If you missed the so-so 1990s movie “Twister,” much more entertainment comes in watching the gyrations of U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of our state’s two Republican members of Congress. Unfortunately, voters of the 4th District are bearing costs of the show.
Newhouse is one of those Republican officeholders who is very concerned, about undocumented agricultural workers and kids needing health care — before voting with Trump at crunch time. It is all the more remarkable in that he was one of 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach the 45th President after Trump incited the U.S. Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2022.
As the Yakima Herald Republic, Newhouse’s home newspaper, editorialized: “One of the politicians who voted for all this was our own Representative Dan Newhouse, the Sunnyside Republican, who once swore adamantly that he would never support anything that cut Medicaid benefits.” At the 11th hour, he voted for Trump’s Big Budget Bill.
He voted to cut Medicaid, providing a decisive vote as the House sent Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” to the Senate. The “Big Ugly” will slash $1.1 trillion from Medicaid in the next decade, and cut off Medicaid to 11.8 million Americans, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Approximately 300,000 constituents in Central Washington receive Medicaid assistance, says the Herald Republic. Another stat to remember: 29,000 undocumented workers are part of the largely Latino workforce that sustains the state’s export-driven agricultural industry, and who picks those cherries rushed to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
Also, Medicaid is the wellspring of income sustaining rural hospitals across the country. A health care provider in Newhouse’s home county, Astra Health, operates hospitals in Toppenish and Sunnyside and has delivered this warning: “Without immediate and positive changes to Medicaid reimbursement, Congress is threatening to consign our communities to a medical dustbin — abandoning their responsibility to the very people they were elected to serve.”
Newhouse was also a deciding vote in passage of a rescission bill that chopped $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and eviscerated foreign aid — think of our exports — and defunded public radio. He “betrayed the 4th District twice, in less than six weeks,” the Herald Republic editorialized, giving the super-rich a tax break while “his constituents will pay the price.”
Our man in Congress isn’t getting any rave reviews in the other main population center of his district. “Federal spending cuts threaten to decimate the Tri-Cities economy while immigration raids shred the region’s agriculture workforce,” the Tri-City Herald editorialized. “If only Central Washington had a representative in the U.S. House of Representatives who fought for us.”
Voters on far side of the Cascade Curtain asked for little when they voted for Trump. That turns our to be just what they got, and a lot is being taken away. As the Herald points out, 1,000 jobs will be lost at the Richland-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. As well, “nearly 17,000 households in the Tri-Cities rely on SNAP to avoid going hungry,” the Herald said, referring to the federal Sustainable Nutrition Program.
The other congressman from these parts, U.S. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., challenged Gov. Bob Ferguson to a debate in which the House freshman would defend the Big Ugly. He’s lucky the governor has ignored the challenge.
The Spokane area and Northeast Washington have been plagued of late by forest and wildfires, caused largely by the climate change that Trump labels “a hoax.” The Trump Administration is withholding approximately $20 million that was supposed to go to our Department of Natural Resources. “So where is this resource for our state?”” asks Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who has campaigned for a pro-active firefighting strategy.
Karen Dorn Steele, retired Spokesman Review investigative reporter who broke the story on cancers among Hanford downwinders, wrote in a letter to her old paper that Baumgartner in any debate would be defending an administration that’s “terrorizing immigrants with masked ICE raids, slashing funds to fight the dangers of global warming from fossil fuel burning, while rewarding the wealthy . . .”
As they put it in sports, the Trump Administration has put it all together, topping off by adding $3 trillion to the national debt. The most conservative parts of Washington will pay a heavy price.
What gives? The Herald wondered, too: “Once upon a time, Newhouse built a reputation as one of the few Republicans in the few Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump. That independent streak is dead.”
Baumgartner is a toady, not a Tom Foley. Newhouse is a decent guy, say those who know him, and was former director of the state Department of Agriculture under Democratic Gov. Gary Locke. In Congress, however, he has succumbed to fear and ambition.
Trump is out to get him, ever since the impeachment vote. Newhouse has repeatedly beaten back Tea Party and MAGA wacko-bird opponents since winning election in 2014 — with a boost masterminded by ex-Sen. Slade Gorton. He has cobbled together just enough mainstream conservative Republicans, Independents, and Democrats to win.
But a recalibration may be in order. Newhouse might consider a display of independence to hold onto independents. The mainstream still has currency, witness past success of Sid Morrison. Besides, if need be, standing with convictions and constituents isn’t such a bad way to go out. You’ll go down in history but you won’t get a gig on Fox News.
This article also appeared in Cascadia Advocate.
Discover more from Post Alley
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
All true. The best you can say about Newhouse is he’s not Baumgartner, whose election re-affirms the lunacy of voters in his district. Toady is too kind a word for him. The only question remaining is will voters who are directly impacted by the votes of these two spineless Congressmen finally realize that their blind allegiance to voting Republican no matter what is killing their schools, their hospitals and their livelihoods? I’m on the fence about that. Some excellent candidates have come and gone in recent elections; we’ll see who challenges them come next year.
I hope some day we get an honest memoir from one of these MAGA sellouts that sincerely describe their thinking during these times. Including a chapter on whether they removed all mirrors in their spaces, and resorted to sheep counting or sleep aids.
A good and necessary piece Joel. Twister though was a rip roaring good movie.
No excuses….but Newhouse and Marie Perez are in the same situation.
Both fighting off MAGA in split districts.
Perez’s problem – she took some votes that progressives, especially in Clark County, dislike.
Newhouse’s problem – he took the votes that his MAGA constituency wanted him to take and cost his Congressional District 1000’s of job.
Both will face primaries and both may lose.