Nethercutt Breezes Back To D.C. For Third Term

Congress

George Nethercutt won his third and possibly last term in Congress Tuesday, but it’s likely to be much different than his first two.

With a smaller majority for Republicans, Nethercutt said the GOP and Democrats will have to find more ways to agree as election totals showed him easily winning in Eastern Washington’s 5th District.

“We have to reach some common ground,” said the Spokane attorney, who defeated Democrat Brad Lyons of Odessa and American Heritage candidate John Beal of Spokane.

Nethercutt said he doubted that the Republican losses pointed to any national trend.

“Elections are largely local, race by race and contest by contest,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a big Clinton victory or a big Republican loss.”

His race probably turned on the fact that voters “have a sense of who I am and what my priorities are.” Lyons, an alfalfa farmer drafted by Democrats this winter when no one else would take up their banner, attributed his loss to just the opposite: he didn’t have enough money to explain who he was or what he wanted to do.

“Clearly, I wasn’t able to raise the money to get my message out,” he said Tuesday night.

Soon after Nethercutt returns to Congress, Lyons said, he will have to decide whether he will keep his 1994 promise to limit his service to three terms in the House.

In the closing days of the campaign, Lyons tried to turn the race into a referendum on the impeachment process. His television commercials featured still photographs of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and former Monica Lewinsky confidante Linda Tripp interspersed with Nethercutt.

“I am sick and tired of Mr. Nethercutt and Newt Gingrich scandal mongering and ignoring the concerns of Eastern Washington,” he said during their last of only two debates. “He voted to put Ken Starr’s dirty little book on the Internet.”

Nethercutt, who had the advantage of more than four times as much money in his campaign fund, essentially ignored both of his challengers and talked about the accomplishments of the four years since he and other Republicans were swept into control of Congress.

“We have a balanced budget in this country and the first surplus in 30 years,” he said. Lyons, he said “should go to Georgia and run against Newt Gingrich.”

Although Lyons is a farmer who was born and raised on the land his grandfather homesteaded, Nethercutt fared better among rural voters.

Despite low wheat prices, Nethercutt urged them to stick with the major changes in federal agriculture policy in the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act. That bill cuts subsidies while giving farmers more choice in what and how to plant.

Lyons had argued that farmers needed a safety net that would include lifting the caps on loan rates, and providing more money for disaster relief.

While Nethercutt and Lyons argued over the details and direction of government, Beal called for a complete overhaul. Anything not spelled out in the U.S. Constitution should be taken out of federal hands and turned over to the states or the people, he said.

That would include Social Security and Medicare, which should be the primary responsibility of families and communities, he said. Education is a local, not a federal, task, he said.

Beal’s vote percentages were in the single digits late Tuesday night.

Incumbent Republican Doc Hastings was on his way to re-election in Central Washington.

But Democrats were leading in five of the remaining seven Washington congressional races.

Democrats Jay Inslee, Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott and Adam Smith were leading their Western Washington races.

Republicans Jennifer Dunn and Jack Metcalf appeared headed to victory for the congressional seats in their districts.