Tom McClintock Job Timeline

Tom McClintock is a 40-year career politician.  The timeline above is from a mailer developed by the Charilie Brown campaign for CD 04 in 2008.  Charlie lost by less than 1%, but McClintock has held on to CD 04 ever since. 

Besides his attempts to secure various jobs at the State level, the timelines includes one interesting item that refers to $306,000 in tax free perks he collected while he served in the State Senate. 

As documented in this article in the LA Times, while McClintock was representing a State Senate District in Southern California he claimed to be living in his mother’s house in Thousand Oaks so that he could collect a $170 per diem, when in fact he was living with his wife and children in Elk Grove, 14 miles from the State Capitol where she was employed and his children went to school. He still lives in that same house today, and not in the District he represents. 

The per diem is intended to cover extra living expenses for representatives who live far from the Capitol which he didn’t.  He claimed to be living with his mother as that was necessary to even qualify to represent that district and he was registered to vote there, so while legal, taking the per diem was certainly inconsistent with his general opposition to government spending. 

During the 8 years he was collecting $306,000 in per diem in addition to his salary, he voted against mortgage relieve for widows of soldiers killed in Iraq as also noted in the timeline.  He was often one of a few, or the only “No” vote on other bipartisan measures. A a result, he got the nickname "Tom McNo" at the time, as he voted no on everything.