In My Time - Dick Cheney [66]
One of the most memorable days of the 1978 campaign came near the end. We had been in Sheridan in northern Wyoming for an event the night before, and my dad was driving Lynne and me back to Casper and Cheyenne for the closing events of the campaign. It was one of those glorious Indian summer days that Wyoming is famous for. All of the aspen and cottonwood leaves had turned to gold. The sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue. We stopped, threw an old quilt on the ground, and spent a couple of hours sitting at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains reminiscing about all we had seen in the last twenty years. Now, some thirty years later, that day still stands out as a very special moment in our lives.
When the vote was tallied on November 7, I had 59 percent of the vote. It would be my narrowest victory in six general election campaigns—and the sweetest one. For the next ten years I would be recognized on the floor of the United States House of Representatives as “the Gentleman from Wyoming.” I would have a lot of titles after that, but never one of which I was prouder.
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SHORTLY AFTER THE ELECTION, there was a weeklong orientation for all the new GOP members at a hotel just outside Washington. It was designed to make us more effective as legislators and to get us thinking, even before we were sworn in, about our campaigns for reelection. The sessions covered everything from our salary ($57,500) to how to get mail answered. We heard from the leadership and senior floor staff about the House rules and procedures. And we spent a lot of time on the question of committee assignments. Many freshmen had unrealistic expectations, fully believing they could claim a seat on one of the most important committees, such as Ways and Means or Appropriations, when those assignments were hotly contested among more senior members and almost never given to newcomers.
I had already called Republican leader John Rhodes of Arizona the day after the election to put in a bid for an assignment to the Interior Committee. With the federal government controlling some 50 percent of the surface and 65 percent of the mineral wealth in Wyoming, public lands policy issues were vital to the state. Whether you were involved in the energy business or ranching or tourism and recreation, the rules set by the federal government for access to and the use of federal lands were vitally important to your economic success. My time and work on the Interior Committee would be rewarded in 1984 with the passage of the Wyoming Wilderness Act, which was my most significant piece of legislation and the one of which I’m proudest. I worked closely with both my Wyoming colleagues on the Senate side, Al Simpson and Malcolm Wallop, and we were able to add almost a million acres to the state’s wilderness areas.
When I’d first sought a slot on Interior, Leader Rhodes said he would support my request and that he had a request of me in return. He wanted to assign me to the Ethics Committee, which I thought was pretty unusual. Freshmen are almost never assigned to Ethics, which deals with some of the most sensitive issues to come before the House, including whether a member should be sanctioned or even expelled for misconduct. The leadership of both parties was very selective about whom they appointed to Ethics, and most members, reluctant to judge their colleagues, did whatever they could to avoid service on it. But I agreed and decided to take the request as something of a compliment to my responsibility and judgment rather than the result of Rhodes having been refused by all the more senior and wiser members. Besides, I thought it might be challenging, which turned out to be both true and an underestimate. During the 96th Congress, the committee would be busier