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Posts published in September 2021

More cash in the trash

jones

The Idaho Supreme Court delivered a resounding blow for democracy of, by and for the people on August 23, declaring the Legislature’s bill to throttle the initiative and referendum to be unconstitutional. Although many people, including five former Idaho Attorneys General, had warned that the legislation, Senate Bill 1110, was violative of the Idaho Constitution, the legislators passed it anyway. Now, they will have to pay the price, which could come close to half a million dollars.

The Legislature's disregard for the Constitution in this case is not out of the ordinary. In recent years, particularly this year’s session, legislators have shown little consideration for constitutional limitations. House majorities approved legislation to unlawfully restrict the Attorney General’s authority to represent State agencies, to keep itself in session throughout the year in violation of the Constitution, to defy and disregard valid federal laws, among other things. Thankfully, cooler heads in the Senate stymied a number of the unlawful acts, except of course for the legislation to kill the initiative and referendum.

Each of the illegal legislative acts exposes the taxpayers to liability for attorney fees and court costs in the event the legislation is challenged in court, as it was here. The Legislature has reportedly shelled out $3.2 million from its “constitutional defense” kitty since 1995 to unsuccessfully defend its legally deficient statutes. It is likely the cost of defending the ill-fated initiative legislation will come in somewhere between a third and a half a million.

The Secretary of State was the defendant in the suit and was ably represented by the Attorney General’s office, which is charged with defending the constitutionality of State statutes in court. The cost of attorneys from that office is near $60 per hour. The Legislature chose to double team by joining the suit and hiring expensive private counsel. The private counsel’s discounted rate is reported to be $470 per hour or almost 8 times the AG’s rate.

The Legislature has been billed about $185,000 for its unsuccessful defense and may end up paying even more once the dust has settled. There is also the internal cost to the State for the AG’s defense. Plus, the Supreme Court awarded fees and costs to the attorneys representing the challengers, Reclaim Idaho and the Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution. Those attorneys, Deborah Ferguson and Craig Durham, did an absolutely remarkable job of deconstructing the unlawful statute and should receive compensation comparable to the Legislature’s private lawyer.

It is probably good that the Legislature replenished its legal slush fund by 4 million dollars this year so that some in the Boise area legal community can put food on their tables for supporting and defending its unlawful statutes. On the other hand, as the Idaho Falls Post Register has accurately opined, this is a clear waste of taxpayer money.

Mention should be made of two other unconstitutional bills that came close to being enacted by the Legislature this year, both of which would have restricted the Attorney General’s authority to represent the State. House sponsors claimed that deputy AGs were not up to snuff, that they could not stack up to lawyers in private practice who charge large hourly rates. This case blew those claims out of the water.

I read all of the documents presented to the Supreme Court and watched the argument before the Court. The deputy AG who represented the Secretary of State did every bit as well as the private attorney who represented the Legislature. The AG’s office does not have to take a back seat to anyone. The attorneys representing the challengers, as well as retired deputy AG Mike Gilmore who filed his own challenge to the misguided initiative statute, did a most remarkable job. And, they had the Idaho Constitution in their corner.

The joke is on me

meador

How did we get here? It’s like we followed a lunatic map to Crazytown, a place where logic is mocked, expertise is rejected, common sense is nonexistent and even gravity is suspect. If you’d told me 20 years ago that American society would become badly fractured in the unnatural manner it is today, I would’ve laughed at your paranoia. But now the joke’s on me.

The pundits and commentators are all singing a similar song right now, lamenting our descent into purposeful ignorance and invited chaos. But there’s a reason for this mournful chorus: we’ve gone from amused to concerned to worried to frustrated to sickened. We know some of the public gets it but a frightening number does not. Worse, those who do not get it view those of us who do with a mixture of pity and contempt. Which, in a predictable coincidence, is kind of how we view them.

I serve as a moderator on a popular social media platform designed to build community by uniting neighbors. I take this small responsibility seriously, abandoning my opinions when I wade through posts. Most users post innocuous observations or pleas, like asking for recommendations for a particular service or looking for good restaurants. But of course, COVID has now reared its ugly head on that platform. Last night a COVID thread had devolved to the point where both sides were trying to out-insult each other. Seriously? We’ve all become third grade playground bullies?

Over and over, I see this. As if awaking slightly dazed from slumber, I shake my head to clear my mind and I realize, yes, we really have arrived at this ugly pointless place.

Here’s where we stand.

First, as I’ve stated in previous essays, we’ve dumped baselines. Since this nation was founded and earlier, the people making up the opposing sides of an issue have first agreed on a stipulated set of undisputed facts, or baselines. In other words, every political issue was built atop a foundation of facts on which all sides agreed before we got busy debating and arguing. While rejecting baselines may not sound like the end of the world, it sets the stage for unbelievable ugliness to come.

Second, we’ve rejected established expertise. Since the dawn of our “enlightenment,” we automatically — sometimes even eagerly — accepted the advice of credentialed experts in the fields of research or practice related to whatever specific crisis had befallen us. We accepted the hard-earned credentials of scientific researchers, medical professionals and public health authorities because we knew they understood a given crisis far better than anyone else. But now, we abruptly decided the experts were no longer the experts, not when the internet and social media groups of like-minded people enabled us to be our own “experts.” When challenged, we angrily point to the one or two outlier researchers who have decided all the other exhaustive research is wrong. With lofty contempt, we disdain the studied word of 10,000 scientists in favor of one or two lonely outliers — who almost certainly have been scientifically rebuffed by multiple colleagues.

Third, we no longer feel a need to dispassionately examine evidence before we take decisions. If we want to take a bold stance, we no longer need actual evidence to back our supposition before we declare our position. We can afford to project confidence because we know many others will join us. We don’t need evidence, we just need enough people standing with us to drown out any opposition. The popularity of obscenities, insults and name-calling as debate makes this one easy.

Yet another error emerges from this third point: we quash logic when we ignore mountains of evidence that suggest our declared position is flawed as we focus sharply on the two or three little clues that favor us. Where we’d once have hesitated before allowing ourselves this indulgence of intellectual sloth, we now forge bravely ahead, knowing many others are doing the same.

Fourth, we are intentionally mis-directing our focus. Rather than viewing related facts or data together to understand context, we are cherry-picking one or two details that suit us and ignoring the rest. This is analogous to refusing pain medication because it only relieves half your pain, not all of it. Likewise, if a vaccine is not 100 percent effective, we showcase the relatively few failures while we ignore the proportionately much larger successes. Choosing to focus on one detail and ignore others is what petulant children do when parents try to make them see something is not good for them. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard, “Oh yeah? Well, vaccinated people get COVID, too, so I’m not getting the shot!” One fact, no context, yet another person totally missing the point.

A reader posted what he thought was a clever meme on one of my essays the other day. It read, “Every drug that has been recalled by the FDA was first proven to be ‘safe and effective’ by the FDA.” While that statement is certainly true, it completely ignores the fact that all the miracle, lifesaving, fantastic drugs that have greatly benefited humanity were also proven to be safe and effective by the FDA. There are a whole lot more of the latter than the former but a staggering number of people totally ignore this inconvenient fact.

Altogether, we have decided that, if one fact is suspect, all facts must be suspect. This would be bad enough on its own but we immediately take it one step further. If all facts are suspect, why take any warnings seriously, even dire ones? If the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) erred in tabulating some numbers at the onset of an unprecedented global emergency, then every piece of data and information issued by the CDC is not worth taking seriously. Therefore we are free to do nothing — after all, the CDC cannot be trusted. Erring on the side of caution doesn’t even enter the conversation. Common sense is nowhere to be found.

Fifth, we are claiming selfishness as a virtue. When we claim that our chances of dying from COVID are minutely small, we’re absolutely correct. But when we use that minute chance as an excuse to do nothing, we’re thumbing our nose at any elderly people in our lives, at any friends or family members who have compromised immunity or are otherwise vulnerable to COVID — the odds of them dying if they become infected is much higher.

Look, anti-vaccine folks, I would’ve preferred not to take the vaccine either. But I decided the potential reward outweighed the potential risk. I applaud those who are mindful of what they put in their bodies but I urge you to explore the enormous volume of evidence — true evidence, like that which would be accepted by an accredited research institution or a court of law — arguing in favor of vaccination.

I have various doubts, too, and I’m pretty sure our government lies to us, both intentionally and inadvertently — it’s government, after all. I also will admit there is a great deal of theater associated with the COVID age. Those salad-bar-style sneeze guards that popped up everywhere might be as useless as they are ugly. I’ll even concede that masks, as we’re using them, aren’t particularly helpful. A mask-wearer can get a limited measure of protection by wearing his or her mask and likewise keep some of his or her germs away from others. But for masks to truly work, everyone would have to wear the right type of mask, wear it properly with no exceptions and wear it every time. We all know this simply ain’t gonna happen. Yes, the theater of the age is all around us.

But none of this negates the need to take this virus seriously. Just because you figure the odds of dying from it are (correctly) pretty small doesn’t mean you shouldn’t turn your focus to the elderly people you love or maybe a friend who has a compromised immune system. Heck, if you really wanted to be nice, you could even worry a little about the people you pass in the aisle at Walmart.

If you look even a little, reasons to vaccinate are rife. And if you look a little harder, you’ll find mountains of scientific, peer-reviewed evidence from accredited academic and research institutions. The vaccines being offered have been in development for over 20 years, they’re not new. Nearly all the rumors and misinformation spread about the vaccines has been debunked by qualified experts — these scientific rebuttals are easy to find. Remember, all those people with graduate degrees who are urging us to vaccinate are, themselves, vaccinated. So are their children.

On the other side, you’ll find plenty of invective, a lot of anger and much conjecture but little hard evidence.

I know we’re smarter than we’re acting.

Sacrifice and love of country

hartgen

The Roman philosopher Cicero tells us a lot about duty. We have duty to God, parents, family, children and to community, but the first duty should be to country. It is a concept not heard much today; to many, duty means only a task you must perform. They do not see the sacrifice inherent in the call, nor the value to the nation.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers. The buildings were destroyed but our love of country was enhanced. It seemed Americans were united, setting aside politics, advantage and intrigue, leaving only an appreciation of sacrifice.

Now, twenty years later, at the end of August, America lost 13 of its brave soldiers who stood guard at the Kabul, Afghanistan airport and gave their last efforts to help those who would flee oppression and find new freedom elsewhere. As Lincoln would say, they did not die in vain, as they gave freedom to so many others. Surely, there is a special place in Heaven for soldiers such as these.

They came from different walks of life in different service branches. Eleven were Marines, one was a Navy corpsman, one was United States Army. Two were young Marine women in their 20s, enlisted personnel like their male counterparts, putting their lives at risk to save others.

Like all of us, they had dreams, hopes for the future. A photo of one of these women shows her holding an Afghan baby who presumably made it onto a departing flight. Her own final flight to eternity lay only six days ahead. A life cut short by circumstance and discord. She was 23.

These young men and women y were from America’s small towns and big cities, rural countryside settlements, the deep South, the coasts and the Intermountain West. I was in Jackson, Wyoming a couple of weeks ago following their deaths, where flags were at half-mast across the state to honor a Wyoming young man, Rylee McCollum, among those lost.

His family, schoolmates, friends, and others from his small town of Bondurant remembered him particularly for his love of country. They said he had always wanted to be a Marine, and so he was. He put country ahead of all else. Sadly, he leaves behind a wife and a yet unborn child. (Casper Star-Tribune, 8/29). He was just 20.

The path of human history gives us many examples in which duty to country outweighed whatever fear the defenders of freedom may have carried. They went to do what they were asked to do.

In Kabul, they laid down their lives for people they did not know, for generations yet to come. As Scripture tells us, there is no greater love. They are today’s equivalents of the patriots on Lexington Green, the defenders of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, the men who scaled the cliffs at Normandy and who fought in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

In one recent election, one candidate was a flight officer in the Vietnam War; John McCain’s campaign signs said simply “Country First.” That’s where Cicero tells us to place our first duty, because without country, the freedoms and way of life we enjoy either never materialize or are lost.

This week, we remember the horrible events of September 11, 2001 in which thousands of Americans perished in a moment. But we should also remember that for some, the sacrifice was the call of higher duty. As the fourth terrorist airplane made a beeline for Washington, DC, on that September morning, citizen American passengers on board Flight 93 understood both the risk and their opportunity. “Let’s roll,” one could be heard saying as they struggled to gain control of the terrorists in the cockpit. The plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania and all were killed.

Islamic terror seems to be a feature of our times, reaching big cities like New York as well as tiny Bondurant, Wyoming, population of fewer than 60 people. (US Census, 2020). Brave American men and women stand by the nation they love; it matters not where they are from, nor their gender, nor race. It is the same faith of freedom, whether it be Kabul today or on September 11, twenty years ago. Though separated by time and a generation, the American soldier’s devotion to love of country is unbounded in both circumstances.

That more than 120,000 Afghans were flown out to freedom is surely to be welcomed. They did not have the luxury as we do of policy debate. Rather, they were just the latest of the world’s displaced. “Give me your tired, your poor,” writes Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty (1883). “Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The Wyoming soldier’s life and those of his comrades should bring us a deep appreciation and honor for those who went before, directly into harm’s way. Cicero and our forefathers would be proud indeed.

Stephen Hartgen, Twin Falls, is a retired five-term Republican member of the Idaho House of Representatives, where he served as chairman of the Commerce & Human Resources Committee.  Previously, he was editor and publisher of The Times-News (1982-2005). He can be reached at Stephen_Hartgen@hotmail.com.

The personal responsibility myth

johnson

Our hearts go out to folks in Louisiana – and now in New York – who have been battered again by a deadly hurricane. Hurricane Ida was one of the most powerful storms to hit the region in memory. Earlier this week more than a million people were without electricity, and the outages could last for weeks. At least one person died. The property damage will be in the billions.

By most accounts, Louisianans in the path of the awful storm obeyed mandatory evacuation orders issued by local and state government agencies. People getting out of the way of the storm almost certainly saved countless lives.

Terrebonne Parish in extreme southern Louisiana was one place where residents weren’t given a choice: leave your homes, leave most of your belongings and get the heck out.

“Terrebonne Parish is as prepared for the impacts of this storm as we can be,” said the top official in the parish. “Nevertheless, given the projected strength and storm surge of Hurricane Ida, we must ask residents to evacuate for their safety. We will continue to monitor the situation during the storm and provide critical information concerning developments that impact the parish and public safety during the storm.”

As of this writing a curfew remains in effect in Terrebonne and residents are barred from returning to their homes. In neighboring Lafourche Parish, the sheriff was imploring evacuees not to return home. In a statement, the sheriff’s office said “deputies have been deployed in full force today responding to emergencies, searching for those who need help, and helping clear roads. Curfew remains in effect and will be STRICTLY enforced.”

So, a deadly, destructive hurricane comes crashing ashore in one of the most politically conservative states in the country and the government there tells people that in order to save lives they must abandon their homes and cannot return under threat of police action.

This must surely count as an impressive example of people under stress and facing great danger exercising a remarkable level of individual responsibility. People in Louisiana, no doubt many preferring to stay put and ride out a huge storm, chose instead to protect themselves and opted not to put more stress on law enforcement and disaster responders.

Meanwhile, the government, in order to control a deadly virus that has claimed 640,000 American lives – nearly six times the population of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana – has encouraged – not mandated, but encouraged – our fellow Americans to avail themselves of life-saving vaccine. In Louisiana barely 41% of the population has been vaccinated.

We know that the vast majority of those rejecting the vaccine live in areas where the former president of the United States commanded a majority. These folks are almost all conservatives, self-styled rugged individuals who claim to be smart enough to take care of themselves and who embrace the old Reagan Era mantra of “personal responsibility.”

Frankly, that is a crock and in fact the opposite is true. Republicans have become the party of personal irresponsibility.

As the writer David Litt noted recently: “In this new, topsy-turvy definition of individual liberty, some Americans are free to put their neighbors at risk, while other Americans are barred by the government from trying to keep their own employees, customers, and even children safe. Deciding whether to get the vaccine or remain unvaccinated is technically still a choice – but the Republican party is doing everything it can to make choosing the latter easier than choosing the former.”

Almost all of the unvaccinated say it’s a matter of their personal choice to ignore a free, safe and lifesaving medicine. Their excuses for refusing to protect themselves and the rest of us vary, but essentially it comes down to “you can’t make me.”

Appeals to common sense don’t work because common sense requires critical thinking. Some of these people would rather take a livestock dewormer, gag down vast amounts of vitamin D or spray themselves with chlorine than accept a proven treatment. The Mississippi health department, a state run wild with COVID hospitalizations, the vast majority among unvaccinated people, has been warning against the use of the horse medicine, ivermectin, because people who have ingested it have suffered “rash, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, neurological disorders, and potentially severe hepatitis requiring hospitalization.”

You can almost hear the conversation at the breakfast table. “Hey, Helen, let’s try some of this horse paste for our COVID. I read about it on the Internet. Gotta be better than some vaccine developed by a bunch of silly ol’ scientists.”

If people in Louisiana can follow a directive to flee from a deadly storm, we all ought to be able to reason our way to the use of a medicine that only does one thing: saves lives.

Here’s some personal responsibility for you.

Quit listening to bloviating television talk show hosts and politicians bent on division about science and medicine. Take personal responsibility for seeking out honest, factual information about COVID and vaccines.

Stop placing your own personal interests in the way of kids going back to school and health care workers returning to something approaching normal. You simply can’t argue with the numbers: more than 98% of people currently sick enough to be in the hospital with COVID are not vaccinated. You may be ignorant enough to kill yourself in some misbegotten pursuit of your own personal freedom, but you are also selfishly ignoring your personal responsibility to the rest of society.

Embrace real citizenship. The world is not arrayed against you. Bill Gates isn’t trying to track you with some tiny little chip in a vaccine dose. Quit playing the victim card. Your rights aren’t being trampled. Your freedom isn’t at risk. It’s all a con by a lot of people who preach responsibility but live with little or no consideration for their fellow citizens. Selfish, uncaring nitwittery is really unbecoming.

The real victims here are the people dying every day from a disease that we can only end by getting more people vaccinated.

You got a better idea? Let’s hear it.

If not, I got some horse dewormer to sell you.

Return of the JBS

stapiluslogo1

Out in the deserts of eastern Idaho, I saw by the side of highways lonely and busy, the billboards promoting - in washed out colors with blunt language - the John Birch Society.

These were not old billboards. They were new.

Just as new as the reports from Kootenai and Benewah counties in northern Idaho, where local Republican Party organizations passed resolutions - and proposed the state party do likewise - supporting and urging endorsement of the John Birch Society. Brent Regen, the chieftain of the Kootenai GOP, backed the measure in his county and was quoted, “The John Birch Society is the intellectual component of conservatism. I fully support them. They are the brain trust.”

This a true throwback to the past, a time more than half a century old, when the JBS was new, growing and exerting influence in places like Idaho. After a show of organizational strength in the sixties, it faded in the seventies, and hasn’t been much visible since. Until lately. And that’s something Idahoans ought to take account of.

The JBS likes to describe itself as a supporter of the federal constitution and of limited government, but if that were all it was about, the group would be no different from half the other political organizations in the country. It has focused on much more, many dark and conspiratorial ideas. William F. Buckley, a name almost synonymous with American conservatism, warned of the organization as a paranoid menace and, a biographer said, “was beginning to worry that with the John Birch Society growing so rapidly, the right-wing upsurge in the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn.”

Buckley spoke with then-presidential candidate Barry Goldwater about taking a stand specifically against it, and Goldwater was sympathetic but largely dodged and weaved on the issue out of fear of alienating key parts of his base. Richard Nixon did denounce the group outright, and even Ronald Reagan warned of a “lunatic fringe” coming to dominate it.

Does this rhyme with today’s environment?

The JBS was the first large-scale purveyor of political conspiracy theories, arguing that Dwight Eisenhower was a knowing communist agent and that Black efforts to secure the right to vote amounted to nothing but a communist front, among much else. Buckley again: “One continues to wonder how it is that the membership of the John Birch Society tolerates such paranoid and unpatriotic drivel.”

But in this era of Q anon and election conspiracies, the JBS is seeing a rebirth. It has taken off in parts of Texas and in scattered other parts of the county.

In July, the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee unanimously backed a resolution supporting the John Birch Society and urging “Idahoans who do not support our party platform to follow the example of Bill Brooks and voluntarily disaffiliate from the Idaho Republican Party.”

Brooks is a Kootenai County commissioner, elected as a Republican to the Kootenai County commission in 2020 and 2018 (unopposed in the general elections, though winning close primaries each time). He has fired off blasts at Regan and the John Birch Society and local Republicans’ associated with it. Recently he declared himself an independent, saying his “political beliefs have not changed. The local Republican Party has changed. They have shamelessly chosen to bind themselves to the John Birch Society. The Kootenai County Central Committee recently passed a unanimous resolution calling on all Republicans who don’t agree with the John Birch Society to leave the Republican Party.”

Local Republicans have responded with a recall attempt, results of which are expected this month.

It’ll be a referendum in part on the John Birch Society. Watch the numbers closely.

Watch also Republican Party developments in southern Idaho; those billboards didn’t get there by accident.

And keep watch too for how state Republican Party leaders respond to the local organization’s request. They’re probably feeling a little uncomfortable about it right about now.

Idaho grows

schmidt

I grew up in a small town that exploded, faster than Meridian or Caldwell has, and that experience shaped me. I decided I wanted to raise my children in a town that didn’t suffer from such booms. But neither did I want to have them feel the busts.

Idaho is booming now, and it has been for a while. Booms bring burdens. I was amazed to hear a Republican colleague stand up and say on the Idaho Senate floor what I had been thinking for quite a while. We had debated and passed quite a few pro-business and development tax schemes right after the 2008 economic collapse. The goal was to bring jobs and business to our state. Idaho had just cut school funding for the first time in its history and our reserve accounts were depleted. I felt that pain. Growth could solve this. But he stood up and said, “We are promoting growth in this state. I have plenty of constituents who like things just the way they are. What should I be saying to them?”

This last legislative session the senior Representative from the legislative district that has had the most growth proposed and got passed a property tax “solution” that tried to balance this growth conundrum.

House Bill 389 put a cap on what cities could raise their budgets at 8%, and only 5% from new construction. But what if a small city with 300 homes on the edge of Boise wants to add a development of 100 homes? This is happening right now. Housing down there is booming, and some folks have designed ideas that fit their needs and will serve the market. Believe me, the local folks who have worked on this development who now find it unsupportable by these legislative constraints are not happy.

And it’s happening in my town. A new manufacturing business with good jobs and great history will be looking for new employees, so three new 50 home developments are platted and scraping the soil.

We don’t have unlimited water up here on the Palouse. Don’t get me started on the traffic.

But the idea that the Idaho legislature has the solution for local growth problems is hubris. They might as well be suggesting we build a wall.

Growth happens, just as long as more humans are on this planet. It becomes a question of how and whether we should plan for it or not, since the planet won’t be getting any bigger. It should be up to local municipalities to manage their growth, not the whiz kids in the statehouse.

Many small Idaho towns right now are struggling with their infrastructure needs. Some have had to ship water in, others are seeing sewage plants condemned. And most of these small towns haven’t had growth. They drilled their wells and dug their sewage settlement ponds 50 years ago, paying for the expense with a bond. The interest on that loan was added to their monthly fees. They laid the pipes and charged their rates based on the maintenance and debt service, but with little account for eventual replacement.

Now, the worn-out plant needs replacement, and the townspeople wonder why they should pay. They won’t get use of a plant after they die or move on.

We are not planning for sustainable growth.

A student in England’s old New College (est. 1379) was sitting around with his buddies in their eating hall and one commented on the old oak beams. “I’ll bet they’re rotten.” A penknife proved it. Where can you get 30-foot oak beams? Another thought of the campus forester.

The old lumberman puffed on his pipe and squinted. “Eating hall? Them oaks are out east.” And he led them to a grove planted and preserved for 300 years.

Boom and bust is no way to lead a state into the future, though, lord knows it’s sure our history.

Malek’s campaign

malloy

I have talked with a few people who are hoping that former state Rep. Luke Malek of Coeur d’Alene would drop out of the race for lieutenant governor, clearing the way for House Speaker Scott Bedke to win the race in next year’s Republican primary.

It’s not that people dislike Malek, or have a strong preference toward Bedke. The fear is that Malek and Bedke will split the vote – giving the GOP nomination, and essentially the office, to Rep. Priscilla Giddings of White Bird, a strong supporter of the Idaho Freedom Foundation and a favorite of the party’s right wing. It’s the same conservative tide that helped Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin win in 2018.

Malek is fully aware of recent political history, but his message is clear. He’s in the race to stay and thinks he has a path to win the nomination. He was the first to announce for the office, and sees his support growing as he travels the Gem State.
There’s no need to back out now.

“There are always ‘what ifs’ with almost any campaign,” Malek said. “But I would bring positive leadership to the office and I think Idahoans are ready for that. I’m the only candidate who brings a vision for that office.”

Of course, voters will need to decide how much vision they want for an otherwise mundane office. Constitutionally, the job description can be boiled down to a sentence – preside over the Senate when the Legislature is in session and serve as “acting governor” when the real governor is out of town.

Beyond that, Malek wants to be an advocate for law enforcement, help spur economic development and promote education. Giddings, a leader in the battle against the teaching of critical race theory, is sure to fight for the causes promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and others. Bedke would play a more traditional role, working as a partner with the governor (if Gov. Brad Little wins re-election) and using the position as a nice landing spot until he runs for governor in 2026.

The IFF, and those of Giddings’ ilk, have issues with Bedke (for not calling the Legislature in a special session to ban vaccine mandates) and Malek (for being too liberal). Malek has made it clear over the years that he’s no fan of the IFF and argues that he is the “true conservative” in the race.

“True conservatives stand for smaller government,” he says in a fund-raising letter. “True conservatives don’t tell employers how to run their businesses. True conservatives understand that employers and employees both have to take personal responsibility for the choices they make.”

Malek takes a swipe at McGeachin and others for their demands for a special session. Bedke, not surprisingly, has ignored those calls.

“If employers make decisions that violate the principles of employees, those employees have the right to leave,” Malek says. “If employees make decisions that violate the principles of an employer, the employer has the power to terminate that employee.”

Generally, those are the rules of the road in an “at-will” state. Employers can fire employees for any reason – and up to now there has been no sentiment among Republicans to change those parameters.

“True conservatives don’t call on the Legislature to come back and violate all of those principles,” Malek says.

Those comments are not the mark of a candidate that is about to drop out of a political race. At 39 years old, and with most of our top leaders pretty long in the tooth, Malek thinks it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.

We’ll see what the future holds.

Chuck Malloy is a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com