Sunday, October 25, 1998

Experience key factor for 17th District

The difference that counts in the race for U.S. representative from the 17th District is not party affiliation. It's experience.

U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm is completing his 10th term in Congress, where seniority carries even more weight than in private business. Among 435 House members, only 35 would outrank him in the next Congress. That means other lawmakers look to him for leadership. It means he has been in Washington long enough to know how to deal with its massive complexities and get things done.

Because of his tenure, Stenholm knows who the players are throughout the honeycomb of bureaucratic agencies that surround Congress and actually control much of government's operation. Just as importantly, they know who he is and respond to his influence and stature. If you need help with the Social Security Administration or the Veterans Administration, for example, Stenholm knows the right people to call. And when he calls, they know who's talking.

For it is not simply the amount of Stenholm's experience in Congress that matters. It's also the quality of that experience.

All over Washington, Stenholm is recognized as a representative who works for his own district and the country's good. His reputation as a man of integrity in a duplicitous town is hard earned and well deserved. Even Stenholm's political detractors, such as columnist Molly Ivins, admit that if everyone in Washington worked as hard and as honestly as Stenholm does, the whole place would be more efficient and productive.

Dyess' viability

A fiscal conservative, Stenholm has campaigned for accountability in federal spending. As the senior Democratic member of the Agriculture Committee, he has fought for the farming and ranching interests that are so vital to the economy of this district, Abilene included. And his labor with a Democratic administration in maintaining the viability of Dyess Air Force Base has been incalculable. Without Dyess, Abilene would shrivel. The base has a lot of things going for it, but no other factor has been more valuable than Stenholm.

Against this record of accomplishment, Republican newcomer Rudy Izzard falls short. He says he has been promised certain committee assignments by GOP House leaders. If so, such political favors come with dubious strings attached. Izzard doesn't know his way around Washington's corridors or have Stenholm's veteran staff to guide him, and he doesn't seem to know his way around some of the issues, either. His commercials and public statements about Social Security, for instance, show he is badly misinformed or else willfully mistaken.

It's easy to take cheap shots at public figures. One Izzard commercial shows a hazardous waste truck putting traffic at risk and blames Stenholm for approving a dump in far southwest Texas that permits such dangers to pass through here. Pretty scary ad. But in fact, the site is for low level hazardous waste, the kind produced every day at Abilene hospitals and disposed of in complete safety without public alarm.

We don't need political trickery representing our public face in Washington. What we need is to guarantee that the authority of the 17th District's voice remains strong and respected there. We need to send Charles Stenholm back to Congress to keep doing the good job he has been doing.