Herger, good and bad

Over the years, Wally Herger—who last week announced he will retire at the end of his current term after 26 years in Congress—has managed to remain highly popular with voters in his District 2 even though he has done little to benefit them directly and has supported positions—privatizing Social Security, eliminating Medicare, cutting veterans’ health benefits, defunding NPR—that are profoundly at odds with the needs and wishes of his constituents.

Throughout his 25 years in Congress, Herger has been a member of what’s called the Obscure Caucus, those backbenchers of both parties who vote the party line, rake in the corporate campaign contributions, and generally stay out of the limelight. Perhaps his greatest strengths have been in constituent service and his ability to recruit and keep excellent staff people. Those are important qualities, and Herger deserves recognition for them.

He’s also been someone who doesn’t let his feelings get in the way of his professionalism. We speak from experience. Although we have criticized him often, more than other journalists in the region, he has never reacted in a hostile manner or threatened not to talk with us in the future, and he’s always been cordial in person. We can’t say that about every politician.

And he’s had some successes locally. He himself cites the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act of 1998 that brokered a deal between environmentalists and loggers as his greatest accomplishment, and we agree. But he’s also been a big supporter of Beale Air Force Base, a major local employer, and has worked—not always successfully—to improve the condition of local levees.

But we won’t miss his diatribes about the Affordable Care Act (“a government takeover!”), his effort to defund Planned Parenthood and NPR, his willingness to destroy the full faith and credit of the U.S. government in the debt-ceiling debacle, his efforts to hamstring the EPA’s ability to update the Clean Air Act, his fatuous crusade to pass a balanced-budget amendment, his uncritical support of bottomless military funding, and his cheerleading for our misbegotten adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Herger has long been a friend to corporate big-wigs of various stripes, especially oil magnates and insurance honchos, all of them major campaign donors. And, as friendly and folksy as he is during his (increasingly rare) visits to his high-unemployment, high-poverty district, his votes consistently have favored the rich and powerful. That’s why he’s earned a 100 percent rating from Americans for Prosperity, the anti-regulation political-advocacy group funded by the super-wealthy, climate-change-denying oil-and-gas barons the Koch brothers.

Herger has endorsed state Sen. Doug LaMalfa, a Richvale rice farmer, to succeed him in the newly drawn District 1. That gives LaMalfa a big leg up on other candidates in the heavily Republican district. Like Herger, LaMalfa is a personable and professional politician who understands the importance of constituent service. However, if his record in Sacramento is any indication, he’ll be as doctrinaire as Herger has been in the current, highly polarized Congress. And that means he will support policies and positions that, if enacted, would be harmful to the people of this district.

We look forward to LaMalfa’s clash with Jim Reed, the Democrat who opposed Herger in 2010, got 43 percent of the vote and is running again. Perhaps, when LaMalfa is confronted by an experienced campaigner with views dissimilar to his own, we’ll find out whether he is more than Herger light.