Nethercutt Says He’Ll Run For Fourth Term Lawmaker Says He Still Has Work To Do; Term Limits Supporters Plan To Step Up Campaign Against Him

Rep. George Nethercutt answered the question “to run or not to run” Sunday.

He’s running.

While a handful of demonstrators with “Keep Your Word, George” signs gathered outside his Ag Trade Center news conference, Nethercutt was inside saying his 1994 term limits pledge was a mistake.

“I have changed my mind,” the Spokane Republican said. “The work I started will not be finished by the end of this term. That is why I have decided to run again.”

Nethercutt said he needs more time to work on such issues as opening foreign markets to the region’s farm products, preventing the removal of dams on the Snake River and expanding federal research on diabetes and other diseases.

Connie Smith, co-chairwoman of the Eastern Washington Term Limits Action Committee and a volunteer in Nethercutt’s previous campaigns, said she was disappointed.

“I’ve always felt George has done a good job. But I feel there are other people in Eastern Washington who could do an equally good job,” Smith said.

The announcement answers the question that has dogged Nethercutt at nearly every public appearance since he won his third campaign last November. It also will shift the campaign of U.S. Term Limits, the action committee’s parent organization, into a higher gear.

The Washington, D.C., group already has spent more than $100,000 on commercials, newspaper ads, billboards and bus signs. A spokesman said Sunday the organization could spend as much $1 million to “educate the voters” in Eastern Washington about the term limits issue.

Democrats have yet to field a candidate for the Eastern Washington House seat. But they, too, hope to make the race one of their target campaigns as they try to regain the majority they had in the House before the 1994 election.

A Democrat is unlikely to embrace term limits, but will be quick to say a candidate should keep promises to the voters.

Term limits was a key plank of Nethercutt’s 1994 platform when, as a new and relatively unknown candidate, he challenged 30-year veteran Tom Foley, then the speaker of the house.

The state’s voters had recently passed an initiative that restricted service in the U.S. House of Representatives to three terms.

Foley argued that would put Washington state at a disadvantage, forcing its congressmen out while representatives from other states could get re-elected, gain seniority and move into positions of power. Foley joined a lawsuit to overturn the initiative.

Nethercutt criticized Foley for joining the lawsuit, repeating the charge by term limits organizations that the incumbent was “suing the voters.” A congressman should serve no more than six years, then “come back and live under the laws that he passed,” Nethercutt said.

Six months after the election, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that putting term limits on members of Congress requires a constitutional amendment. Individual laws in Washington and a dozen other states were struck down.

Several constitutional amendments have since been rejected by Congress. Sunday, Nethercutt seemed to echo Foley’s 1994 argument against term limits as he prefaced his announcement to run.

“Should the 5th Congressional District be term-limited when others in Congress are not?” he asked. “I have voted repeatedly for national term limits legislation that would apply to all members of Congress. But term limits legislation has not passed.”

Just how crucial term limits was to Nethercutt’s 1994 victory is subject to debate. It’s clear that national term limits groups targeted Foley and announced they were spending $325,000 against him. But the National Rifle Association and several other groups also spent heavily on independent ads attacking Foley and boosting Nethercutt.

All have claimed some share of that narrow victory.

Starting in February, U.S. Term Limits and its local affiliate began turning up the volume against Nethercutt, someone they once considered a “poster boy” for their issue.

The most recent television commercial suggested that if Nethercutt can’t be trusted on term limits, he can’t be trusted on other promises, such as protecting the Snake River dams. That commercial was derided by both sides of the salmon-and-dam debate, and two Spokane television stations stopped running it at Nethercutt’s request.

Sunday, term limits supporters were barred from the press conference. A door that was opened for reporters was slammed in the face of two activists trying to enter the Ag Trade Center. Activists complained that the public was being kept away from its congressman. But a security guard said it was standard practice at the building to limit access to press conferences to the news media.

Candidates usually announce their campaign plans with more fanfare and bigger crowds. But Nethercutt said the hastily called press conference was scheduled as soon as he decided how to answer the question he is regularly asked.

“This isn’t a campaign kickoff. This is an announcement of my decision,” he said.

He said access was restricted to help journalists: “This is something I wanted you folks not to be interrupted by.”

Term limits supporters have argued Nethercutt will add to the cynicism of voters by breaking his 1994 pledge. Sunday he said he wasn’t breaking his promise; he just changed his mind, he said. Then he quoted former U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen.

“The only people who don’t change their minds reside in cemeteries or insane asylums,” he said.

He said he hopes to complete work he started in 1995, but refused to answer how many times he would seek re-election in pursuit of those goals.

If the press conference was a preview of the coming campaign, the next 17 months will feature testimonials and hyperbole.

After his announcement, Nethercutt read three glowing letters from constituents urging him to run despite his pledge.

“I’ve received hundreds and hundreds of these kinds of letters - and frankly, a few from the other side,” he said.

Term limits supporters said they were not allowed to have a meeting with Nethercutt to explain why they thought he should not run.

After the announcement, Michael Fagan, the action committee co-chairman, called it a sad day, and likened it to the shootings of students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Asked how he could draw a connection to the school massacre, Fagan replied Nethercutt’s decision “does not set a very good example for children or adults.”