Kaleb Poor
Staff Writer
Elections in the United States have been said to always be best understood as referendums on the incumbent. If that holds to be true, then Cynthia Lummis is betting her Senate candidacy on conservative support of President Donald Trump.
“I served in Congress with Mike Pence,” Lummis said. “We were very close friends and continue to be, and having those relationships in this administration… is a fundamental advantage… I served in the House with Mick Mulvaney, who’s acting [White House] chief of staff, and we were very good friends.”
Lummis, a former four-term member of the House of Representatives, said she sees herself as a “constitutional conservative” first and foremost. A long-time conservative hardliner, she supports building the southern border wall and reducing the national debt while opposing immigration sanctuaries and the expansion of drilling and mining operations into national parks and monuments.
“I absolutely do oppose oil and gas drilling and mining in national parks,” Lummis said. “I still oppose it and feel very strongly that national parks are set aside for one purpose: for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”
Lummis acknowledged she opposed the Trump administration on that issue. Expansion of mining and drilling operations into places like Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah has been a staple of the president’s actions during his first term.
While Lummis opposed surface mining and drilling in national parks and monuments, she made an important caveat to that position.
“National parks lands should not be encroached upon by oil and gas,” Lummis said, “unless it can be done through horizontal drilling. If there are areas in our country where we can drill horizontally, and not disturb the surface in any way, and recover some important strategic resources under national park land – that I wouldn’t oppose.”
Opposition to the Trump administration’s actions essentially ended there for Lummis. She was quick to illustrate her support for using military construction funds to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, a key campaign promise which the president has been unable to fulfil through regular legislative means.
“I support the president’s decision to take money out of the military’s construction budget to reallocate it to building the wall over the course of his second term,” Lummis said. “I also support building the wall in those areas that are land-to-land crossings… much of the border with Texas is bounded by the river, and that is a very different situation which needs to be addressed separately.”
When asked how she reconciles her fiscal conservatism with the staggering costs of building and maintaining a border wall, Lummis shrugged the question off.
“Any expenditure conflicts with fiscal conservatism,” Lummis said. “I turn to the constitution. The nation’s constitutional responsibilities that were, by the founding fathers, delegated to the federal government as opposed to the states and the people, are the ones that I believe should have our priority.”
As a founding member of the controversial Freedom Caucus, Lummis maintains a strong pro-state, anti-federal overreach position. That position seemed to inform her opposition to increasing the federal minimum wage, which currently sits at $7.25/hour.
“The answer is I doubt [I could support it],” Lummis said. “If states want to impose an increase in the minimum wage… I think that’s the appropriate place to address increases in the minimum wage, not at the federal level.”
The current average cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in the United States is $963, according to a recent Apartment List report. In Wyoming, where the federal minimum wage is accepted, that average is $622.
Working for minimum wage in Wyoming, a full-time worker earns roughly $1,200 each month. After paying for rent, that leaves just $600 per month to pay for groceries, travel, insurance, and other basic needs like child care, school supplies, clothing and entertainment – and that is before taxes.
When asked if state inaction could reach a point where increasing the federal minimum wage would be appropriate, Lummis was hesitant to commit.
“I’ve listened to some of the people who have gone from being in the very beginning entry-level job at McDonalds or Burger King and now are the CEO’s of those companies,” Lummis said. “They have repeatedly said that, had there not been an opportunity to gain entry-level compensation and training… they would not have had that chance to improve themselves.”
Lummis went on to reference the rise of Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the only black Republican in the U.S. Senate, as an example of how low-wage workers can climb the social ladder if “they show up on time, they show up consistently, they are drug and alcohol free, and they are capable of consistency.”
Eventually, Lummis did say it would be conceivable she might vote for a minimum wage increase.
“Probably yes,” Lummis said. “But I think it would require a heavy disparity between what it costs to live and state’s failures to act… Is it possible that, at some point, the disparity between cost of living nationwide and compensation levels is so wide that I could see a path to a federal minimum wage increase? I think the answer is: possibly. Unlikely, but possibly.”
While Lummis conceded flexibility on the minimum wage issue, she rigidly opposed aggressive action to combat climate change. She vehemently opposed the Green New Deal, where she said “focusing on fossil fuels… as the culprit for climate change is misplaced,” and that agricultural carbon-capture and sequestration methods are the best way to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
“The notion that there is no such thing as clean coal, that oil and gas and other hydrocarbons are the culprit behind climate change, is something that I fundamentally reject,” said Lummis. “We all want a cleaner environment, me included, so that’s why I’m supportive of continuing our work in carbon capture, it’s why I support all-of-the-above for energy.”
Lummis appeared to struggle to say the phrase “climate change.”
While soil cultivation does produce greenhouse gasses, Lummis’ position contradicts the overwhelming scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is a primary driver of global climate deterioration. Additionally, among the goals of the Green New Deal is an overhaul of U.S. agricultural industry practices.
Lummis faces four Republican and three Democrat challengers for retiring Mike Enzi’s Senate seat. Whether or not her House experience, hardline conservative positions and name recognition translate to statewide support is anyone’s guess until voters head to the polls on Nov. 3.
