Cramer Shrugs Office Partisan Attacks While Living In His Office
~by Dale Wetzel – Dale@GreatPlainsExaminer.com~
BISMARCK, N.D. (GPN) — Facing his first re-election campaign as North Dakota’s Republican congressman, Kevin Cramer is taking flak for Congress’ struggles in approving federal farm legislation _ and even for his own campaign fundraising.
He points instead to what he says are some of his House legislative successes, including proposals to preserve the Minuteman III missile force at the Minot Air Force Base, give states new authority to regulate coal ash recycling and block the Army Corps of Engineers from charging for water taken from Lake Sakakawea and other Missouri River reservoirs.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is considering new regulations for coal ash, which is produced in western North Dakota’s electric power plants and used in construction materials. The House bill would allow states to run their own coal ash regulatory programs.
“There will be a lot of things to talk about in a campaign besides the farm bill,” Cramer said.
In any case, Cramer and his Democratic opponent next year shouldn’t have much trouble grabbing a share of next year’s election spotlight.
The U.S. House campaign will be leading the ticket of statewide officeholders, without competition from races for the U.S. Senate or governor, both of which overshadowed Cramer’s successful 2012 House run against former Democratic state Rep. Pam Gulleson.
The House race’s closest competitor for public attention may be a proposed constitutional amendment, Measure 1, that would add anti-abortion language to the constitution. It reads: “The inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.”
So far, Cramer’s most glaring political liability has been the House’s struggles over farm legislation, which resulted in the chamber severing the bill’s longstanding political link between farm subsidy programs and food stamps. Without food stamps, the farm bill’s cost over five years is $196 billion; with them, its cost swells to $940 billion.
Farm groups worry the strategy will give urban legislators no reason to support farm programs, and North Dakota Democrats were quick to denounce it. Cramer “decided to follow the extreme and irresponsible pack” in supporting farm legislation without its food-stamp element, said Chad Oban, director of the North Dakota Democratic Party.
“While Cramer and the Republicans will want to pat themselves on the back for passing this bill, the reality is they have executed a strategy that tremendously weakens the possibility of a comprehensive farm bill passing,” Oban said.
Cramer believes dealing separately with federal farm policy and food stamps will promote “a more transparent, honest discussion” of both issues.
“Was it a good idea from a strategic standpoint in order to pass a farm bill? It might not have been so great,” Cramer said. “But I think it was the right thing to do. I think there are lots of things where doing the right thing might not seem like the good thing.
“I think when you have a trillion-dollar appropriation where only 20 percent of it is about agriculture, you tend not to have an honest discussion about agriculture policy,” Cramer continued. “I’m not afraid to have that.”
Cramer has yet to begin preparing in earnest for a re-election campaign, if his fundraising numbers are any indication.
His most recent Federal Election Commission disclosure report showed Cramer’s campaign treasury with $85,846 on hand, while raising $123,505 over the first six months of the year.
By comparision, U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem, the incumbent South Dakota Republican congresswoman who is up for her third term next year, has raised $651,323 this year and has $525,952 cash in the bank, her FEC report says.
North Dakota Democrats say Cramer’s comparatively anemic fundraising is evidence of his unpopularity. “When he’s not ignoring the concerns of middle-class North Dakotans, he isn’t raising any money,” Oban said.
Cramer said he had been focusing on his work. “I haven’t engaged in any fundraising,” he said.
“If I had spent the first six months just raising money instead of passing a farm bill, I wonder how that would have gone over,” he said. “I’m a freshman trying to get a job done … You could spend a lot of time raising money, or you could spend a lot of your time working on legislation.”
Personally, Cramer has been saving money by taking the unusual step of living in his office. In the evenings, he sleeps on an air mattress in a cramped office hallway; his clothes hang just outside his office bathroom. He showers in the House’s members-only gym, where he waxes rhapsodic about the water pressure of the showers _ “It’s almost like it’s coming out of a fire hydrant,” he says.
The alternative to sleeping in his office, Cramer says, would be to give up his Bismarck home, move his family to Washington and pay at least $2,000 a month to rent an apartment. “It’s about the Williston rate,” he jokes, referring to the cost of living in the northwestern North Dakota oil boomtown.
Cramer estimates that more than 80 members of Congress live in their offices, including Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the chairman of the House Budget Committee and last year’s Republican vice presidential candidate.
Members of Congress are paid $174,000 annually, but Cramer says he had more disposable income in his previous job as a North Dakota public service commissioner, where he was paid almost $96,000 annually.
“It’s almost impossible not to, if you’re not wealthy. Either that, or you give up one home,” he said. “To add a $2,000 monthly rent is literally impossible.”