Rep. Devin Nunes, the embattled chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was forced earlier this month to step aside from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. | AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Embattled House Intel chair Devin Nunes gets a challenger

Devin Nunes, the California Republican congressman who sparked a national firestorm as the House Intelligence chairman overseeing the investigation into Russian election meddling, has a challenger.

Charging voters are “fed up” with Nunes, Fresno County Deputy District Attorney Andrew Janz announced his candidacy Tuesday for California’s 22nd Congressional District seat.


Janz, a 33-year-old Democrat from the Central Valley city of Visalia, challenges the idea that the GOP-dominated district’s 10-point Republican voter registration advantage or Nunes’ roots in a third-generation dairy farming family shields him from a strong challenge in 2018. Nunes, 43, a Republican from Tulare, was elected to the seat in 2002.

“The notion that Devin Nunes is unbeatable is a myth,’’ Janz said in an interview Tuesday. “He’s been more concerned about defending himself regarding allegations of misusing classified information than he is with the concerns of the voters here — water, health care and crime. He’s not talking about these things.”

Nunes, the embattled chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was forced earlier this month to step aside from the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election after the House Committee on Ethics announced an investigation following complaints that he “may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information.” That announcement followed weeks of headlines in which Nunes was criticized for briefing President Donald Trump at the White House — before the congressman briefed his own committee members, including ranking Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — regarding what he said was information that some members of the Trump election team had been subjects of surveillance regarding Russian connections.

Janz is the son of immigrants — his mother from Thailand and his father from Northern Canada — who met in the Peace Corps, and English is his second language. He said Nunes, while generating those national headlines, has been out of touch with voters in a Central Valley farming district that’s home to a robust immigrant community — both Latino and Asian — and has some of the highest poverty rates and unemployment in California.

He charged that frustrated district residents scheduled their own town hall meeting last week to address the region’s concerns, including GOP efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act. Nunes failed to show, “and he didn’t even send a staffer,’’ Janz said. “He’s dismissed people as paid activists … but these are hard working people of the district. They’re not paid agitators.”

Nunes’ spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Fresno County prosecutor describes himself as “progressive’’ but notes that his lifelong work in law enforcement has given him a sharp perspective on public safety and criminal justice issues, which are front and center in the Central Valley. Janz said his wife, Heather, a marriage and family therapist, “is also a small business owner, so we understand the burdens of taxes and regulations.’’

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The prosecutor has his own roots in the region. He attended Redwood High in Visalia and graduated from California State University, Stanislaus with a BA in economics and a masters in public administration before attending Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

Janz said his working-class roots — his father was a laborer, his mother a hospital worker — has given him a deep understanding of the challenges facing the district’s working-class voters, including issues like the rising cost of education. “Both my wife and I have student loan debt, and we talk to countless young people who are not able to buy homes” or get out from under those obligations.

Unlike Nunes, he said, “I’m going to build a coalition of voters here — progressives, moderates and Republicans. We’re not going to succumb to this national narrative that basically divides us; we’re going to talk about what unites us.”

