Fuhrman Becomes Voice Of Compromise Kettle Conservative Tempers Beliefs With Pragmatism

As lawmakers struggled to pass a budget this session, Rep. Steve Fuhrman emerged as a key player urging, of all things, compromise on the abortion issue.

House members approved a budget more than a month ago that cut off all public funds for abortions and put the issue to a public vote. But the Democrat-dominated Senate said it would never agree.

To end the legislative session, lawmakers had to come to agreement on the issue. Abortion proved one of the final obstacles in the way of adjournment, finally resolved on Tuesday, the last day of a 30-day special session.

For weeks, Fuhrman, R-Kettle Falls, met quietly with some of the most conservative House GOP members, to help break the stalemate.

“God’s word tells us that our responsibility is to shout from the rooftops that abortion is wrong. He doesn’t tell us to force other people to correct that wrong,” he said. “You don’t force the Senate to do their job. We don’t control it. And the people can decide for themselves if the House or Senate did a better job.”

That Furhman has emerged as a moderating voice on social issues shows just how conservative the House has become, some said.

“When I first got here he was this guy who was regarded a lunatic far right fringe,” said Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Spanaway, first elected to the Legislature in 1992 as a Democrat. “Now he’s in the middle. I think that’s really funny. But everything is relative, right?

“He’s a voice of reason. He’s rock solid in his beliefs, but he also has a view of how the process works.”

Fuhrman has credibility among social conservatives on the abortion issue, House GOP members say. He is a 12-year veteran of the Legislature, and a staunch abortion foe.

Fuhrman says he decided to run for office after a dream in which he sensed God was speaking to him, molding and making him into a Christian legislator, a vessel for God’s use in the state capitol.

Fuhrman said social conservatives like him can take comfort in the fact that the House budget made no exceptions for rape or incest when it cut off public funds for abortion.

“It’s still God’s baby, whether it was conceived by regular love or by incest. Political pragmatism tells you we’d get the votes if we added those exceptions, but I think we won by keeping it pure. That helps my own conscience,” Fuhrman said.

House leaders say they have come to count on Fuhrman’s unique credibility with GOP social conservatives.

“He’s been here so long, and been such a vocal spokesman on these issues he has absolute credibility,” said Rep. Dale Foreman, R-Wenatchee, House majority leader. “They would listen to him when they might not listen to me.

“I am pro-life, but I am not quite the same as they are.”

Rep. Larry Sheahan, R-Rosalia, chairman of the House Law and Justice Committee, said Fuhrman has also served as a teacher this session, showing freshman conservatives the ropes of pragmatic politics.

“It shows growth, not just in him, but in the whole conservative movement. People who came in with Reagan are learning how to be effective, how to get half a piece of pie if you don’t get the whole thing, and focus on the long-term goals and issues that are doable.”

Nonetheless, after 12 years in the Legislature, Fuhrman said he will step down at the end of this term in 1996, to return to running his feed store in Kettle Falls.

“I believe in term limits, and by then I will have been here 14 years,” Furhman said. “I also realize that at 49 years of age it might be kind of fun to be out in the real world running my business again. Then when I’m 58 or 60, maybe I’ll run again.”