It’s been a little over a year since U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-8) took office, and both the first term congressman and his political opposition have been busy in that time.
Beyer had what he calls “two and a half” bills passed this year. It’s not high profile legislation, but for a congressman in the minority, Beyer says he’s proud of them. The half-bill was part of legislation attached to the highway bill. Beyer’s amendment returned control over towing to local jurisdictions, the beginning of a process to stop the predatory towing that’s troubled Arlington County in recent years.
The first full legislation was a science prize bill — essentially, a bounty on the American scientific communities toughest problems.
“NASA has been using cash prizes for years to engage people to solve math problems,” said Beyer. “This extended that to the National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control. It’s engaging more citizens in solving some of the nation’s most difficult problems.”
The other legislation was a bill supporting resources to the National Science Foundation for research into the causes and treatment for dyslexia. Beyer’s cosponsor on the bill was Lamar Smith, a Republican representative from Texas. While politically opposed on many issues, Beyer says he was surprised by how cordial relations were between members of the two political parties.
“It’s actually friendlier than I thought,” said Beyer. “The outside perspective is that it’s dysfunctional and everyone hates each other, but that’s not true. It’s very easy to walk on either side of the aisle and have positive conversations. A lot of people, I think their votes would be different if they were secret, but the great fear is being primaried and facing attacks from the extremes in their party.”
In his own district, Beyer doesn’t face any pressure from more hardline Democrats challenging his reelection bid, at least not yet.
However, the Republican challengers are already starting to line up. The loudest voice of opposition so far has been Mike Webb, a Republican and a retired army officer. Webb has attacked Beyer on everything from climate change to Beyer’s handling of minority groups within his district. Webb’s campaign has started as grassroots as they come in the 21st century, with a Facebook page, and then local farmer’s markets and churches when that started gaining a following. While no candidates have officially filed paperwork for the November election yet, the name of the facebook page, “Mike Webb for Congress,” could be an indication of Webb’s intention to run against Beyer. The page has 658 likes, the currency of the social media movements, which leaves him with a gap if he hopes to catch up with Beyer’s 3,033 likes by the November election.
Webb is unabashedly conservative.
“I have a straight conservative message,” said Webb. “I’m not watering that down. I’m not a progressive or a liberal.”
Webb’s priorities sync up with his image as a true-red conservative.
“My main issue of concern is the Right to Life,” said Webb. “I do not understand how we can forget those without a voice and call it ‘pro-choice.’”
While the legalization of abortion was ultimately a Supreme Court decision, Webb says he would support everything from defunding Planned Parenthood to a constitutional amendment to stop abortions. On the topic of removing funding from Planned Parenthood, an organization that has been at the center of national controversy, Webb said that taking away government funding from the group was necessary.
“Legislation isn’t a scalpel,” said Webb. “It’s not a surgical remedy, but you can apply a hammer to things that are wrong. When you’re killing innocent babies, there’s nothing more wrong than that.”
As a military veteran, Webb also expressed concern that the United States is not sufficiently supporting its armed forces. Webb said that his priority would be ensuring that the military, especially the overburdened special operations branches, receive sufficient funding for their operations. Webb also noted that, had he been in Congress at the time, he would not have supported a nuclear deal with Iran.
The 8th District hasn’t had a Republican representative since 1990, when Jim Moran unseated Republican Stanford Parris. In the 2014 election, Beyer claimed 63 percent of the vote, with a 64,292 vote lead over Republican challenger Micah Edmond. On the surface, Webb admits he and Edmond share similarities. Both are conservative African-Americans with a military background. However, Webb says the similarities end there. Webb says Edmond failed to capitalize on the strong African-American communities of faith. For that matter, Webb says Beyer has also neglected the African-American communities of faith.
Webb says his campaign has two things going for it: Webb’s strong roots in the local African-American community, and an incumbent he has accused of “not doing his job.”
“[Beyer] says ‘critical pieces of legislation have passed’, but one is an amendment for towing legislation,” said Webb. “it’s not the most important issue.”
But Beyer says he spends as much time in Congress playing defense as he does pushing forward legislation.
“On the [House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology], we tend to be dominated by climate change skeptics and deniers,” said Beyer. “We often have to speak in defense of existing [environmental legislation] and resist attempts to overthrow them.”
But as the minority, Beyer says he doesn’t always come out on the winning side of that fight. In particular, Beyer says he’s been fighting against H.R. 2295, a bill that would allow natural gas pipelines rights-of-way through all federal lands, including National Parks.
“I fought that at committee level and floor level, and I lost both times,” said Beyer, “but I don’t think it will pass the Senate or President. In the meantime, we’ve created a lot of arguments about why that was a bad bill.”
There’s not a lot of instant gratification in legislation, one of the lessons Beyer has learned from his first term in congress, and one he hopes he’ll be able to expand on in a second term.
“You have to be patient and take the long view, especially being in the minority party,” said Beyer. “My top priority is still the carbon tax and economic dividend … but, you also realize you’re not going to get it done in the 114th Congress. But maybe I can get it done in the 115th or 116th. I just have to make the case as best I can.”