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Exit Interviews - Congressional term limits
Reason, Oct, 2000 by Michael W. Lynch, Katherine Mangu-Ward
Reason: Do you ever tell your constituents that what they want will hurt them in the long run and that they shouldn't have it?
Canady: Sometimes I'll tell people, "I'm sorry. I can't do it."
Reason: But do you ever say, "I can, but I shouldn't do it"?
Canady: If there are things that people bring to me that they want me to sign onto, I will tell them, "I'm sorry, I am not comfortable doing that." I'll tell people, "I don't know that we can afford this." But I really try not to tell people what is in their interest. I operate on the general assumption that people who come to me are intelligent and they are a better judge of their individual interest than I am. I've got to make a judgment not about their individual interest but about the collective good of the country and the good of my whole constituency.
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Reason: What's next for you?
Canady: I'm going back to Florida, where I will serve as general counsel to the governor of Florida.
Reason: Are you going to take your Impeachment Chair with you?
Canady: Oh yeah, that's going with me for sure.
RANGE ROVER
Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage (R-Idaho)
If we can't have good government, then we might as well have entertaining government. On that basis alone, Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage's six-year tenure in Congress has been a rousing success. When she ran for office in 1994, she held "endangered salmon bakes" to call attention to her opposition to the Endangered Species Act. After she was elected, her Idaho office displayed boxes of "Spotted Owl Helper," according to Michael Barone's Almanac of American Politics. Ask her about this today, and she'll hand over an eight-ounce can of "Sockeye Salmon," and point out that if it's endangered we shouldn't be able to purchase it.
Her personal life was good for a few laughs, too: A harsh critic of Bill Clinton's marital misbehavior, Chenoweth eventually had to cop to an affair with a married man after she aired an ad attacking the president.
Chenoweth-Hage is a strong supporter of property rights and the interests of Western ranchers, whom she feels are abused by the bureaucrats administering federal lands. She once sponsored legislation that would have forced federal agents to ask permission from local sheriffs before enforcing federal law. Her strong support of the Second Amendment and of limiting federal power--and her sympathetic comments regarding the militia movement--led a number of mainstream journalists to question her sanity.
Though always controversial, she was re-elected twice to represent Idaho's 1st District, garnering 55 percent of the vote in 1998. She plainly admits she'd like to run for a few more terms, but she's willing to live by her pledge.
Reason: You expressed some regrets about taking the term-limits pledge.
Helen Chenoweth-Hage: I don't regret taking the pledge; I regret that I signed on for only six years. I think that it takes a while to figure out your new job, and this is a very complicated job. Ten to 12 years would probably be a better time.
