Editing George Nethercutt (section)

==Congressional career==
[[File:President George W. Bush and George Nethercutt.jpg|thumb|right|Nethercutt with President [[George W. Bush]] in June 2004]]
Nethercutt was first elected to Congress in 1994 in a dramatic election in which he unseated the [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]], [[Tom Foley]]. It was the first time he had run for office.<ref name=Roberts/> The district had been growing more conservative since the early 1980s, but Foley had held on mainly by running up his totals in Democratic-leaning [[Spokane]]. In the 1994 election, however, Nethercutt ran up his totals in the more rural areas of the district while holding Foley to a margin of only 9,000 votes in Spokane and 3,000 in [[Spokane County]], which allowed him to prevail by 4,000 votes. This marked the first time a sitting Speaker of the House was unseated since 1862, and was part of a massive national Republican landslide that saw the GOP take control of the House for the first time in 40 years. In Congress, he sat on the [[United States House Committee on Appropriations|House Appropriations Committee]] and the [[United States House Committee on Science|House Science Committee]]. Like most Republicans elected in the 1994 wave, he had a strongly conservative voting record.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Nethercutt's campaign against Foley, a 30-year incumbent, included significant attention to Foley's opposition to [[Term limits in the United States|term limits]]. In 1992, Washington state voters approved a ballot measure limiting the terms of Washington officials, including federal officials such as U.S. Representatives. Foley brought suit contesting the constitutionality of this limit and won in court. Nethercutt repeatedly cited the caption of Foley's lawsuit – "Foley against the People of the State of Washington." He also promised to serve no more than three terms (six years) in the House.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.triplicate.com/20101102110664/Opinion/Editorials/Editors-Note-Another-GOP-revolution| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717102243/http://www.triplicate.com/20101102110664/Opinion/Editorials/Editors-Note-Another-GOP-revolution| archive-date=July 17, 2011| title=Editor's Note: Another GOP revolution? {{!}} Crescent City California News, Sports, & Weather {{!}} The Triplicate}}</ref>

In the 1996 elections, the Democrats mounted a serious bid to regain the seat, but Nethercutt won by an unexpectedly large 12-point margin even as [[Bill Clinton]] narrowly carried the district. He was handily reelected in 1998. In 2000, when his self-imposed three-term limit would have kicked in, Nethercutt changed his mind and announced his intention to run again, infuriating term-limits supporters. Nethercutt was nevertheless re-elected without much difficulty in 2000 and 2002.<ref name=Roberts/>

Nethercutt's [[Congressional archives|congressional papers]] are held at [[Gonzaga University]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://researchguides.gonzaga.edu/c.php?g=67720&p=436862|title=LibGuides: Manuscript Collections: Nethercutt|last=Plowman|first=Stephanie|website=researchguides.gonzaga.edu|language=en|access-date=October 26, 2018|archive-date=October 27, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181027101302/http://researchguides.gonzaga.edu/c.php?g=67720&p=436862|url-status=live}}</ref>