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Wally Herger: the Invisible Incompetent
Published Saturday, June 14, 1997

Your Representative in Congress is Walter William (Wally) Herger.  You’ve never heard of him.  Why?  Because he is a non-entity party hack, doesn’t need to campaign here to win, and doesn’t do anything for us.
 
According to statistics from Vote-Smart, Herger has been boring you in Congress since 1986.  I believe our county inherited Wally in 1992, when the district was gerrymandered and we lost the brilliant John Dolittle.  Pat Malberg, you’ll recall, was starting to consistently beat him in Nevada County, and I presume the Republicans wanted to prevent a future loss.
 
Herger is a Republican dream.  He’s bland, says little, does less, votes the party line, and doesn’t ask for much.  However, you’ve got to admire how he raises and uses his money.
 
In the 1996 campaign, Herger took in $355,459 from individuals and $341,801 from PACs.  This means he is 49.01% bought by special interests.  He had a starting balance of over $271K and spent only $536K, leaving him with a 12/31/96 cash balance of $477,749.  He made NO personal contributions. Why should he?  Well, this slush fund should make it easy to run again or it could be useful in the case he retires early.
 
Of Herger’s 534 reported individual contributors, the “little people” who also own him, George Foster, Lowell Robinson, Greg Seghezzi and a host of Nevada County luminaries were there.  However, I’ll bet these folks know Herger isn’t much of a performer.  They probably give their $250-1000 because they believe in Republican principles and want to keep the district out of Democratic hands.  Besides, the contribution usually includes a nice barbecue at somebody’s horse ranch.
 
Of course, locally-raised money isn’t spent campaigning here.  Even the California Democratic Party has written Nevada County off as safe for Republicans.  And actually, it’s understandable that Herger raises and uses money to keep the district safe for him.  That’s politics.  But surely Herger’s performance in office offends even Republicans.
 
He’s a member of the powerful Ways and Means committee, but Herger’s performance is never powerful.  It ranges from thuddingly dull to completely dangerous.
 
He gets no trophy for wanting disaster relief for the Marysville/Yuba City floods. Any Rep would do that.  Further, Herger blames an endangered plant species for delaying levee repairs and “causing three people to die.”
 
This man is no friend of the poor. In the daily one-minute speeches in the House, on May 15th, 1997, he sang that old tired song that what the poor need less government regulation.  Sure.
 
This man is no friend of women. He has eight kids, so he presumes all women want to be baby factories.  He generally votes against abortion issues, including prohibiting abortions at overseas military facilities (9/7/95), even those privately funded (6/15/95).  He voted to prohibit the Federal Workers Health Insurance from covering abortions (7/19/95). Less regulation, indeed.
 
Herger wants to abort the NEA, doesn’t like the NEA grant to the California Indian Basketweavers Association, and believes the Yuba River will magically stay pristine without a Wild & Scenic designation.
 
But most important, Herger “don’t bring home no pork.”  He doesn’t DO anything for us.  How about some economic growth in this county? Or some help for the poor?
 
He is no communicator.  Herger is one of the few Representatives with no e-mail.  As the constituency becomes wired, e-mail would make it easy to communicate with him, but he probably doesn’t want that.  Why encourage the voters to write?
 
Instead, we get Wally’s feel-good newsletter (with biased “survey” included) every few months, mailed at taxpayer expense.  It’s all “hooray for me” stuff, and lists a schedule of town hall meetings, which I suspect are well-orchestrated self-sells.  The newsletter says they “help me better represent you.” Probably not.
 
By the way, Wally, I will personally pay the $19.95 a month to get you an e-mail account. Just call me.
 
Herger wants to stay in office, offend as few Republicans as possible, and vote the way his handlers tell him.  My fear is that this could go on forever, or until I die of boredom.  I’d like to see a Democrat in this seat, but that doesn’t seem likely.
 
So, painful as it is for registered Democrat like me to endorse a Republican, I’ll say that if you must vote Republican, how about Todd Juvinall?  He’d do a better job, and at least he’s more interesting.
 
Barry Schoenborn is a technical writer, and a ten-year resident of Nevada County. You can write to him at barry@wvswrite.com. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of The Union.
 

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