For all their differences, Republican Rep. Raul Labrador and former Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick agree on this: Using congressional clout to help constituents transcends politics.
After Labrador beat him last year, Minnick urged Labrador to hire Lisa Anderson, who oversaw an operation that closed more than 4,000 cases and secured $5 million in benefits to Idahoans in Minnick’s two years in Congress.
Anderson was reluctant. “She didn’t want to be disloyal to me by working for Raul,” Minnick recalled. “I told her she had it totally backwards — that she would be doing herself, Raul and me a favor by ensuring all these cases were transferred smoothly and that nobody dropped the ball.”
Labrador had similar doubts, but was impressed enough by Anderson’s record as constituent services director to interview her. “We talked for a long time about her loyalties. Ultimately, I felt very comfortable that her No. 1 priority was to serve the people of Idaho, regardless of who she was working for.”
Anderson hasn’t missed a beat, supervising a staff of three that brought in $2.6 million and closed 2,500 cases in Labrador’s first 11 months in office.
Labrador said he was confident Idahoans would support his voting record but worried about matching Minnick’s standard of service. “That was the hardest thing I had to overcome in the campaign when people said, ‘I like him. He’s doing the job he said he would do with regard to constituent services.’ ”
NO UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT
Labrador wants to cut government, but that doesn’t mean giving up on making sure about 800,000 people in the 1st Congressional District get their due from the feds. Anderson, who makes $55,000, oversees relationships with almost 100 agencies. The IRS accounts for more than half the caseload, trailed by the Social Security and Veterans administrations.
“I’m a small government guy, but at the same time it’s our job to make sure government works well,” Labrador said. “If there’s a benefit that somebody’s entitled to and our office can help, it’s my responsibility to ensure they get it.”
A KNACK FOR HELPING PEOPLE
Anderson, 39, was raising money for the 2008 Minnick campaign when deputy campaign manager Kate Haas realized her gift was helping ordinary people. Normally, Anderson arrived at the office before 7 a.m., but she called one day to say she’d be late.
Anderson stopped to help a stranded, non-English-speaking motorist on I-84 in Nampa. Directed by hand-signals and a few words, she wound up driving the woman home to Parma.
“That was the moment I knew that if we won, she had to be our constituent services person,” Haas said. “Her level of compassion is unsurpassable.”
Said Anderson: “Raul can’t be there answering the phones, helping people. But he wants them to know he cares for them, and he really does.”
She’s also an asset to other congressional offices, says Bev Jensen, who works for GOP Sen. Jim Risch. “The knowledge she has, her work ethic — she’s been a mentor to me. And she’s always upbeat and always makes me laugh.”
BEEN THERE HERSELF
At 16, Anderson got a summer job working with developmentally disabled kids in Caldwell. It set her life’s course. Retelling the story still brings happy tears. “They tried so hard at everything,” she said. “Anybody showing love and friendship to them, they showed it right back. I just knew that’s how I wanted to be.”
Not long before, her own family — her parents and eight of their nine children — had spent about six months without a home, camping on a relative’s land near Emmett and moving between two cheap Caldwell motels, crammed into one room.
Anderson went to Caldwell High School, where she was a 5-foot-11 post on the basketball team. She attended BYU but didn’t finish.
After her kids were born, she was certified to manage three group homes in Pocatello for five years. But she became ill and qualified for Social Security disability benefits. She has myositis, a muscle disease, and lupus, which attacks her kidneys. She’s beaten cancer twice.
“I don’t look back and say, ‘Why did I have to go through chemo and radiation?’” she said. “It makes you a better person.”
Anderson adds that her colleagues in Labrador’s office — Tori Shockey, Judy Morbeck and Kristy Sternes — also have been “refined by life’s struggles. It makes it a lot easier to empathize.”
Anderson’s dad, Richard, is a retired social worker. Her mom, Anita, is a psychologist who says her daughter has always had pluck.
“With all the health problems and the pain she has to endure, she just keeps going,” Anita Anderson said. “She’s my little Energizer Bunny lady.”
Anderson’s husband, Michael, has an MBA but was recently laid off. Their two children, Samantha, 16, and Zackary, 15, are both students at the Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa. The family moved from Pocatello to Nampa in 2008, as Anderson finished her degree in political science at ISU. She worked for Idaho Senate Democrats for one legislative session and then got the campaign job with Minnick.
ADOPTION, DISABILITY, TAXES
Among Anderson’s favorite cases are helping families adopt overseas, working with the State Department and Department of Homeland Security. A highlight was meeting the West African child of a local couple at the congressional office in Meridian.
She also processes nominations to military service academies, a fulfilling duty. Disability cases, however, keep her up nights, as people can spend more than two years wading through a three-step appeals process, sometimes while living in cars and barely eating. Anderson has secretly dropped groceries on doorsteps, bought at her own expense.
“That lady can sure work miracles,” said Terri Webley, 59, of Orofino, who started getting her $1,200 monthly Social Security disability check in 2010 thanks to Anderson’s efforts.
Webley, who said she is bipolar, moved to Idaho in 2008 after losing her job as a police records clerk in Illinois. “I had a lawyer, but I think Lisa did more for me than he did.”
Rich and Tara Smith of Nampa adopted two children, now 3 and 6, but were having trouble collecting the last portion of a tax credit totaling about $13,000 per child spread over four years.
“I had the IRS say I was asking for an handout and should be patient,” said Rich Smith, 41, who was laid off from the semiconductor industry and is now a full-time student at Boise State.
Then Anderson intervened. Smith heard back from her two days after contacting the office in July. Last month, the money arrived. “Once Lisa got involved, it was amazing,” he said.
Smith voted for Minnick, but now he’s a convert.
“I’m not the largest fan of Congressman Labrador, but they’ve earned a lot of good will just through Lisa’s actions.”
Dan Popkey: 377-6438
