Term-Limits Group Reminds Nethercutt Of Vow ‘If You Say You’re Going To Do Something … And You Don’t Do It, … It’s A Lie’

A national organization pushing term limits for Congress wants Rep. George Nethercutt to restate his pledge to serve only six years in the House.

“He said throughout the (1994) campaign that he would serve no more than three terms,” said Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits.

The Spokane Republican says he won’t sign a pledge, and hasn’t decided whether he would seek re-election in the year 2000 if he wins a third term this year.

“If I’m going to go another two years, I’d tell people, and tell people why, and let the chips fall where they may,” Nethercutt said.

If that happens, Jacob’s organization might launch a campaign to tell Eastern Washington voters that Nethercutt had “double-crossed” them.

“If you say you’re going to do something, and it’s completely within your power to do it, and you don’t do it, … it’s a lie,” he said.

U.S. Term Limits is seeking commitments from dozens of House members who campaigned on the populist concept in 1994. Republicans Helen Chenoweth of Idaho and Jack Metcalf of Washington recently said they would serve only three terms.

Nethercutt may be under more scrutiny than most because his race had one of the highest profiles in 1994.

At the time, Washington voters had passed an initiative placing restrictions on their members of Congress, legislators, governor and lieutenant governor. Nethercutt’s opponent, then-House Speaker Tom Foley, had joined a federal lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality.

During the campaign, Nethercutt accused Foley of “suing the voters” - the same charge leveled by the state’s term-limits supporters. Americans for Term Limits, another national group pushing the restrictions on Congress, spent some $300,000 for ads criticizing Foley.

Nethercutt became the first person to defeat a sitting speaker in 134 years. Term-limits supporters were among the many groups claiming a share of his victory.

Since then, term limits have not fared well in the state. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that congressional term limits required an amendment to the Constitution and struck down the state initiative. Washington voters rejected a proposal last year to punish members of Congress who do not support term limits. Last month, the state Supreme Court struck down limits on state officials.

Nethercutt has supported term-limit proposals in Congress, but none has collected enough votes for a constitutional amendment.

This fall’s campaign would be Nethercutt’s third - and theoretically last - for the House under the defunct initiative. He said plans for 2000 are premature, because that assumes he will win this fall.

But Democrats have no announced candidate to challenge him. Odessa farmer Brad Lyons, an unsuccessful legislative candidate in 1996, is the only Democrat actively considering the race.

“I don’t know if I would run (in 2000) or not,” Nethercutt said.

He said he’d consider seeking a fourth term if people were urging him to stay in Congress to complete important programs, such as balancing the budget, protecting Social Security and overhauling the tax code.

“I meant it (in 1994) when I said six years is enough,” he said. But his three years in Congress have shown him that many issues are so complicated that “it is probably not enough.”

If voters didn’t agree he should stay, they could always vote him out, he added.

Jacob accused Nethercutt of sounding like the term-limits supporters’ worst enemy, the career politician.

“He can come up with a lot of excuses,” Jacob said. “As good as some people are, the country can go on without them.”

Just as term-limits groups blasted Foley in 1994, they would be likely to train their guns on Nethercutt in 2000 - even if his opponent didn’t back term limits, Jacob said.

Term-limits supporters are angry with GOP leaders, whom they believe added term limits to the Contract with America in 1994 just to pick up votes, he said.

Such tactics increase the cynicism voters have for politicians, Jacob said.

Nethercutt agreed the public is cynical, but not just because of term limits.

“The last thing I want people to say is ‘You’re just like everybody else.”’

, DataTimes