Ex-Idaho lawmaker killed in crash

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Helen Chenoweth-Hage, a conservative Republican firebrand who served three terms as an Idaho congresswoman, was killed Monday when she was thrown from a vehicle that overturned on an isolated central Nevada highway.

A daughter, Meg Chenoweth Keenan, said her mother was a passenger in the SUV that flipped just before noon Monday on state Route 376, the main highway between her Pine Creek Ranch in Monitor Valley and Tonopah.

The Nevada Highway Patrol said Chenoweth-Hage, 68, was pronounced dead at the scene. Though other family members were in the car – including the driver, daughter-in-law Yelena Hage, 24, and Hage’s 5-month-old son Bryan Hage – no one else was seriously injured.

State trooper Rocky Gonzalez said Chenoweth-Hage was holding the baby and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Nevada law requires both seat belts and baby seats. He added both Chenoweth-Hage and the baby were thrown from the car but the child “miraculously” suffered only minor injuries.

Gonzalez said a preliminary investigation indicates driver inattention. He said the SUV, traveling toward Tonopah, drifted off the road to the right, swerved back to the left and then flipped as the driver overcorrected.

Chenoweth-Hage was killed four months after the death of her husband, Nevada rancher Wayne Hage, who battled the federal government for decades over public lands and private property rights and came to epitomize the Sagebrush Rebellion in the West. Hage had been ill and died in his sleep at age 69.

Chenoweth-Hage was elected to Congress from Idaho in 1994 and served three two-year terms. The outspoken advocate of smaller government and property rights chose not to run in 2000.

U.S. Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, who replaced Chenoweth, said he ran in 2000 only because she chose to retire.

“What a tragedy,” Otter said. “Helen was a person, whether in her private life or in her public service, who was dedicated to principles of limited government. In every sense of her being, she fought for the maximum individual liberty – and the minimum in government.”

“Helen was the most amazing, gracious person I ever had the privilege to know,” her daughter said in a statement. “She was fearless in life, and I know she welcomes the opportunity to be in the presence of God her father.”

Chenoweth-Hage championed conservative candidates across Idaho, often making appearances even after her self-imposed tenure in Congress ended. She stumped for Idaho Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, when he initially ran for the Idaho House in 1994.

“She was so much a part of Idaho,” Hart said. “And for those of us who are conservatives, she was really a leader among us.”

Hart characterized her as a classy and gutsy woman who handled herself with dignity. “She was so sure of herself and of her belief system. I think it added to her credibility,” he said.

Idaho Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, knew Chenoweth-Hage from her years as executive director of the Idaho Republican Party. At the time, Nonini was the party’s Kootenai County chairman. “She stayed active helping local candidates,” Nonini said, even though Chenoweth-Hage supported his opponent in the 2004 election. “We’ve lost a great conservative.”

Idaho Sen. Skip Brandt, R-Kooskia, got Chenoweth-Hage’s endorsement in the crowded 1st Congressional District primary this spring. She accompanied him to Washington, D.C., for a fund-raising trip in 2005.

“It was just amazing the admiration and respect she had back there still to this day,” Brandt said, recalling that at one point their taxi was surrounded by lobbyists and congressional staffers wanting to exchange business cards and cell phone numbers with the former congresswoman.

“She was apologizing quite a bit because I was supposed to be the focus,” he said.

Chenoweth-Hage made up for it when she cooked a hearty ranch breakfast of bacon and eggs for Brandt each morning while they stayed at the home of a former staffer. Brandt said she became a wonderful cook once she left Congress and moved to Hage’s isolated Nevada ranch, where there was no telephone, no cell service and e-mail only when the generator was fired up.

“She went from the D.C. Beltway and all the amenities to a ranch that she really loved,” he said.

Born in Topeka, Kan., Chenoweth-Hage grew up in Grants Pass, Ore., and attended Whitworth College in Spokane before moving to the North Idaho timber town of Orofino, where she worked at Northside Medical Center.

She became a well-known political name in Idaho when she moved to Boise in the 1970s, leading the state GOP and becoming U.S. Rep. Steven Symms’ chief of staff.

She ran for Congress against incumbent Democrat Larry LaRocco and gained national attention when she held “endangered salmon bakes,” serving canned salmon and ridiculing the listing of Idaho salmon as an endangered species during fundraisers.

Chenoweth-Hage also said that salmon aren’t endangered but white males are, complained about government “black helicopters” harassing ranchers and called for disarming federal resource enforcement agents.

She drew widespread criticism in 1997 for an interview with The Spokesman-Review in which she suggested that blacks and Hispanics have never been attracted to North Idaho because of its climate.

“The warm-climate community just hasn’t found the colder climate that attractive,” Chenoweth-Hage told the newspaper. She also said she believes North Idaho has plenty of ethnic diversity: “We have Poles, people from Scandinavia, people from England, people from Italy.”

She also suggested that Hispanics weren’t attracted to North Idaho because “we just don’t have that much agricultural crop harvesting up north.”

Chenoweth-Hage later apologized for those statements.

She also said she suffered from unjustified media criticism because she was a woman and because she stood firmly for Western rights, independence and sovereignty.

During her congressional career, Chenoweth-Hage was the victim of a “salmon pie” attack while at a field hearing on forest health in Missoula. Randall Mark of Moscow, Idaho, hit her in the head with a pie made of rotten canned salmon, forcing the meeting to adjourn for an hour while she cleaned her hair and jacket.

Afterward, the congresswoman joked, “I would like to say that I find it amusing that they used salmon. I guess salmon must not be endangered anymore.” The stunt landed Mark in jail for more than two months. He also got a year of probation.

She married Hage in 1999 in Meridian, Idaho, at a ceremony attended by more than 1,000 guests. In 2000, Chenoweth-Hage considered a possible bid for Idaho’s lieutenant governor’s post, but opted to work for a private property advocacy group in Boise.