Rumors Cook To Depart From Congress & Endorse Obernolte Intensify

Paul Cook

Paul Cook

Persistent reports that Congressman Paul Cook will leave Congress at the end of his current term and anoint Assemblyman Jay Obernolte as his replacement have intensified in recent days. Knowledgeable sources say that health considerations have driven Cook, a retired Marine Colonel who served as an infantry officer during the Vietnam War, a Yucca Valley mayor, and California assemblyman who will turn 74 on March 3, toward retirement. Cook utilized longtime Congressman Jerry Lewis’s 2012 retirement as an opportunity to vault into the House of Representatives, where he is now the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, and a member of the Accountability and Administrative Review, Budget Committee, Emergency Management, Governmental Organization and Higher Education committees.
According to the reports, Cook is now working behind the scenes at the California Republican Party level to ensure that Obernolte, a software developer and former Big Bear City Mayor who has been in the Assembly since 2014, will succeed him. In California’s Eighth Congressional District, the Republican hold an overwhelming voter registration advantage.
Efforts to reach Cook were unsuccessful. His field representative Matt Knox told the Sentinel, “That report is inaccurate. There are no challenges to his health.” The report of Cook’s leaving, Knox said, is something“people have been saying that for years. Wherever you are heating that, they don’t know what they are talking about. Asked if Cook would unequivocally be running from reelection 2018, Knox said “Yes.”

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