TRUE OR FALSE? Another of John Schmitz's children --Mary Kay LeTourneau's siste or brotherr-- is married to Jeb Bush's wife's sister or brother, thus sort of making Joe McCarthy fan Schmitz and crypto-fascist George Bush Sr "uncles-in-law" ... Ex-Ultrarightist Congressman Dies COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) - John G. Schmitz, the ultraconservative politician whose fiery rhetoric defined right-wing Southern California Republicanism for nearly two decades, has died at age 70. Schmitz's legislative career ended in scandal, and years later his daughter, schoolteacher Mary Kay LeTourneau, gained her own notoriety and went to prison for having sex with an underage pupil, conceiving two children with him. A one-term congressman who also served in the state Senate, Schmitz died Wednesday in Washington, according to a statement from the Orange County Republican Party. He had been suffering from cancer. ``Congressman John G. Schmitz played a significant role as a state senator and a member of the House of Representatives during a very colorful era of politics in the Orange County community,'' Thomas A. Fuentes, the local party chairman, said in a statement. Schmitz, whose political hero was Sen. Joseph McCarthy, was first elected to office in 1964 as a state senator. A national director of the ultraconservative John Birch Society, he attracted the support of wealthy conservatives and was chosen to run for Congress when the county's longtime conservative Rep. James B. Utt died. After his election in 1970, Schmitz established himself as one of the country's most right-wing and outspoken congressmen, even enraging his most famous constituent, President Nixon, a part-time San Clemente resident. Of Nixon's historic visit to China, Schmitz, who considered the visit a sellout, quipped, ``I have no objection to President Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back.'' The comment cost Schmitz Republican support and he lost the June 1972 primary. That fall, Schmitz replaced Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who was paralyzed when shot by a would-be assassin, as the American Independent Party candidate. He collected more than a million votes. In 1978, Schmitz won a state Senate seat again, but his caustic remarks about minorities had grown so extreme that he lost the support of even the John Birch Society. The scandal that ultimately brought his downfall, though, was the 1982 revelation that the politician who espoused family values and fiercely opposed sex education in schools had a pregnant mistress and a 15-month-old son. In 1997, his daughter LeTourneau, a 35-year-old teacher in Washington state, was convicted of carrying on a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student whose child she ultimately bore. LeTourneau, married and the mother of four children, served a six-month jail sentence in 1997 after pleading guilty to second-degree child rape. After her release on probation, she became pregnant by the teen a second time, drawing a seven-year prison term that she is still serving.
