Gingrich, Armey To Check Out Forest Chenoweth Announces Visit, Indicating Re-Election Backing

U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, facing what could be a significant primary challenge, will lead House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other congressional leaders on a forestry tour of central Idaho later this month.

Announcement of the Aug. 28 helicopter tour of the Boise National Forest followed reports that Chenoweth was among dissident House Republicans who failed to oust Gingrich earlier this year and that she is pressing to increase her already substantial out-of-state financial backing.

“The tour is a great opportunity to educate Eastern congressmen and House leadership about not only forest health issues but also our way of life in Idaho,” Chenoweth said in a statement.

Republican Floor Leader Dick Armey and GOP Whip Tom DeLay, both of Texas, are also among the bipartisan contingent that will tour Montana, Wyoming and Utah.

Chenoweth’s staff has vehemently denied that she played any role in the recent coup attempt, maintaining that her concerns about various issues never rose to the level of believing the speaker should be overthrown. Gingrich did cancel a fund-raising appearance for Chenoweth in early 1996 after she opposed him on a budget vote, but he appeared on her behalf late in last year’s campaign in Boise.

The Roll Call newspaper in Washington, D.C., reported two weeks ago that Gingrich loyalists believed Chenoweth was among other plotters from Republican-leaning districts who could be defeated in primaries next year without jeopardizing the GOP majority in the House.

Early this year, Coeur d’Alene businessman Tony Paquin entered the Republican primary against the outspoken and often controversial incumbent, offering himself as the philosophically conservative equivalent of Chenoweth without the embarrassment he and others claim she has brought the state.

Idaho’s other Republican congressman, Michael Crapo, says he does not know whether Chenoweth, seeking a third and final term under her self-imposed service limit, was involved in the coup attempt. But he said Gingrich has indicated he had nothing to do with Paquin’s entry into the race, intends to support Chenoweth and will again help her raise money.

Chenoweth, the first candidate to spend more than $1 million for a congressional seat in Idaho, has taken out full-page advertisements in the nationally distributed edition of the Washington Times, urging people across the country to contribute to her re-election campaign.

Aide Graham Paterson suggested the ads are a natural extension for someone who has taken on national issues.

The ads began at the end of June, the second to last day of the period covered by the midyear financial disclosure report, so the fund-raising impact will not be known until early next year.

But Paterson said the appeal to donors, especially the small ones Chenoweth has been criticized for not identifying, is exceeding expectations.

Based on her campaign finance reports, out-of-state contributors have accounted for nearly 53 percent of the $1.35 million she has raised since mid-October 1994 when chances intensified that she would defeat Democratic incumbent Larry LaRocco.

Since Chenoweth refused to disclose the identities of her unusually huge corps of small contributors before this year, that total assumes the out-of-state percentage of small contributors donating $404,000 from mid-October 1994 through 1996 equals the 32 percent she identified for the first six months of this year.

Democrats have criticized Chenoweth’s new push for out-of-state contributions in light of her criticism of the non-Idaho support 1996 Democratic opponent Dan Williams received.

They also blasted the new ads that declare Chenoweth cannot continue to promote the issues she has “with only the backing of her constituents in Idaho,” since it is Idaho voters who elect her.