Lincoln Journal Star: Fortenberry Wants to Impact Big Issues

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Opportunity.

With a fourth term landslide tucked under his belt and the House switching to Republican control in January, Jeff Fortenberry is peering ahead.

He wants to be a congressman who matters.

"My primary interest is to have some impact on the most significant issues," the 1st District congressman said during a post-election interview in his Lincoln district office.

Those topics would include nuclear proliferation, health care and renewable energy, Fortenberry said.

He also plans to be engaged, as always, in promoting agricultural entrepreneurship.

Now, he said, there will be "a chance to get a better hearing for my political and philosophical ideas in committee."

And there may be "some significant options" for him to move up or broaden his reach on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Agriculture Committee, he said.

Or perhaps other committee opportunities to consider.

"If there's an option to strengthen my position, we'll take it," Fortenberry said.

Since his election to the House in 2004, Fortenberry has emerged as a policy-oriented, cerebral congressman who has chosen to engage in international issues and displayed an independent political bent.

Not unlike the man he succeeded.

Sure, there are big differences between Jeff Fortenberry and Doug Bereuter, but the similarities are striking.

Fortenberry, 49, is the most independent Republican member of Nebraska's congressional delegation.

He has become a recognized congressional voice on the dangerous issue of nuclear proliferation. And he sits on the subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, the center of the storm.

Last month, Foreign Policy magazine said Fortenberry's influence on nuclear issues could gain steam if the House switched to Republican control.

About the same time, Esquire magazine published a brief, but revealing, question-and-answer profile of Fortenberry online.

"I have degrees in economics and public policy," he said. "But I also have a desire to look into the deeper questions of life. My degree in theology was an important part of my formation."

Fortenberry also told Esquire readers Nebraska is more politically diverse and independent than they think.

"You might be looking at Nebraska through the lens of a red state," he said. "But there's political diversity here. President Obama won Lincoln with 53 percent of the vote. I also won Lincoln.

"People here pride themselves on independence."

In his Lincoln interview, Fortenberry said American voters reset the balance of power in Washington last week.

"Stop the elitism (of) a closed authoritarian system and get back to common-sense government," he said.

Collaboration is the key ingredient, he said.

What's been missing, Fortenberry said, is a process that "allows tough, painful amendments from the other side."

At the top of the agenda must be action to "get our fiscal house in order," he said.

Huge annual federal budget deficits and a soaring national debt seriously threaten the nation's economic vitality and unfairly burden future generations, Fortenberry said.

Fiscal restraint would be an effective economic stimulus, he said.

"If the government shows a spark of initiative, that will unleash economic potential and get money off the sidelines."

Then comes deficit reduction, the hard task of "turning the battleship around."

Fortenberry supports extension of all Bush-era tax cuts during the approaching lame-duck congressional session.

"That would help create an environment of certainty," he said.

Fortenberry said he will support an effort to repeal the new health care reform law, but wants it replaced with a series of reforms that reduce costs, protect vulnerable people and offer a new range of affordable, competitive insurance options.

The United States must help lead a vigorous and collaborative international effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Fortenberry said.

"That is one of the most serious questions facing the future of civilization," he said. "If a nuclear weapon goes off in New York or Washington or London or Berlin, it's a geopolitical game changer. The world would not be the same.

"We have to keep those weapons out of the hands of the wrong people," he said.

As for his own future, Fortenberry brushed aside speculation he might take a look at the 2012 Senate race.

"I was just re-elected to the House," he said.

"And I am very happy (to) serve in the people's house."

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