Congress, 1St District Chenoweth, Williams

Thu., Oct. 29, 1998

By Ken Olsen keno@spokesman.com

It’s likely the closest race for statewide office in Idaho this election.

And, because Republican U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth is refusing interviews, the final days of the contest between her and Boise Democrat Dan Williams are mostly being waged via advertising blitz.

The last ballots likely will have to be counted before voters know whether Williams is able to come back from a 6,500 vote loss in 1996 to defeat Chenoweth.

Chenoweth started pulling ahead in the money game in September, soon after she was forced to admit she’d had an affair with a married man 14 years ago. Political Action Committees - including tobacco giants RJR Nabisco and Philip Morris - put another $21,000 in Chenoweth’s war chest soon after the revelation.

A two-term incumbent, Chenoweth has succeeded with high-profile attacks against the federal government, environmentalists, and a passionate defense of mining, logging and grazing interests. She doesn’t believe in the minimum wage, but is taking increasingly conciliatory stands on federal funding for education and protecting Social Security for current recipients.

Williams advocates an increase in the minimum wage, pushes for federal dollars for schools, and readily supports keeping Social Security and the need for better health care.

But the political foes seem to agree more places than they disagree. Neither wants grizzly bears reintroduced in the Selway-Bitterroot area of North Idaho.

Both oppose sidelining the lower Four Snake River dams in an effort to bring back salmon and steelhead. Instead, both call for more scientific information.

Chenoweth and Williams both oppose the Environmental Protection Agency using the Superfund law and the Superfund trust fund to clean up a century of mining pollution in Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River.

Neither will take a position on U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge’s recent decision to return ownership of the southern third of Lake Coeur d’Alene Tribe to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

The sole natural resource issue where they differ is transferring control of national forest, grazing and mining lands to the state. Chenoweth is for it, Williams is opposed.

Some environmentalists don’t believe that’s enough to draw a firm line between the candidates.

“That’s not a live issue,” said Ron Mitchell, director of the Idaho Sporting Congress. “It’s not going to happen.”

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