YUP, Mr. McKeon may have his first real challenge. (Unlike those runnning against Mrs. McKeon in the assembly race.) Although rumor has it that he has access to about $7 million, between his campaign account(s) and PAC's he has control of. Not much of a race with that kind of money.

According to the Antelope Valley Press, Mr. McKeon is expecting a challenge from Congressman Elton Gallegly who has also represented his area for many years. The new district recently re-created brings both Congressmen's areas together.

Let's see if "The Machine" can make it work this time. They have had many losses recently and people are starting to wake up to OLD TIME politics. It needs to stop or the Republican party in California will be relegated to the history books...

RECENT ARTICLE IN ANTELOPE VALLEY PRESS!

Republicans in  The 38th District could be faced with a choice next year between two veteran GOP congressman as the result of a citizens commission's reworking of California's political boundaries.

U.S. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, a Santa Clarita Republican who has represented most of the Antelope Valley's population for 19 years, said he believes Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley, intends to challenge him after the California Citizens Redistricting Commission's shift of political boundaries last summer put Gallegly's Simi Valley home into McKeon's 25th Congressional District. "As near as I can pin him, down, he's running against me," said McKeon, who said he met with Gallegly last week. While McKeon on Wednesday formally kicked off his re-election campaign, Gallegly has not announced his intentions for the 2012 election, for which the filing period opens Dec. 30. Gallegly spokesman Tom Pfeifer said he doesn't know what the congressman plans. McKeon said he hopes that Gallegly changes his mind and either runs for his own 24th Congressional District, which would require him moving his home and facing an electorate that has more Democrats than Republicans, or retires from Congress. "It will be a lot of money spent that we can use to run against other Democrats," McKeon said of facing Gallegly in the June 2012 primary.

A former Santa Clarita mayor and William S. Hart Union High School District board member, as well as owner with his family of a western clothing store, McKeon, 73, was first elected to Congress in 1992. He was elected in a district newly created from 1990 Census results to combine most of Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley. Since then, his opponents have provided only light challenges in a heavily Republican district, even in 2008 when President Barack Obama outpolled Arizona Sen. John McCain in the district. The district boundaries were revised this year by a California citizens commission to reflect 2010 Census findings. The new boundaries take away Mammoth Lakes, Bishop, Barstow and other communities out to the Nevada line but add most of Simi Valley, which had been the far southeastern portion of Gallegly's district. Lancaster is split between McKeon, who represents most of the southern Antelope Valley, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, who represents most of Kern County.

Gallegly, 67, was a real estate broker when he served as a Simi Valley city councilman and mayor, and was elected to Congress in 1986. In 2006, he Antelope Valley Press http://www.avpress.com/article-detail.php?articles_id=25925373 announced he was dropping his re-election bid because of health concerns, but changed his mind and won reelection again, as well as in 2008 and 2010.

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission that this year redrew legislative boundaries totally reworked Gallegly's 24th Congressional District, which had been described as one of California's 15 most-gerrymandered congressional districts - 10 held by Democrats, five by Republicans. From 2001 until this year, Gallegly's district covered predominantly Republican inland Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, while the more Democratic coastal communities were put in a 175-mile-long strip as the 23rd Congressional District of Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara.

The commission's redrawn maps connect the coastal communities to the rest of their counties. They shift McKeon's district into Simi Valley, with most of the rest of Ventura County in a new 26th Congressional District and Gallegly's former 24th Congressional District staying farther up the coast in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Ventura County's new 26th Congressional District is now 41% Democrat and 35% Republican, while McKeon's 25th District is 41% Republican and 35% Democrat, according to Redistricting Partners, a political consulting firm. The 24th Congressional District, which includes Capps' Santa Barbara home, is 39% Democrat and 36% Republican.

Gallegly is vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement. He has fought illegal immigration since his early days in Congress and was chairman of the 1995 Congressional Task Force on Immigration Reform.  In 2006, he was named one of the Top Ten Illegal Immigration Hawks in Congress by Human Events magazine.