WASHINGTON — For the tea party-backed Republican freshmen who took the U.S. Capitol by storm in January, it’s been quite a year. For Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, who vaulted past his party’s preferred candidate and a well-financed incumbent to get to Congress, it’s also been a difficult one.

Labrador, who turned 44 Thursday, rode a wave of discontent to Washington, and he and his fellow Republican freshmen have tried to shake up Congress.

Labrador knew the pace would be slow, but he’s found it to be slower than he thought.

“I knew it was hard for politicians to make tough decisions,” Labrador said. “I didn’t realize how hard.”

While some of his colleagues have aligned themselves with Republican leaders, Labrador’s votes have sometimes put him at odds with his party.

Labrador voted against House Speaker John Boehner on a deal to raise the debt limit because it didn’t contain enough spending cuts; co-sponsored a bill to end energy subsidies some members of his party support, especially for ethanol; and broke with Republicans’ hard-line stance on immigration, which he thinks is hurting the party.

He took on President Barack Obama by voting to repeal the landmark federal health care law; introduced a bill that would require congressional approval when a president designates national monuments; and demanded the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder over weapons that found their way to drug gangs in Mexico.

“We’ve been working on things mostly about economic freedom and getting government off our backs,” Labrador said.

Of course, the health care law wasn’t repealed, the bill to raise the debt ceiling passed, and Holder still has his job. Labrador’s monument bill remains in committee, and an immigration bill he introduced has yet to be considered. But Labrador thinks he’s doing a good job.

“I didn’t come here to be re-elected,” he said. “I came here to do the right things.”

A SECOND TERM

In 2010, Labrador ousted Democrat Walt Minnick with 51 percent of the vote in an election that was tough for incumbents, even conservative Democrats like Minnick who often broke with their party. But Minnick won the seat two years earlier by knocking off an incumbent Republican, Bill Sali, who had served for only one term.

“That seat has been kind of an accidental seat,” said John Freemuth, a political scientist at Boise State University. “The upset of Minnick had a lot to do with the tide.”

Idaho Democratic Party Chairman Larry Grant said that not only is Labrador not doing the right things — he isn’t doing anything.

“He’s done absolutely nothing,” Grant said of Labrador. “He won’t win a second term. His votes are on the wrong side for Idaho.”

AN OPPONENT EMERGES

Grant has recruited Jimmy Farris, a 33-year-old former National Football League wide receiver for the Washington Redskins, Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots, to run against Labrador.

“He’s shown little interest in Idaho,” Farris said in an interview. “He’s a tea party spokesman.”

Farris doesn’t have donors, staff or a campaign website but notes he’s in a position similar to where Labrador was in 2010 — up against vastly better-financed opponents.

“He knows what’s possible when you’re in this position,” Farris said. “Organization and message beats money every time.”

Labrador doesn’t have a primary challenger and faces a Democrat who’s far behind in his fundraising efforts. But Freemuth wonders whether Labrador is raising enough.

“He’s certainly aware that first-term incumbents are the most vulnerable,” Freemuth said. “You’d think he’d have more of a war chest to scare off any potential challengers.”

As of Sept. 30, the most recent figures available from the Federal Election Commission, Labrador had raised more than $270,000 for his re-election campaign, with nearly $138,000 in cash on hand.

Labrador’s campaign has one employee on its payroll: his wife. The Spokesman-Review reported in October that Becca Labrador is paid $2,500 a month to manage the campaign funds. The practice of paying spouses for campaign work, while legal, came under scrutiny in 2007 after a California congressman was found to be paying his wife a percentage of his campaign contributions. The House voted to ban spouses from receiving campaign money, but the Senate didn’t go along.

“The entire operation is so lean,” John Goodwin, Labrador’s chief of staff, told the Spokesman. “All those reimbursements are actually saving the campaign money, and it’s being run very frugally.”

FLOUTING CONVENTION

Like many in the freshman class, Labrador wasn’t the pick of his party’s establishment. He also wasn’t favored to win in the general election. But 2010 wasn’t a conventional year by anyone’s standard.

And Labrador wasn’t a conventional candidate: He was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Las Vegas, became a Mormon and then an immigration attorney, and was elected to two terms in the Idaho Legislature.

Although Labrador’s personal story might set him apart, his political philosophy fits his conservative district.

Colleagues in both parties found themselves on opposing sides with him. Still, they described him as likable, passionate and skilled at making his point.

“I think that Raul has always been very independent. I think that’s a great asset,” said Mike Moyle, the Idaho House majority leader. “You may not always agree, but when he makes a decision, you know where he stands.”

“He’s a really good speaker, and he gets his message across,” said Rep. Wendy Jaquet, a Democrat from Ketchum. “He’s a good politician. I don’t happen to agree with him philosophically.”

Jaquet initially tried to recruit Labrador to run for the Legislature — as a Democrat. She’d noticed his work as an immigration attorney, and thought he’d make a good candidate.

“I came up to him and said, ‘You want to run?’ He laughed,” she said. “We’ve never really forgotten this.”

GOING HIS OWN WAY

If Boehner and other Republican congressional leaders had wanted to know what to expect from Labrador, they also might have talked to Idaho’s Republican Gov. Butch Otter.

In 2009, Otter proposed a 2-cent increase in the state’s gasoline tax to pay for road improvements. The proposal would have created construction jobs, and like other recession-battered states, Idaho could have used them.

But a tax increase is a tax increase, and then-state legislator Labrador helped defeat one of Otter’s biggest legislative priorities.

“Raul captured the anti-tax fervor, rather than thinking about what might be good for the long run,” Jaquet said. “That was the point the governor was trying to make.”

Labrador, meanwhile, wasn’t done making his point.

This past summer, Congress took up the once-routine process of raising the national debt limit — but the new GOP majority had other ideas. Republicans wanted to attach deep spending cuts to the debt-limit increase — a weeks-long process that raised the unprecedented prospect of a U.S. government default.

A last-minute deal crafted by congressional leaders and Obama tied the debt ceiling increase to spending cuts of $917 billion over 10 years, with caps on future spending and no tax increases.

But to Labrador, it wasn’t big enough. He voted no.

“We never get a deal where there’s actual cuts, but we always get tax increases,” he said.

Labrador thinks that scrapping the tax code is a better way to raise revenues.

“I think we can get more revenues by reforming the tax code and making sure we have a flatter, fairer tax system,” he said.

NO AFFECTION FOR WASHINGTON

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee doesn’t list Labrador’s district as among its most competitive races next year. But spokeswoman Amber Moon insists he’s vulnerable “because of his extreme record of protecting tax breaks for millionaires and special interests while Idaho families are faced with tough choices.”

Labrador said Washington is a “beautiful city,” but he doesn’t like to spend more time in it than he has to. He spends four days a week in the capital, then goes back to Idaho, allowing him to talk to his constituents and spend time with his family.

Labrador thinks people who have spent their careers in Washington are out of touch with the people they represent.

“I’m not sure that our Founding Fathers expected this to be a full-time job,” he said. “The longer you’re here, the less you go back.”

Labrador credits his predecessor with being attentive to his constituents’ needs, and one of Labrador’s first moves was to hire Minnick’s director of constituent services.

“Our office is doing a tremendous job for the people of Idaho,” he said. “We opened and closed a case on the first day I was in office, and it has continued that way.”

More recently, Labrador hired Ellen Carmichael as his communications director. Carmichael held a press job for Herman Cain’s presidential campaign. She resigned that position in early October, before allegations of sexual harassment and marital infidelity roiled Cain’s campaign. Cain quit the Republican race a week ago.

If voters don’t send Labrador back to Idaho in 2012, watch what happens in 2014. He’s considered a potential candidate for governor if Otter, 69, doesn’t seek another term.

“Now maybe Congressman Labrador has many new ambitions,” Freemuth said. “That happens to people when they have success.”

Labrador said he’s honored to serve Idaho, and it’s up to voters whether that continues.

“The people of Idaho will decide whether they think that what I’m doing is right or not, and they’ll decide if they want me back.”

ctate@mcclatchydc.com