Nethercutt papers to reside in Foley Center
SPOKANE - Politics, and political papers, can make for some strange bedfellows.
The congressional papers of Republican George Nethercutt, which were donated last year to Gonzaga University, will be housed in a building named for the parents of former Democratic House Speaker Thomas Foley.
Foley was defeated by Nethercutt in the 1994 election that shifted congressional power to the GOP. Foley, who represented Eastern Washington in Congress for 30 years, was the first House speaker since 1860 to be ousted from office.
The George R. Nethercutt Jr. Reading Room will be on the third floor of the Ralph E. and Helen Higgins Foley Center. It was scheduled to be dedicated this afternoon.
Ralph and Helen Foley were parents of the former House speaker and ambassador to Japan.
Nethercutt, a 1971 Gonzaga University School of Law graduate, as a student clerked briefly for Ralph Foley, who was a Spokane County Superior Court judge.