberg, a paratrooper who was an Army captain in Korea and Italy before joining the Reserves as a major in 1988, reported Thursday night to Fort Irwin, about 40 miles northeast of Barstow.

In a spirited 30-minute debate for public television, Assemblyman Tom Umberg on Wednesday criticized state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren for not taking a position on the immigration initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot, while the incumbent accused his Democratic rival of belatedly supporting the politically popular "three strikes" sentencing laws. Umberg, a two-term assemblyman from Garden Grove, also accused Lungren of allowing the attorney general's office to be influenced by campaign contributions.

On a hot canyon hillside near the Mexican border, Assemblyman Curt Pringle watched recently as National Guard soldiers in full combat gear scrambled through the desert brush during a drug surveillance exercise. They were hidden so well that the troop commander challenged Pringle to scan the bushes up close to detect their location. Pringle, a Garden Grove Republican, shook his head. Moments later, a camouflaged soldier popped up just a few feet from the assemblyman and snapped to attention.

It's straight out of Boy's Life magazine, the sort of tale that prompts political cynics around here to arch an eyebrow. But Tom Umberg recites it unabashedly. Some kids want to be cowboys or astronauts; Umberg always yearned to become a big-time prosecutor--to put bad guys behind bars, to mete out truth and justice.

Among the casualties of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may be the political career of an eager candidate for California insurance commissioner. Tom Umberg, a former assemblyman from Orange County, is running hard in the Democratic primary, hoping the $1.5 million in loan commitments he has lined up will give him the financial edge in the race. But at the moment it is neither money nor the political acumen of his opponents that has Umberg worried about his chances at the ballot box.

Call it the soft sell from some heavy hitters. Assemblyman Tom Umberg stood in mottled shade Monday during a Labor Day picnic at Santa Ana High School, where the rallying cry was protecting the interests of labor. But a handful of private conversations focused on a different topic. Umberg (D-Anaheim) is one of four Assembly members being lobbied to vote as early as today in favor of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry.

Tom Umberg, an Orange County assemblyman who revealed publicly last month that he had had a four-year extramarital affair, has retired from active service in the Army Reserve, an Army official said Saturday. Umberg, who served last year as a terrorism prosecutor, retired effective June 30, said Jorge Swank, public affairs officer for the Army Reserve's 63rd Regional Readiness Command in Los Alamitos.

Assemblyman Tom Umberg's political allies pledged their continued support Thursday after the Anaheim Democrat, who is seeking a state Senate seat, disclosed his four-year extramarital affair. Colleagues in Orange County and Sacramento, along with some political consultants, said the revelation probably wasn't enough to derail his candidacy next year. State Sen.

To preempt an embarrassing disclosure, a married state legislator from Anaheim who has announced his candidacy for the state Senate revealed Wednesday that he had carried on a four-year affair with a woman he met through politics. Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg and his wife, Robin, who campaigned for him last fall while he served with the U.S. Army Reserve as a terrorism prosecutor, said they were making public the relationship because the woman had threatened to publicize it.

Assemblyman Tom Umberg, stationed at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo, Cuba, since August, came home to Santa Ana on Tuesday to give supporters the thanks usually shared on election night. Standing alongside him in a conference room in the Santa Ana Transit Center, known now as the Depot at Santa Ana, were his wife and the cardboard cutout of him that she used to campaign in his absence.

You've heard of the absentee voter? Tom Umberg will have to be the absentee candidate. Umberg is the Democratic nominee for assemblyman from Santa Ana, who held the same seat from 1990 to 1994, interspersed with stints in the Army Reserve. Now the Pentagon has ordered him to report to the office of military commissions, the unit prosecuting suspected terrorists in custody at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His new job starts Sunday.

Among the casualties of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may be the political career of an eager candidate for California insurance commissioner. Tom Umberg, a former assemblyman from Orange County, is running hard in the Democratic primary, hoping the $1.5 million in loan commitments he has lined up will give him the financial edge in the race. But at the moment it is neither money nor the political acumen of his opponents that has Umberg worried about his chances at the ballot box.

As a rising star in the Democratic Party in Orange County, former Assemblyman Tom Umberg developed a can-do attitude and learned to be politically adept in dealing with the Republican majority in the county. His experience as a former military and federal prosecutor, as well as his political savvy and connections, helped him land a post earlier this year in the Clinton administration as a top official in the U.S. drug czar's office. Now, Gov.