Term-Limit Promise Shadows Nethercutt Reminders Keep Popping Up About Pledge To Step Down After Three Terms

Rep. George Nethercutt said he hasn’t been by the north Spokane billboard that thanks him for keeping his 1994 campaign promise.

The big red, white and blue sign on the Newport Highway was bought by a New York-based political group that could either make him a hero or a goat for the cause of term limits.

He doesn’t need to look at the sign to know his constituents are thinking about his 1994 promise to serve only three terms.

As he traveled around Spokane on Wednesday, the question of whether he’d seek a fourth term kept popping up.

During a morning question-and-answer session at Rogers High School, students mixed questions about his re-election plans with queries about gun control, terrorism and Social Security.

“I haven’t made the final decision yet” on running for re-election, he told the students from the marketing and social studies classes. “I’m getting a lot of advice on both sides.”

He asked for re-election advice while opening his temporary office at the Spokane Valley library.

And even at events that had no mention of term limits - such as a noon ceremony to unveil a new stamp honoring the Hospice movement - news reporters pulled him aside to ask about term limits.

At Rogers, the students’ advice was mixed.

“If you do a good job, we vote you in,” one said. “You do a bad job, you’re out.”

Another wondered why Nethercutt promised to limit his time in office then, but is thinking about breaking the promise now.

In 1994, Nethercutt said, many people thought term limits were necessary to dislodge longtime incumbents. He beat Tom Foley, a 30-year congressman who was then the speaker of the House, in part because he had help from term-limits supporters.

Nethercutt contends many people have cooled toward term limits because turnover has increased in Congress. But the House still runs on the seniority system, and newcomers are at a disadvantage, he said.

“Do I unilaterally step aside, or let the voters decide?” he asked.

U.S. Term Limits, which has vowed a $20 million campaign to elect proponents in 2000 and is paying about $1,000 per month for the billboard, is saying step aside. President Paul Jacob had a news conference Tuesday to reiterate the message of the billboard: “Thanks for keeping your word.”

When reporters pointed out that Nethercutt hasn’t made up his mind on a re-election campaign, Jacob said the group would assume the congressman will retire.

“We owe it to George Nethercutt to take him at his word,” Jacob said.

By Wednesday, Nethercutt had a ready reply: “I assume they mean my promise to cut taxes, balance the budget and end the welfare system as we knew it. That’s what I promised, too.”

Nethercutt sees the billboard as a none-too-veiled threat of what’s to come if he runs for re-election. Term limit groups spent nearly $350,000 against Foley in 1994.

“They’ll be nasty, they’ll be mean,” he said.