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Rep. Jeff Flake's focus still on pork spending

6-term congressman bids to carry crusade to Senate

by Dan Nowicki - Oct. 5, 2012 10:39 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Rep. Jeff Flake grew up on a ranch in rural Arizona and, as a consequence, knows bloated pork when he sees it.

During his six terms in Congress, Flake, R-Ariz., has worked with -- and exasperated -- members of both parties as he has crusaded to rid Capitol Hill of often-wasteful earmarks and reform Washington's big-spending culture.

For years, Flake blew the whistle on the pork-barrel politics of influential House lawmakers, becoming a cult hero to fiscal conservatives across the country who came to know him via C-SPAN's coverage of his many floor amendments targeting colleagues' parochial projects that he considered inappropriate uses of taxpayer money.

Earmarks were a bipartisan indulgence, and Flake took on the issue when his fellow Republicans were in control. At the same time, Flake's unbending opposition to earmarks has frustrated local politicians and business leaders who look to their senators and representatives to fight for federal funding for projects back home.

Flake's determination eventually paid off, and he is credited as the driving force behind the earmark moratorium that's now in effect.

He has had other successes, too: an expensive ethanol-tax subsidy he has long opposed expired last year, and the practice of paying billions in agricultural subsidies directly to farmers appears to be ending after this year.

Flake's reformer credentials aren't limited to legislation. In 2006, he helped make sure powerful Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who was facing criminal prosecution, never returned to his job as House majority leader. DeLay eventually was convicted in a money-laundering case involving Texas politics, but he has appealed.

"If I'm remembered as the guy who killed earmarks, that's a great thing," Flake told The Arizona Republic.

But as Flake, 49, runs this year for Arizona's open U.S. Senate seat, he is finding out that the tough stance against spending and his other conservative priorities that made him all but unbeatable in a Republican-dominated East Valley congressional district present vulnerabilities in a statewide race.

For one thing, he cannot promise voters that he'll bring home the bacon. His congressional record includes many "no" votes, and his opponents are blistering him with television ads that accuse him of opposing bills to help military veterans. Depending on one's political point of view, the GOP entitlement-reform efforts he has supported either will end Medicare as it is now known or restructure it in a way that will keep the financially troubled program solvent for future generations.

Flake emerged in August from a hard-fought primary against wealthy Mesa investor Wil Cardon and now is locked in a tight battle with Democratic Senate candidate Richard Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general and a decorated Vietnam War veteran and Pima County lawman. Recent polls have suggested the race is a close one. The nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based "Cook Political Report" rates the matchup as a "toss-up."

Carmona laid out a line of attack against Flake in a recent interview with MSNBC.

"Most of the people I speak to are very unhappy with the lack of leadership that Jeff Flake has shown in his position as a congressman," Carmona said. "Businessmen tell me time and time again that he is against everything and for nothing. He is not willing to compromise. He takes extreme positions."

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a top Republican in the city where Flake and his family live, in August chided Flake on Twitter for neglecting his congressional district's needs until launching his Senate campaign. Smith endorsed Cardon over the 12-year incumbent in the primary.

But the retiring Sen. Jon Kyl, the Republican whose seat Flake and Carmona are seeking, said voters shouldn't hold Flake's reputation for voting "no" against him, stressing that, in general, Flake has stood by his fiscally conservative principles.

Kyl used the example of President Barack Obama's 2010 health-care-reform law, which Flake voted against in the House and has promised to vote to repeal in the Senate. Carmona has said he supports the law.

"If you believe that government should continue to get bigger and tax more of your money and spend more, then you want to vote 'yes,' " said Kyl, the Senate minority whip who is strongly backing Flake. "If you want to stop some of that stuff, sometimes you have to vote 'no.' Some legislative success is due to stopping bad things. If the people of Arizona want to repeal 'Obamacare,' they need to vote for Jeff Flake. Carmona's not going to vote to repeal Obamacare."

In the Senate, Flake would pursue an agenda of economic growth and job creation, Medicare reform, border security and cutting government spending, according to his campaign website. A record of bipartisanship

Flake denies that he is against everything and cannot cooperate with Democrats.

In the House, Flake sided with many Democrats to press for changes in U.S. economic policies toward Cuba. Although their legislation passed the House, it never became law. He also has worked with Democrats to safeguard civil liberties.

For years, he also was a champion of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, a position he changed after announcing his Senate run in 2011. Like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and many other Republicans, Flake now insists on improved border security as a prerequisite to other reforms such as a guest-worker program or a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already inside the United States.

But his prior association with Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., on immigration legislation provided Cardon with ammunition during the GOP primary. Cardon also tried to damage Flake's reputation among Republican voters by repeatedly linking him to Obama on immigration.

"For somebody who says 'no' all the time, I sure have passed a lot of amendments on the House floor, almost all of them on a bipartisan basis," Flake said. "In my 12 years in Congress, I've passed more amendments than any other Republican, by a long shot. ... You can't do that if you're just saying no. You can only do that if you have people who respect you on the other side. This notion that I just say no all the time and am just some ultrapartisan just doesn't square with the record."

Congressional records back Flake's claim on the amendments. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, is the only House member who has had more amendments adopted since Flake entered Congress in 2001. She has 69 amendments adopted during the time period, while Flake has had 48 amendments adopted.

In addition to his amendments, Flake has introduced 129 bills and co-sponsored nearly 1,000.

And due in large part to Flake and McCain, another foe of pork-barrel spending, earmarks are out of style.

"The reality is that old-style politics of elbowing your way to the trough and trying to get as much of it as you can is over," Kyl said. "Now, the money is distributed more on the basis of grants that you apply for." Attack ads on veterans issues

The downside to having a long legislative record is that opponents can mine it for attack ads.

A TV commercial paid for by the anti-GOP third-party groups VoteVets.org and Majority PAC rips Flake for voting to cut "veterans benefits by billions" and opposing other pro-vet legislation.

"Jeff Flake doesn't deserve my vote or my respect," Iraq War veteran Steven Lopez of Chandler says in the ad.

A Carmona TV ad also smacked Flake for not supporting veterans issues.

"While Vietnam veteran Rich Carmona stands for vets and our troops, career politician and Congressman Jeff Flake has repeatedly voted against measures that help those who serve our country," Matt Canter, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman, said in a statement.

The Flake campaign calls attempts to portray Flake as anti-veteran "misleading and despicable." In response to the Carmona ad, Flake's team released a lengthy list of more than 80 stand-alone veterans bills that Flake has supported over the years.

"It's just baloney," McCain, a Flake supporter and former prisoner of war, told The Republic.

"He voted against some bills that had all kinds of pork-barrel projects in them and were not paid for and would increase the debt and the deficit. The worst thing we can do for our veterans is hand them and the next generation a country that is bankrupt, and that's the path that we are headed on."

Flake doesn't think the public will buy the anti-veteran charge. He said it's a common tactic for lawmakers to try to intimidate their colleagues into voting for bad legislation by attaching it to politically popular veterans issues. Few politicians would want to invite election-year attacks on their commitment to veterans.

"Some people are too afraid of an election, too afraid of having to go out and explain, so they'll vote for anything, even if someone puts 'veterans' in the title and lards up the bill with extraneous items," Flake said. A family tradition of politics

Flake, who as a 5-year-old lost part of a finger in an alfalfa-field accident, grew up in Snowflake on a ranch owned by the the F-Bar Cattle Co., a partnership consisting of his father and three uncles.

"It was a good way to grow up," Flake recalled. "I've always thought it was more noble to have a profession where you shower in the evening rather than the morning."

Along with ranching, the Flake family also embraced politics. Flake's father, Dean Flake, is a former Snowflake mayor. His uncle, the late Jake Flake, was speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives. Sam Flake, a first cousin of his father's, served in the Legislature from 1965 to 1973.

House colleagues on both sides of the aisle describe Flake as a likable personality who they can get along with and respect even if they don't always agree with him on the issues.

"I think he's going to be an unusually effective conservative in the United States Senate because of his demeanor and his personal skills," said Rep. Mike Pence, a fellow House Republican from Indiana who is now running for governor of his state. "I know people on Capitol Hill who have never voted for a Jeff Flake amendment but who really like him and don't have an unkind word to say about him."

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., a House liberal who is supporting Carmona, said he and Flake probably are too far apart philosophically to ever find a political middle ground and said he believes Carmona would be more effective as a senator. But he did not hesitate to describe Flake as a friend.

"He's never been uncivil or mean-spirited," Grijalva said of Flake. "Our disagreements are on policy. I can't say for that for the rest of the delegation on that side, be that as it may."

Pence predicted that, if elected, Flake would serve in the tradition of Arizona's late Sen. Barry Goldwater, the straight-talking conservative icon who was the 1964 Republican presidential nominee.

"I really do believe Jeff Flake is Arizona -- at least the Arizona I see from the heartland," said Pence, who, like Flake, was first elected to Congress in 2000. "I grew up admiring the leadership of Barry Goldwater and, in more recent years, of Jon Kyl and John McCain. Each in unique ways has emerged as a thoughtful, independent voice on Capitol Hill, and Jeff Flake is in keeping with that same tradition: someone who is serious about his principles and willing to take a strong ... conservative stand."