Freshman Rod Blum flies solo on his mission to change Congress

Susan Davis | USA TODAY

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Freshman Republican Rep. Rod Blum says he did not come to Congress to make friends, and he is doing everything he can to prove it.

With a career in public office that spans just four months, the wealthy former businessman has made it his central focus to change the way Congress treats itself by supporting efforts to strip away the trappings of elective office.

Blum, 60, started a caucus for lawmakers who support term limits. He co-sponsored legislation to end lawmakers' access to first class travel and luxury car leases. He supports ending the congressional pension system, and he's introduced a bill to institute a lifetime ban on lawmakers ever becoming lobbyists.

His actions have delivered few allies and cost him early party support in his competitive eastern Iowa district, but Blum says he is just getting started.

"It comes from 587 days of campaigning for this position and listening to people. It may have been the No. 1 topic. The anger out there against members of Congress is very high," Blum told USA TODAY.

"I think people are really, really tired of what they perceive to be the ruling class, the political class," he said. "Their pay goes up. They can fly first class. They can drive fancy cars. And taxpayers are paying for this."

A LONELY ROAD

Blum sent a message when he cast the first vote of his career against Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to lead the party in the U.S. House. He was one of 25 lawmakers who voted against the speaker and one of just three freshmen.

"No, absolutely not," Blum said, when asked if he had any lingering regrets about his opening act of party disloyalty. "It's not a vote against John Boehner. It was a vote against the status quo."

Blum says he's unaware of any repercussions for his vote but concedes: "You don't know what you haven't been invited to."

His provocations have garnered few cheerleaders inside the Beltway.

Just three GOP colleagues have joined his term-limits caucus. He is notably absent from the House Republican campaign operation's "Patriot Program," a fundraising arm for the party's most vulnerable incumbents, despite representing the second most Democratic-leaning district currently held by a Republican. Illinois GOP Rep. Bob Dold tops the list of 11 GOP incumbents who represent districts that favor or tie with Democrats for party advantage.

"We have multiple rounds of our Patriot Program that will continue to be released throughout the cycle," said Katie Martin, a spokesman for the GOP campaign operation, when asked about Blum's absence to date.

Even before he distanced himself from the Washington establishment, Blum was a top target for Democrats. Not only does the district tilt in their favor, but the larger, more diverse presidential year electorate will be more favorable for the party than the smaller, older, whiter and more conservative midterm electorate that delivered Blum's upset victory last year.

But his eastern Iowa district does not fit neatly in the Democratic column. More than one-third of the district's voters are registered independents. And his populist, anti-Washington message has cross-party appeal, even if it's an agenda that has little chance of becoming law.

"It's good politics to talk about ending perks when you're a freshman member of Congress from a swing district," said David Wasserman, an elections analyst for the non-partisan Cook Political Report. "You can cobble together all of these members from swing districts who support these reforms, but they are vastly outnumbered by the members who oppose them."

At least three Democrats are vying for the party's nomination to take on Blum. Andy McGuire, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, cast Blum as an out-of-touch millionaire aligned with the Tea Party wing of the GOP and not middle-class workers.

His vote for a more conservative version of the GOP budget and his vote against a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security have provided early fuel for next year's campaign.

"It's because of these out-of-touch priorities that Iowa Democrats are confident Rod Blum will be a one-term congressman," McGuire said.

NOT A CAPITOL HILL LIFER

Blum is a conservative, even if he avoids the term. "I don't like labels. When someone says, 'You're conservative,' I say, 'I'm common-sense.'"

He supports repealing President Obama's health care law and opposed his executive actions to delay deportations for millions of undocumented. He wants to lower current individual and corporate tax rates, and he voted for a more conservative version of the GOP budget. While his views align with Tea Party-styled conservatives in the House, his rhetoric is more in line with a representative from a swing seat.

"I've met a lot of really cool Democrats," he said. He's co-sponsored legislation with freshman Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham of Florida and started the term limits caucus with Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-Texas.

Despite bipartisan allies, Blum concedes his initiatives won't pass. "It's kind of like asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving," he said.

Shunned by congressional party leaders, Blum nonetheless spends an inordinate amount of time for a freshman with the GOP presidential field, who are eager to court his district's voters ahead of the Iowa Caucuses.

He's appeared with eight presidential candidates in the past year, most recently a Tuesday rally for neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Last month, he appeared with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He uses those moments to raise campaign funds and promote his agenda.

"If one of them becomes president, that's where a lot of this stuff starts, at the top in the White House," Blum said. "If we got a president believed in one of these or two of them or all of them, we would see things happen."

He has not self term-limited, but estimates that he will not be in Congress 10 years from now. He's currently working on another piece of legislation that would tie lawmakers' salaries to wage growth for the average American worker.

"People feel like the politicians in D.C. are so disconnected from reality and so disconnected from their everyday lives. I would like to do my part to align the incentives with the people."

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