Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) pushed for a provision in last year's transportation bill that allowed the city of Rialto, Calif., to shut down its airport.

By doing so, he paved the way for his business partner, Lewis Operating Corp., one of his top campaign contributors, to buy the land from the city and make plans to build Renaissance, a community consisting of 2,500 homes, parks and 80 acres of retail space on the former airport property and adjacent land.

Normally, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has sole authority to close airports.

"This is the first time ... an airport has been closed through the legislative process," said FAA spokesman Hank Price. "We follow Congress's direction."

Unprecedented action to help Congressman Gary Miller's business partner. What did the FAA think?

But the FAA did not support closing Rialto airport. Since 1984, the city has taken out $15 million in federal government loans to improve the airport. Traditionally, the FAA opposes closing an airport when it has invested in it until it earns a return on the investment.

Sounds like a great scandal, too bad we don't have a candidate:

Before Lewis Operating joined with Hillwood on the Rialto project, Miller had not received any campaign contributions from Hillwood employees. But after Miller started working on language in the transportation bill, John Magness, senior vice president of Hillwood Investments, cut him a check for $500 dated May 12, 2005, according to Federal Election Commission records.

"I guess they were saying thank you. ... I guess that's what that was," Miller said.

That contribution like a good deal of Rep. Miller's will probably be re-directed to vulnerable Republicans since Miller doesn't have an opponent. Of course, there was no way the DCCC could have predicted a Culture of Corruption scandal in this district:

Watchdog groups have criticized a number of land deals between Lewis Operating and Miller, as well as his role in helping secure other provisions in last year's $286.5 billion transportation transportation bill.

As first reported by the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, Miller helped secure $1.28 million in the bill for street improvements in front of a planned housing and retail center that he co-owned with Lewis Operating in his district.

Lewis-Diamond Bar LLC, a company formed to buy the land, is the developer. Miller owns $1 million-$5 million of the company. The other partner is Lewis Operating Corp.

The same year, Miller took out a promissory note from a subsidiary of Lewis Operating Corp., Lewis Investments, for $1 million to $5 million, according to his 2004 financial disclosure records.

Seriously, how could Rahm Emanuel have predicted that we might need a candidate in this race?

In July 2005, Fontana's redevelopment agency spent $5 million to buy land from Miller without notifying the public, an apparent violation of state open-meeting laws.

Miller said that he was outraged about it and that he has since demanded that the city insert a written pledge in the sales contract to make public the sale of the last parcel he owns to the city .

Some six months earlier, Miller had bought the same land from Lewis Operating. He said he did so to avoid tax penalties on profit from a land sale to Monrovia, another Southern California city, two years before.

That profit is estimated at $10 million, according to Miller's 2003 financial disclosure record and knowledgeable sources.

Whoops.