Three GOP members clash in House primary

Congressional seat up for grabs after a decade, with incumbent Rep. George Nethercutt going after a spot in the U.S. Senate

Ten years after its House race surprised the nation, the Fifth Congressional District is in the middle of a heated contest once again.

A decade ago, U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt defeated the incumbent Speaker of the House, Democrat Tom Foley, on what was considered the crowning achievement of the GOP during the 1994 elections.

Now there is no Speaker to unseat, but the stakes are just as high. With Nethercutt gone to chase after Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray's job, three candidates are hoping to keep the seat with the Party of Lincoln, and one is hoping to return it to the Democrats' side, where it stayed for three decades until Nethercutt's upset win.

The GOP's three candidates are State Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Colville; State Sen. Larry Sheahan, R-Spokane, and Spokane attorney Shaun Cross.

The top vote-getter in that primary race will face Democrat businessman Donald Barbieri in November.

McMorris said that she has proven she can work effectively in a legislative arena, and that her business acumen has been tested repeatedly as a representative.

"I have been involved at a time where jobs are at the forefront of people's minds," she said. "I have been involved in about every business issue that has come before the Legislature."

McMorris said that her background is in the agriculture industry, which included working on the family orchard in Kettle Falls for 13 years. She has also earned a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Washington.

"I have the energy and the experience to take on the toughest jobs and get them done," she said.

The 5th Congressional District includes parts of the Columbia Basin such as Othello and Ritzville. McMorris said that she wants to reduce the tax and regulatory burden on area farmers, if elected.

Calling herself a supporter of President George W. Bush's tax cuts, she said that she wants to help restore the decision-making to Congress rather than allow bureaucratic boards and commissions to write rules that, in her opinion, have "strangled" the nation's economy.

Sheahan said the 5th district needs someone who understands the needs and concerns of the people in the district, not just Spokane, but the rural areas to the north and south, as well as the valley surrounding that city.

"I am the one candidate with significant public and business experience," he said. "We need someone with both."

Sheahan has served in the state Legislature for 12 years and a lawyer from the Rosalia firm of Sheahan and Sheahan for 15 years.

The congressional seat Sheahan is after is open for the first time in decades. Sheahan said people asked him to run given what they saw as his understanding of the needs in the district, as well as his training in both the public and the private sector.

"I can do a good job representing this area," he said. "People want somebody they can trust, somebody who can be an advocate from the first day in Washington D.C."

Shaun Cross is the only one of the three Republicans running for office without any previous political experience. He, however, sees that lack of experience in Olympia as a plus. The last three people to hold office before him in the 5th District, he said, had the same background he does

"(Former U.S. Reps.) Walter Horan, Tom Foley and George Nethercutt were all Spokane attorneys," he said. "None of them had spent a day in Olympia."

Cross said he can provide the good leadership the district needs. "I have great legal background and a great understanding of the business climate and why it is struggling," he said.

Cross, an attorney with the firm of Paine Hamblen in Spokane said that the reasons for the tough financial times include the drop in per capita income, as well as the continuous closure of businesses from mills to dairies to small retailers.

Another reason, he said is the poor performance by those in charge of public policy.

"We are going to be like Arkansas if we don't get our hands around this problem," he said. "Politicians have been running things long enough and we need other people to run things."

With his life experience, which includes a quarter century in the business world, Cross considers himself to be the top candidate to represent the district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Besides his two GOP opponents, there is someone across the aisle who also disagrees.

Don Barbieri, a former hotel businessman who is running as the lone Democratic candidate said that the district is ready for an independent-minded man like him.

"There is way too much partisanship in this nation today," he said.

Voters nowadays, he said, can be found not only in Spokane, but in the rural communities surrounding that city, which he said are undergoing a period of transition.

"Our rural communities are looking for the jobs to keep their people in those communities," he said.

The need to strengthen these areas cannot be ignored, Barbieri said.

"We need to make sure these communities are well, with well-trained workers and healthy children," he said.

He added, "We need to make sure the health care system is thriving in these communities, attracting doctors, and curing a broken liability system," he said.

Barbieri spent the last 35 years in the hotel business, as founder and CEO of West Coast Hotels. He stepped down from the latter position to run for office.

"I am running because I love this community," he said.