‘You can’t throw bombs’: Russ Fulcher has learned influence in Congress comes by building strong relationships

Each week, The Spokesman-Review examines one question from the Naturalization Test immigrants must pass to become United States citizens.

Today’s question: Name your U.S. representative.

WASHINGTON – Idaho’s 1st congressional district is one of the most reliably Republican in the nation, but the man elected to represent the state’s western half – from the Panhandle to the Boise suburbs – thinks the district is more politically diverse than its deep-red color on electoral maps would suggest.

In an interview in his office at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Rep. Russ Fulcher reflected on what he learned in his first two terms in office and how that informs the kind of lawmaker he wants to be as his party takes over the House majority for the first time since he entered Congress four years earlier.

“You have to be able to work with other people,” Fulcher said. “You can’t throw bombs. Once you go out and you publicly hang a dagger in somebody, you don’t get that back.”

Like the 1st district’s previous representative, current Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, Fulcher is a member of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus. But unlike his predecessor, who clashed with Republican leaders and gained a reputation as a disruptor, Fulcher has taken a quieter approach to advancing right-wing priorities in Congress, where most decisions are made before a bill comes up for a final vote on the House floor.

“Your vote is one of the least influential things you have here,” he said. “Where you have the influence is before it gets written, before it gets on the agenda.”

Fulcher recently joined the Republican Policy Committee, a 23-member group that shapes the party’s platform and helps craft legislation on a wide range of issues. With the House majority, the GOP has the power to craft bills that can pass the lower chamber, even if most are destined to die in the Democratic-majority Senate and face a veto from President Joe Biden.

While expectations for bipartisan lawmaking are limited in the new era of divided government, Fulcher said he looks forward to developing real solutions to problems facing the country and presenting them to congressional Democrats and the Biden administration.

On Wednesday, he was also appointed to the Energy and Commerce Committee, where this month fellow Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Spokane became the first woman to lead the influential panel, which has a vast jurisdiction including energy, technology, health care and more. Fulcher said he didn’t lobby for a spot on the committee but welcomed the opportunity to work with his neighbor from Spokane.

“I think it’s going to put the Pacific Northwest in a reasonably influential spot,” said Fulcher, who tends toward understatement. “We’ve got relatively few members, compared to other regions around the country, so it’s critical that you’re in the right place.”

In a statement, McMorris Rodgers said she was “excited and proud” to welcome Fulcher to the committee.

“We will be at the forefront of House Republicans’ efforts to restore public trust in representative government,” she said. “Americans have elected us to hold the line against Biden’s agenda. They want a different path, one that promotes free markets, innovation, free speech and individual freedom. We stand ready to plow the hard ground necessary to legislate, hold the Biden administration accountable, and restore American leadership.”

While Energy and Commerce members typically don’t serve on other panels, Fulcher said he hopes to keep his seat on the Natural Resources Committee, whose jurisdiction is particularly relevant to his district, which includes vast swaths of federally owned land. He said his biggest legislative priorities for the new Congress, as in past sessions, include reforms that would give local governments and tribes more authority to manage public lands instead of the federal government.

He hopes to work with Democrats on legislation to boost the development of geothermal energy projects and strengthen cybersecurity of federal assets like Idaho National Laboratory. He’s even bullish on the prospect of bipartisan progress on controversial issues like immigration and border security, which he said is “too big of a problem” for Congress not to act on in the next two years.

The divide between Democrats and Republicans has widened even in his relatively short time in Congress, Fulcher said.

“The partisanship is more magnified than I ever thought,” he said. “I think the Trump component put everything on steroids. It’s like putting a magnifying glass on whatever issues were there – it just got bigger. And that’s not a criticism of Trump, it’s just the dynamics of the entire situation. It was very, very polarizing.”

Another polarizing factor was the way former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., concentrated power among a few select members, he said. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., took the gavel in the wee hours of Jan. 7 after an excruciating 15 rounds of voting that saw the new speaker make major concessions to GOP holdouts that empower rank-and-file lawmakers.

While Fulcher supported McCarthy in every vote, he said the reforms will make for a more representative House. One of the changes, however, lets even a single lawmaker call a snap vote to unseat the speaker, which could throw a wrench in the GOP’s ability to pass even the messaging bills meant to help the party in the 2024 elections.

“I think you’ll probably see that happen,” Fulcher said of the motion to oust the speaker. “It’ll be a disruption tactic, but depending on who and under what circumstances, it’ll likely backfire. We talked about that in conference a lot. If somebody tries to weaponize that motion, it will probably pull people together pretty quick.”

The gap between GOP hardliners and more moderate Republicans will be on display in Fulcher’s district when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who has become a far-right darling while endorsing white supremacist conspiracy theories and calling for political violence, is set to headline the Kootenai County GOP’s Lincoln Day dinner on Feb. 11.

Fulcher said he plans to attend the dinner but hasn’t discussed it with Greene, whose invitation he said is “just part of the dynamics of the Panhandle.”

“I’ve got a great working relationship with people in Kootenai County and the whole Panhandle,” he said. “I’d like to think I have a really good relationship with downtown Boise. … They’re a lot different, but they are who they are and they’re people who have entrusted me to serve them, so I try to just serve both.”

Fulcher said he often gets pushed in different directions by constituents with opposing priorities in different parts of his district and he and his staff work hard to consider each issue carefully, on a case-by-case basis.

“You’ve got to show up,” he said, for those different constituencies in the district.

That means rushing back to Idaho after helping McCarthy become House speaker to attend Gov. Brad Little’s inauguration, after the Republican governor won a second term in a race that split Idaho conservatives. It also means attending the Kootenai County GOP’s fundraising dinner, “because that’s their big event and I represent them, they’ve entrusted me to do that and I’ve got a good relationship with them.”

As the most junior member of Idaho’s four-man delegation, Fulcher said he doesn’t think about what his legacy could be and doesn’t know how long he’ll stay in Congress. But while he’s here, he said, he intends to continue an approach to representing his district that’s based on respect.

“You know you’re never, ever, ever going to please everybody,” he said. “But if you do your job right, ultimately both sides or multiple sides will say, ‘OK, I don’t agree with what he did, but I know he thinks about this stuff, and he respects me enough to show up.’ ”