Chenoweth-Hage, Helen P. (Helen Palmer), 1938-2006

<p>Helen Palmer Chenoweth-Hage, born Helen Margaret Palmer (January 27, 1938 – October 2, 2006) was a Republican politician from the U.S. state of Idaho. She remains the only Republican woman to ever represent Idaho in the United States Congress.</p>

<p>Born in Kansas, her family moved west to Los Angeles when Helen was a year old, then north to southern Oregon when she was 12, to run a dairy farm near Grants Pass. A musician, horse enthusiast, and athlete, she attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington on music scholarship (double bass), where she met Nick Chenoweth while working in a cafeteria; she was a waitress and he was a cook. The two were married in 1958.</p>

<p>They had two children, Michael and Margaret (Meg), both born in Nick's hometown of Orofino, Idaho. The Chenoweths ran a ski shop near the modest Bald Mountain ski area. Later, Helen developed and managed the Northside Medical Clinic, where she initiated a physician recruitment practice for under-served rural communities, while Nick attended the UI law school in Moscow.</p>

<p>Elected during the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, Idaho Representative Helen P. Chenoweth cast herself as a conservative populist and states’ rights advocate by challenging everything from enhanced environmental regulations to affirmative action. Outspoken and, at times, controversial, Congressman Chenoweth, as she preferred to be called, focused on natural resource policy in western states.</p>

<p>Helen Palmer was born in Topeka, Kansas, on January 27, 1938, daughter of Dwight and Ardelle Palmer. After graduating from Grants Pass High School in Grants Pass, Oregon, she attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, from 1955 until 1958. At Whitworth, Helen Palmer met and married Nick Chenoweth, and they raised two children: Margaret and Michael. The Chenoweths later divorced; Helen Chenoweth eventually married Wayne Hage. Several years after leaving college, Helen Chenoweth was self-employed as a medical and legal management consultant from 1964 to 1975. She managed a local medical center. She later entered politics, focusing on public affairs and policy. Her work as a lecturer at the University of Idaho School of Law and consultation experience landed her a position as the state executive director of the Idaho Republican Party, where she served from 1975 until 1977. From 1977 to 1978 she served as the chief of staff to Idaho Congressman Steven Douglas Symms. In 1978 Chenoweth and a business partner founded a lobbying group which handled issues related to natural resources, energy policy, environmental policy, government contracts, and political management.</p>

<p>In 1994 Chenoweth challenged two-term incumbent Democrat Larry LaRocco in an Idaho district that encompassed 19 counties along the state’s western border, including its northern panhandle. She campaigned with the promise that the state economy came above and before state wildlife and recreation. She vowed to fight the “War on the West”—the name she gave to federal policies in the 1990s which raised fees on commercial mining, logging, and grazing on federal property. Her positions on sensitive environmental issues rankled activists. Chenoweth suggested that a state recreational area be used for metal mining, and later, in order to solve overpopulation of elk, proposed that a hunting season be opened in Yellowstone National Park. During a radio debate, Chenoweth claimed that her opposition to abortion rights should not be a pivotal election issue since she viewed it as a matter to be decided in the individual states, not Congress. It “is a non-issue because Roe v. Wade must be overturned in whole or part and the state must respond to the Supreme Court decision by altering the state code,” Chenoweth said. “In Idaho, a woman has the legal right to have an abortion. That is already on the books. An alteration to that will come at the state, not the federal level.” She also pledged herself to a three-term limit in Congress, a promise which she later fulfilled. LaRocco charged her with being a “stealth candidate” and evasive on critical issues because her positions were “extreme.” Nevertheless, Chenoweth prevailed by a 55-to-45 percent margin. She narrowly won re-election in 1996, surviving a challenge from Democrat Dan Williams with a 50-to-48 percent win, in which a third-party candidate contended. In her final re-election bid in 1998, Chenoweth again dispatched Williams with 55 percent of the vote.</p>