SPOKANE, Wash. — George Nethercutt, Jr., a former U.S. House Representative from Eastern Washington, has died. He was 79 years old.
Nethercutt, a Republican, won the 1994 election against Tom Foley, who was Speaker of the House at the time and had won 15 elections. This victory marked the first time since the Civil War that a sitting Speaker of the House was defeated.
Nethercutt served in the House for 10 years.
"George Nethercutt was a good man focused keenly on what mattered most to the people he served. Today’s politicians should take a lesson from how he worked," said Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh.
"My heart is sad. George Nethercutt was a giant amongst men who served the people of Eastern Washington with honor and patriotism for a decade," Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers said in a statement on Facebook. "George was a man of character who led with kindness and conviction, and he was a person I proudly looked up to long before the day I was sworn in to represent the Fifth District we shared such a love for."
KREM 2 is still working to determine Nethercutt's cause of death.
In 2016, KREM 2's Whitney Ward spoke with Nethercutt about his political career. When asked if he missed running for office, this was his response:
"No, I'm glad I'm out of it. I'm glad that I'm not part of it. I loved my 10 years. I loved Eastern Washington. I wanted to help Eastern Washington. But now, it's so partisan, and it's so divided. You can't have Democrats as friends. I had a lot of friends who were Democrats, and I had Republican friends, too. But today, it is very divided. You are either for us, or against us, and I think that is the wrong way to run a country."
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