House Speaker Agrees To Stump For Chenoweth

House Speaker Newt Gingrich has agreed to a make a Jan. 10 campaign fund-raising appearance in Boise for Idaho Congressman Helen Chenoweth.

The freshman Republican said Tuesday she learned about two weeks ago that Gingrich would visit Boise.

“I am just amazed and very pleased that he accepted my invitation, because there are a lot of places he could be and he chose to come to Idaho,” Chenoweth said. “I’m thrilled he is coming in for me because Idaho will get one of the first rundowns on what his thinking is for the next year from the speaker himself.”

But Chenoweth’s Democratic challenger, Boise attorney Dan Williams, put a different spin on the visit.

“It’s no wonder that Newt Gingrich wants to come to Idaho to try to bail out Helen, given all her debts, loans and financial problems,” Williams said. “Helen has voted with Gingrich more than 90 percent of the time and I’m sure he wants to keep her beholden to him.”

The Idaho Democratic Party has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate the legality of a $40,000 loan made by West One Bank to Chenoweth’s campaign a year ago.

Chenoweth earlier this month took out a seven-year second mortgage on her Boise home to finally secure the original one-year loan, which had been misrepresented for over seven months on required campaign finance disclosure statements as a personal loan from Chenoweth to the campaign.

A spokesman for Chenoweth’s campaign, Sam Routson, said plans for Gingrich’s Boise visit have not been worked out yet. But he said there would be “a number of events appropriate and attractive to a large number of people.”