Nethercutt, Fellow Freshmen Learn The Ropes
Editor’s note: Knight-Ridder Newspapers is examining with periodic reports the first year in Congress of three new GOP lawmakers, including Spokane’s George Nethercutt.
It is George Nethercutt’s 11th day on Capitol Hill when he gets a chance to question the head of a department the GOP wants to dismantle.
He sits on the Appropriations Committee, where spending decisions on everything from school lunches to federal prisons will determine what will live and what will die.
On this day, the panel hearing from Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, who is talking with great vigor about the mission of her department.
But Nethercutt, a low-key lawyer from Spokane who promised voters he would “listen instead of speak,” has more on his mind than the future of O’Leary’s department.
He asks about the cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and suggests money is being wasted on pizza for employees.
O’Leary bristles at the remark and launches into a long defense of spending policies. As soon as she’s done, Nethercutt nods politely, then hits talks about another policy in Washington state:
How about reversing a decision to close the Hanford facility that produces isotopes used in cancer treatment?
Not possible, she says. A recent study has shown the most cost-effective plan would be to close the facility.
Nethercutt doesn’t push it. But later he says the fight isn’t over, that he’ll lobby for the facility again.
But isn’t this pork-barrel politics? Cuts everywhere but in your own backyard?
“I’m going to fight for my district, but I’m mindful that we can’t pay for everything we’ve been paying for,” he says. “It’s a balancing act.”
As the 73 new members of the Republican majority in the House have learned in their first month on the job, Congress is more than speech-making on C-SPAN.
There is the daily parade of lobbyists. There are mind-numbing committee meetings where the smallest details of the most complicated laws are debated for hours.
There are political dinners and press conferences and - may they never, never forget - weekend trips back to the home state to keep in touch with voters.
Sue Myrick looks at her schedule for her ninth day in Congress with a bit of exasperation: three committee hearings, all at the same time. How does she choose?
“Being mayor (of Charlotte, N.C.) was a snap compared to this,” she says, as she sits in her still-undecorated office.
By day’s end, she has had another frenetic day. She has done a talk radio interview, met with tobacco lobbyists, lunched with a fellow freshman, done a newspaper interview, conferred with her staff, shown up for meetings called by Republican leaders and freshman leaders, and who knows what else.
Headlines in the morning paper report the news of an earthquake in Japan. At 7:30 p.m., Myrick still hasn’t heard about that.
In the midst of running to and fro’ (and exclaiming that roller skates might make life easier), she voted - exactly once.
It’s Greg Ganske’s 10th day in Congress, and the Republican freshman from Iowa is passing his dinner hour at a cocktail reception hosted by the Farm Bureau.
Six months ago, Ganske was a surgeon in Des Moines. Now he’s part of the new Republican majority and an important face in agriculture.
American Farm Bureau President Dean Kleckner shakes Ganske’s hand firmly and asks with enthusiasm: “Shall I call you Congressman, Doc or Mr. Ganske?”
Ganske smiles broadly at the opportunity to show he’s just an ordinary kind of guy.
“Greg,” he says with delight.
Ganske takes these receptions seriously. There are two or three every evening. Some lawmakers socialize and sip cocktails. But Ganske - a comfortable, inquisitive man who wrestled a pig during his campaign to show how he would control pork-barrel programs - sticks with Diet Coke.