See ya, Devin Nunes. We deserve a representative who will actually meet with citizens

Wanted: A new member of Congress to represent Tulare County, Clovis and much of Fresno in the House of Representatives. Pay: $174,000 a year. Must be willing to work long hours in Washington, D.C. Must campaign for re-election every two years. Knowledge of the 22nd Congressional District a must.

That bare-bones job description now applies to the 22nd District, as Rep. Devin Nunes’ retirement became official in the waning minute of New Year’s Day.

Nunes, the Republican from Tulare, transmitted a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that his retirement was effective at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, and that he had notified Gov. Gavin Newsom of his departure. Newsom will now call for a special election so voters can choose a replacement to fill out the rest of Nunes’ term, which runs through this year.

Nunes decided to leave Congress rather than face a tough re-election prospect in a newly drawn district that’s much more favorable to a Democrat than a Republican.

He’s moving on to work for former President Donald Trump, a career change that The Bee Editorial Board had recommended for the past several years, given how Nunes had morphed into being a leading foot soldier for Trump, defending the president at every turn in countless Fox News appearances.

Key qualifications

With the vacancy comes the chance for voters to consider what qualifications the successor should possess. Here are key standards the Editorial Board offers as a starting point:

▪ A commitment to meet regularly with average citizens. The last record The Bee has of Nunes meeting with constituents in a typical town hall came in 2009. In recent years, he would only gather with specific like-minded interest groups or in fundraising events that bore a hefty admission.

Meeting with the citizens that one represents in Congress is a minimal performance measure every House and Senate member should achieve without fail. “We the people” are not empty words, but the north star of democracy.

▪ Similarly, the new representative should have the courage to face the press. Nunes was infamous for only granting interviews to friendly media outlets, such as Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday program on Fox News or Ray Appleton’s KMJ radio show. Nunes refused to engage with reporters from news outlets like The Bee who might ask probing questions. This, despite the fact he was one of the most senior and powerful Republicans in Congress.

▪ The next representative should understand the demographics and needs of the 22nd District. It is one of the poorer districts in the nation: 15.2% of residents live in poverty, which is 25% higher than the national rate and 1.3 times higher than California’s rate. Yet Nunes voted in 2017 for the GOP-backed reversal of Obamacare. If that had gone through, more than 70,000 people in the district would have lost health-care coverage.

Commitment to the truth

Finally, the next representative should be committed to the truth and facts.

It is amazing that such a sentence needs to be written, but such is the state of one of America’s two main political parties, the GOP. The University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll released last week found that 71% of Republicans continue to think that President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump was illegitimate. This despite there being zero proof of such, regardless of how often Trump claims the election was stolen from him.

Here are some facts:

▪ Trump filed 62 lawsuits to try to overturn the 2020 election. He failed to gain an inch in all but one case. In that single instance, some voter identifications in Pennsylvania were found to be improper, but the outcome in that state did not change.

▪ As another example, Republicans in Arizona forced a recount of ballots in Maricopa County, home to the Phoenix metro area. They wanted to find votes for Trump to flip the state from Biden to the GOP. Guess what? When the Cyber Ninja recount was over, Trump actually lost votes and Biden still won.

The bottom line: Whoever fills out the remaining months of Nunes’ term must be committed to telling the truth. In light of the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, there can be no exception.

This story was originally published January 3, 2022 at 2:34 PM.