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Posts published in January 2025

In the details

On January 25, several hundred marchers supporting Idaho's abortion law system cheered on speakers who made two important points and seemed to be eliding a third.

The missing element seemed to be new legislation. That didn’t seem to be the focus of the event, which is quite a difference from many pro-life events in the past. That seems to reflect the legislative reality; abortion doesn’t at the moment look to be on the front burner for this session.

Instead, the mood looked celebratory. Megan Wold, a lobbyist for Idaho anti-abortion legislation, told the crowd “Today, we can confidently say that there is no state in the United States with more pro-life or protective pro-life laws than Idaho.

She added, “Our work, of course, is not done this session.” But that doesn’t sound like a call for a crusade.

What she also said, according to the Idaho Statesman, sounded - lifted out of context, to be sure - almost like something pro-choice advocates would say on the subject: “Wold said doctors ‘can and must’ treat women in medical emergencies and ‘in the face of medical uncertainties’.”

The subtle difference is what the two sides would say center around the word “can.”

The most notable reference to new legislation in Wold’s talk concerned legislation to “educate medical professionals and the public.”

Advocates for the Idaho abortion law seem to perceive perfect clarity and no difficulty for physicians in complying with it. Attorney General Raul Labrador, for example, said that “Idaho law protects both the life of the mother and their unborn child. Any perceived conflict has been perpetuated by politicians, organizations, and individuals seeking to confuse doctors and jeopardize patient health for political ends.”

The catch is that the laws are being written by people who are pursuing a philosophical argument, wherein the black and white of it feels evident.

The world looks very different and far messier from the point of view of a physician (or a patient) dealing with a specific personal medical issue that may not and often doesn’t fit neatly inside the philosophical construct.

St. Luke’s Health System, which has filed a lawsuit concerning Idaho’s abortion law, said, “the conflict between Idaho’s Defense of Life Act and EMTALA [federal emergency room law] makes it impossible to provide the highest standard of care in some of the most heartbreaking situations.”

The physician wants to know: What’s the rule when I encounter this (meaning, any number of many variations, maybe as many as there are patients) on the basic circumstance of pregnancy? Will I have to tell a patient - or withhold from a patient - what my training says they need to know? At what point exactly do various prohibitions in the law kick in?

The medical situation is different prospectively for every pregnant woman, and getting a law to clearly cover all the details of every case would seem impossible.

That would suggest, in this legislative session where few changes in Idaho abortion law are expected, two levels of education.

First, from physicians to the anti-abortion advocates about the detailed information they need to make professional sense of the law, so as to ensure they aren’t thrown into jail and lose their medical licenses. The only way they can be sure those things won’t happen, as matters stand, is to simply refuse many kinds of treatment to the pregnancy or to possibly pregnant patients.

Second, the advocates of the law might provide some answers. To do that, they’d have to learn about pregnancy the way a physician specialist would. That would take an enormous amount of effort and research; an actual OB/GYN probably could provide an outline of how much that would involve.

For now, the likelihood is that the education will be limited. And Idaho’s pregnant patients will be getting progressively less and less treatment.

That’s the kind of result you get when laws are passed with limited amounts of research built in.

 

Values

Your budget reflects your values. It’s that simple. You fix the dishwasher or you cancel your Hulu subscription.

Our Idaho legislature is giving us, the voters who elected them a clear picture of their values. I ask, and you should be too, does this reflect my values?

The Idaho legislature is considering a proposal to fund tax credits for families who send their kids to private schools or do home schooling. This modest proposal will only cost us taxpayers about $50M dollars if our Governor will stick to his guns. Of course, that’s just in the first year. Arizona saw a similar tax credit blow up to large multiples of this, but we can trust our legislators to keep a close eye on our tax dollars, can’t we? So, we won’t worry about the future right now. Though, of course, any healthy budget should.

Along these lines, our legislators have kept a close eye on the Medicaid Expansion dollars. The cost to Idaho taxpayers has now come to about $100M. Many prominent legislators think this is too much.

So now we are talking about budgets. We have to get into numbers, arithmetic. I apologize right here. I know you would rather debate principles, ideals, morals, ideology, but that’s where we are headed, if you can put up with some numbers. Stay with me.

A $50M dollar investment in home school, private school money for Idahoans might seem prudent to legislators right now. They have been hearing a lot from the big bucks behind this.

If the proposal caps the benefit at $5,000 per family earning less than $100K, that means 10,000 families in Idaho might get some of your taxpayer money to support their kids in some private, maybe religious, maybe alternative school that isn’t held to public school standards.

Write those numbers down.

At the same time, our legislators have decided health insurance for the working poor is too expensive. We can’t afford to pay $100M to get health insurance for 90,000 families in Idaho that would not be eligible for any health insurance coverage.

Write those numbers down.

Our legislators are considering cutting off health care coverage for NINE TIMES as many people as they want to support to send their kids to private schools, because it costs too much.

This is a fundamental budget and value proposition.

Don’t get me started on the Idaho tax cuts Speaker Moyle suggests. Idaho has seen incredible population and thus revenue growth. But the downturn is coming. We should plan for it. Our reserves will not suffice.

Some might argue that Idaho dropping Medicaid Expansion coverage will help our federal partners with our deficit conundrum. Idaho’s

Senator Crapo sat on the Simpson/Bowles Commission that offered wise deficit reduction recommendations. States dropping Medicaid was not among them. This is a straw man argument.

There is no doubt health care costs and profiteering are crippling our country. I have long advocated for reforms. But for the Idaho legislature to now hold these two balls in their hands, weighing them, should make you think about your values.

Sending our tax monies to 10K families that choose to opt out of public education might make sense if you frame it around the marketplace, competition, choice, entrepreneurial capitalism, and such. So, we drop a $50M dime of Idaho taxpayer money in that ideological direction.

But then, at the same time we take away health care coverage from NINE TIMES as many Idahoans because we can’t afford to pay twice what such a voucher benefit would cost?

This is bad math.

It’s about budgeting. It’s about values.

Please consider your values. I value education. I value health care. I don’t think our Idaho legislature has these values. I would hope you do.

 

The fall of Lava Ridge

Idaho’s congressional delegation has spent years battling with the Biden administration and the Bureau of Land Management over the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project, which would have turned a stretch of southern Idaho into a sea of ugly wind turbines.

It took one day of a new administration to put the kibosh on the project and it was Idaho Sen. Jim Risch who wrote the executive order that was signed by President Trump. The senator may never have a more joyful assignment from the president.

Of course, Risch was not writing the order in a vacuum. He had conversations about the project with Trump and the senator emphasized the importance of stopping Lava Ridge during Gov. Doug Burgum’s nomination hearing for Interior secretary.

Risch probably didn’t need to do much to sway the president to his side. Trump made it clear during his inaugural address, with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris watching, that green new deals would be replaced with “Drill, Baby Drill.” So, it’s unlikely that the president gave much hesitation to putting his name to an executive order to scuttle one of the Biden administration’s pet energy projects.

For good measure, Risch had plenty of political support from Congressman Mike Simpson, Sen. Mike Crapo and Gov. Brad Little, among others.

The BLM had its reasons for wanting the turbines. The project northeast of Twin Falls, according to a BLM news release in December, “could power as many as 500,000 homes with clean energy, while creating hundreds of jobs and supporting local and regional economies.”

Folks were not buying the line. The political response from the delegation and beyond: “Not in our back yard.” They wanted nothing to do with hundreds of wind turbines sitting on nearly 100,000 acres, visually compromising the Minidoka National Historic Site – which served as a relocation for more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.

Risch documents numerous battles on the Lava Ridge issue, going back to 2021. During that time, he opposed two nominees for Interior secretary, based on support for Lava Ridge. Risch and his colleagues wrote letters that were ignored. Simpson has a similar history of banging his head against a bureaucratic wall, including putting together legislation to stop Lava Ridge.

Then, in just one day of Trump 2.0, it all went away with the stroke of the president’s pen.

“President Trump demonstrated on his first day of office his commitment to listening to the valid concerns of Idahoans, Minidoka survivors and descendents, families, ranchers and sportsmen,” said Crapo.

Simpson chides the Biden administration for “blatantly” disregarding the voices of Idahoans. “The Lava Ridge wind project is unwanted and has zero place in our state. I stand fully behind President Trump’s decision to end it once and for all.”

Gov. Brad Little followed the president’s executive order with one of his own – called “Gone with the Lava Ridge Wind Project Act.”

The star of this show was Risch, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations who used his influence and personal working relationship with Trump to make this executive order happen. The two will have plenty of time to talk about Russia, China and Iran.

“I made a promise to Idahoans that I would not rest until the Lava Ridge Wind Project was terminated. On day one, President Donald Trump took action to keep that promise,” Risch said.

“Lava Ridge has been the embodiment of liberals’ disregard for the voices of Idahoans and rural America,” he said. “Despite intense and widespread opposition from Idaho and the Japanese American community, the previous administration remained dead set on pushing this unwanted project across the finish line. Finally, our nation has a leader who recognizes that people on the ground should have a say in how our natural resources are managed.”

Not all of Trump’s executive orders on day one had such a warm reaction, but this one put smiles on the faces of Idahoans – and the political leaders who found a way to kill it.

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

 

Here we go

Well, our President nearly has his 2025 Cabinet of political hacks and wannabees put together.  Still some scrubbing up to do.

We know most of them because of their continual mention as being part of his circle of acquaintances.  In his public life, Trump seldom strays too far from the same familiar folk.

You couldn't be blamed if you're having a hard time seeing Linda McMahon of World Wide Wrestling fame running the Department of Education.  Or, Brooke Rollins at Agriculture.  It also seems a bit of a stretch to see Sen. Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, though his recent service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee may give him a "touch of legitimacy."

Thankfully, each of the newbees will have a raft of undersecretary's just beneath them on the old job chart.  Professional undersecretary's who've seen the guy at the top come and go before.  Undersecretary's who've gone through this change of administrations business and know "the drill."

It's these professional undersecretary's that see to the day-to-day work.  Beneath them is where that work is actually done by the career people.

Cabinet members have a lot of "perks of office."  Round-the-clock black limo's on call.  Secret Service agents nearby constantly.   An official jet at Joint Base Andrews.  White House credentials.  A parking spot at the Capitol.  These are just a few.

How many of these Department heads will make it to the end of the President's current term is an open question.  Given Trump's mercurial temper, some might not make the full four years.

One thing about these appointments is sure.  Every move - every name - is being watched closely by foreign governments.  Every name and every detail is being scrutinized for signs of vulnerability, compatibility - or not - for future official relationships.  Given Trump's propensity for firing folks and walking away from important, previously signed agreements, it's certain those overseas partners are watching developments in Washington with some alarm.

Keep in mind,  Trump is just beginning.  There'll be more unexpected and startling pronouncements on this and that.  More heads will roll.

As the man said, "Hang onto your seats!  It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

 

Code cleanup

Kudos to Idaho House Speaker Mike Moyle for starting a crusade against “outdated, obsolete and unnecessary” laws. Moyle’s House Bill 14–the “Idaho Code Cleanup Act”--would cleanse Idaho’s statute books of laws that are void, unenforceable and not in the public interest. It is high time to comb through our laws and get rid of those oldies that are no longer relevant. But we should not overlook newer laws that serve no purpose, nor legislative proposals that would just add to the clutter.

The House could do itself a favor by tossing Rep. Jaron Crane’s House Bill 11, which seeks to insert the state into the immigration field. Immigration law is in the legal wheelhouse of the United States Government. A Texas law, upon which the bill is modeled, has been blocked from being enforced in Texas for over a year. HB 11 starts off with making it a crime for an alien to enter Idaho “directly from a foreign nation.” According to my recollection of grade school geography, that would only be possible from Canada. And the bill would require Idaho judges to take actions that exceed their authority. HB 11 would certainly qualify for the “unnecessary” category of Moyle’s Code Cleanup bill.

Another measure that should never darken the pages of the Idaho Code is Sen. Ben Toew’s anti-DEI proposal. It has been politely described as “an unabashed mishmash” but it is much worse than that. A court would find it to be a herculean task to winnow through the mind-numbing definitions to determine the conduct that is being targeted.

Like much of the culture war legislation these days, it suffers from a number of constitutional problems–free speech, vagueness, etc. It would give our Attorney General enforcement authority, making Raul Labrador Idaho’s campus speech czar. Plus, any student, staff member or alumnus of a college could bring a civil suit for damages against the college for its violation of whatever it is that the bill is designed to prohibit.

In addition to these beauties, there are a number of recently-enacted culture war laws that are totally useless. These laws were imported from out of state to stir up fear and outrage in order to help extremists defeat reasonable Republicans in the closed GOP primary. They have worked quite well to shift the Legislature ever further to the right.

Idaho Code section 33-138, which prohibits the teaching of critical race theory, is a prime suspect for removal. Legislative sleuths searched high and low to find any instance where CRT had been taught in an Idaho school and came up short. Nevertheless, they enacted the prohibition against it, although failing to define exactly what it is. I suspect the sponsors knew it was constitutionally defective, but culture war laws are made primarily to intimidate, rather than constitutionally regulate.

The bathroom law, which requires separate facilities for kids in public school based on their sexual designation at birth, was imported from out of state by vote-seeking culture warriors. There had been no discernable problem in our schools before its passage. The law gives a student who “encounters” a person of the opposite sex in a restroom the right to file suit and collect $5,000. The law was placed on hold by a federal appeals court in October of 2023.

And, of course, there is the book ban law, requiring librarians to relocate “materials harmful to minors” or face a penalty of $250. Christian nationalist Blaine Conzatti of the Idaho Family Policy Center was the guiding hand behind the legislation. He as much as admitted that the law was primarily intended to intimidate librarians into self-censoring books that he deemed impure. He crowed that the $250 penalty would drive up liability insurance costs for libraries.

These and other culture war laws should be eliminated in the Code Cleanup. Idaho legislators first enrage their supporters with fake culture war issues and then make a big show of “fixing” them. The remedy is usually hastily-conjured, ambiguously-worded legislative measures that often exceed constitutional limitations. Targeted groups are intimidated into compliance for fear of prosecution or the cost and expense of litigation.

Legislation should be designed to fix real problems, not to create them.

 

Hold on to your hats

President Donald Trump delivered his acceptance speech on Monday, following his inauguration as our 47th President. It was an amazing speech, unlike anything in over the twenty some acceptance speeches previously given in the modern era. From vilification of  the current administration to promise of future pipe dreams, it was a remarkable mixture of inconsistencies and impossibilities.

The thread throughout was to "Make America Great Again," taken directly from Trump's campaign slogan and ignoring the fact that our times are already significantly greater than any time in past memory. Unemployment is lower, incomes are higher, the stock market  is up, businesses are booming, and bankruptcies are fewer than any time in current history. Trump's promises appear to ignore that he already had one chance at these issues and failed completely to deliver. The first two years of Biden's administration were  largely spent in reversing and restoring the nation from what was left after Trump's first go from 2016 through 2020.

In one area of amazing new promises, Trump promised a detailed list of immediate increases in expenditures for various programs he was promising without any increases in taxes, explaining that the new programs would be financed through "outcome taxes" which  he defined as being taxes and tariffs imposed on foreign sellers for goods and services provided to buyers in the United States. This is either a remarkable misunderstanding of the mechanisms of tariffs or a deliberate misstatement on who will be paying the  intended increases.

Understand first that tariffs are taxes that are imposed on imports. They are ultimately paid by the users in the importing countries, not on the sellers in the exporting countries. In our case, they are paid by the United States importers who pass the tariffs  on to the buyers. If a buyer in the U.S. purchases goods directly from the foreign seller, the tariffs are collected at the border by tariff stamps purchased or provided by the buyer. If purchased under contract, the foreign exporter may provide the import  tax stamps for the shipments, but the cost will be on the buyer.

No part of the moneys received by the foreign sellers on the purchase price of good sold to buys in the U.S. are ever owed or paid to the United States government in the form of taxes or tariffs. The ultimate cost of any tax or tariff imposed is always on the  buyer. It has been estimated that if general tariffs in the range of 20% were added to all foreign consumer products shipped to buyers in the United States, the annual cost increase to an average family of four could be over $4000. Widely imposed general tariffs  were attempted in the 1930s with disastrous results that extended the impact of the depression by close to two years.

In another example, Trump promised relief in the price of gasoline, without acknowledging or even understanding that the price of gasoline is not regulated by any government action but is completely determined on the free market. Moreover, and most significant,  it is the world market for petroleum and not the national market within the U.S. that determines current prices. Since in the U.S., all petroleum producers are currently at full production there in no governmental action available to Trump short of nationalization  of facilities that would have any impact on current prices.

In a final example, Trump announced to great cheers that he was abandoning all programs to develop alternative fuels and return to a restored dependence on petroleum by abandoning the Paris climate change accords, reversing regulations on mining and non-fuel  minerals, and rescinding climate clean energy programs. All these actions appear foolish in the face of undisputed evidence of atmosphere deterioration and potential fuel shortages. We face disastrous consequences if alternatives are not found for petroleum  fuel sources.

These examples are only a few of the jaw-dropping revelations of Trumps proposals. His speech covered proposals never suggested before and some that have been tried and discarded. We can only wait and watch and see what happens.

Pay attention now. It promises to be a most interesting go.

 

Conflicts of interest

This comparison and contrast between Idahoans and their leaders isn’t new in principle, but it’s worth reiterating as the Idaho state government sets about its annual goal setting in the form of the Idaho Legislature.

Every year, for many years now, and generally toward the start of the legislative session, the Idaho Public Policy Survey is released at Boise State University. It is a poll of Idaho’s people about a wide range of public issues.

The survey was conducted by GS Strategy Group; if you wonder (as I do) about how such a survey is conducted these days, GS reported that 38% was done by cell phone, 11% by landline phones, 40% online and 11% by text message. It was conducted in the first part of November.

Its top line was a reversal of the previous year, as respondents found Idaho is moving in the right direction - although what that means exactly isn’t especially clear. Two different people might say, for example, “right direction,” and mean wholly different things by it.

Most of the rest of the findings were more specific and less ambiguous, and very much in line with findings from previous years, which lends some strength to their plausibility. Here are the report’s “key findings” (the whole list) on issues:

“For the second consecutive year, workforce and affordable housing is Idahoans’ top overall legislative budget priority.

“Increased teacher pay is Idahoans’ top education budget priority.

“A majority of Idahoans say they oppose (53%) the use of tax dollars to pay for a private or religious school.

“Nearly half of Idahoans (49%) say access to health care is difficult in the state.

“39% of Idahoans say increasing the number of immigrants helps Idaho’s economy, but that proportion grows to 46% when discussing legal immigrants specifically.

“A majority of Idahoans (55%) believe that abortion should be permitted in Idaho through at least the first trimester. A majority (64%) also believe that exceptions for abortion access should be expanded.

“A majority of Idahoans (51%) have concerns about the security of elections in the United States, but less than a quarter (22%) have concerns about the security in Idaho itself.

“A majority of Idahoans are concerned about campaign spending by independent groups in Idaho.”

That sounds not only very different from the high priorities of the Idaho Legislature, it sounds directly in contradiction to them.

Many states (Oregon, California and Washington among them) are spending much of their legislative effort on housing. (A suggestion: Check out what other state legislatures are doing, since most of them are meeting by this time of year. What are they dealing with? Some, you will find, are very like Idaho, and others are highly different.) How successful those efforts will be is unknown, but they’re trying. It’s not a top priority at the Idaho Legislature. Neither is homelessness, which is a big topic elsewhere in western states.

Attitudes toward abortion and immigration clearly are very different statewide than at the Statehouse. Idahoans generally do not seem comfortable with the how-absolute-can-we-make-our-abortion-ban approach at the legislature.

Health care access in Idaho - which by any reasonable standard is one of the top problems in Idaho right now - obviously registers as a serious matter for many Idahoans. You’ll not find a lot of action in that area at the legislature, which in recent years has gone out of its way to make the problem worse.

Most Idahoans say they’re concerned about the massively-rising levels of campaign spending by independent (often out of state) groups in Idaho elections, including but not exclusively legislative elections. Expect the sound of crickets about that at the Statehouse.

Idaho’s legislators aren’t acting in secret. There are plenty of ways Idahoans actually can track, in detail and even in real time, the actions of their lawmakers at Boise. Few seem to do it. Probably few even know who their legislator is (except that, for nearly everyone, it’s an “R”).

That’s the simplest straight-line explanation of why so many legislators get so easily re-elected. Doing the will of the people doesn’t really seem to explain it.

 

What next

So, the talk is that the Republicans want to get rid of Medicaid. OK, but what next?

There would be lots of ways to walk this program back.

Let me remind you, nobody likes it.

Doctors hate it because it pays about 30 cents on the dollar of what they charge. They love private insurance because it pays 70 cents, but they hate the prior authorizations the insurance companies use that extra 40 cents to staff. Keep in mind, what they charge is what they charge.

Patients hate it because it’s “charity” and the doctor’s offices look down their nose at them.

Hospitals don’t hate it too much since they would be having to put these poor dying patients out on the sidewalk and that really looks bad. But the Medicaid payments don’t cover their costs. So, for them it’s a lose/lose.

So, we have built a federal state partnership program everybody hates. What a great government solution. But do you like your private enterprise insurance benefits? Do you like how much this all costs you? Remember, us Americans pay more, almost twice for healthcare than any other country in the world. And this is what we get.

We, our country could do better. Our new President has resolved to make America great again.

Should we redo the primer on what exactly Medicaid is? Skip the following paragraphs if you passed the pretest.

Medicaid was added to the Social Security program in 1965. Idaho agreed to the partnership in 1966, a very early state to agree. The federal government agrees to pay a certain percent based on the state’s poverty level. The state pays the rest. In Idaho’s case, it’s about 70/30, federal/state.

Don’t get confused about Medicaid Expansion costs. That match is 90/10 and always will be unless somebody wants to change that law.

The most expensive patients on Medicaid are the severely disabled. This is a small but expensive group. Do you think they should have health care supported by taxpayers?

The largest group is children in low-income families. They are cheap since most are healthy. Do you think they should have taxpayer supported healthcare?

Then there’s low-income uninsured pregnant women. Do you think…maybe not.

Then there’s the Medicaid expansion population who don’t make enough to get insurance on the exchange. Most (80%) are working with a reportable income, but it’s below the poverty level. I know 60% of Idahoans think they deserve health insurance, but I don’t think the Idaho legislature would agree.

When I got elected to the Idaho legislature, I was all in favor of what Paul Ryan was proposing for Medicaid, block grants to states. I saw the current funding mechanism based on percentage of poverty as no incentive for a state to try to control costs. If we only saved a third of every dollar, would it be worth it? Block grants would offer a greater incentive.

But then I got to understand how block grants get twisted by state legislatures.

It all comes down to the questions I have been asking of you. Do you think all people should have access to health care?

Most, when asked this question, throw up their hands and say, “Of course, if we could afford it!”

They have been trained by the medical industrial complex to consider this as a dear resource. They forget we are already paying TWICE what any other civilized country pays. We have been brainwashed into considering it’s just too expensive.

Your yearly deductible teaches you that. Finish paying out of pocket, then go get what’s fully covered.

Switching insurance teaches you that. Insurance companies are scanning the field for the low-cost enrollees. If they get too many expensive patients or can’t make the right deals with providers, they drop coverage.

We can afford to do this. But it will take a great effort. It could make America great.

 

Calling for choice

Sen. Lori Den Hartog of Meridian, the new Senate Republican leader, has identified the best reason why political leaders – from the governor on down – are backing expanded school choice (a.k.a. vouchers).

The public demands it – it’s as simple as that. Or, more cynically, the demand comes from out-of-state interests that are pushing the concept of state money going to private schools. However you want to look at it, voucher advocates are winning elections and the incumbents who say “no” are being bounced out.

Gov. Brad Little, who takes pride of his record on education, is now friendly toward tax credits for those seeking alternatives to public schools. He’s asking the Legislature to set aside $50 million for that purpose. House Speaker Mike Moyle of Star said bluntly in a pre-session news conference that the money should follow the student – to the chagrin of a couple of leading Democrats appearing at that same gathering.

So, that’s where the conversation in the Legislature begins and it will take at least a few months to sort out the details.

Den Hartog is no late-comer to the fight. She spent her school days at Nampa Christian School, and that’s been the home for her three kids. She has nothing against public schools, but the private school has been the best fit for the family.

“My parents believed strongly in the value of Christian education – what is taught in our home and at church on Sunday,” she told me. “And that’s the choice we made for our three children, and we made choices in our budgeting to make that happen.”

Now, she wants other Idaho parents to have similar options.

“It’s all about making sure people can find the right education setting for their children, and that can change – even with the same kid,” she said. “And the reasons are different.”

Over the years, Idaho has done much to provide school choice – from establishing open enrollment to creating charter schools and providing a better environment for home schooling.

“What we’re talking about during this session is just one more piece of the puzzle – providing resources to families, particularly to families that may not have the means to some of those choices,” she says. “We’re not trying to take anything from anyone. We’re trying to provide additional options for families.”

She rejects the notion that choice advocates want to raid public-school budgets or the general fund. Den Hartog doesn’t see a future of high budget deficits and massive program cuts as a result of modest efforts to expand school choice.

“We’re talking about a fraction of the state budget that competes with other priorities,” she says. “Part of the reason that it’s in the conversation now is this is what Idaho voters are asking for. These are Idaho taxpayer dollars, and these are Idaho kids whose parents pay taxes.”

Den Hartog does not join the chorus of public-school bashing. She doesn’t buy the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s analysis that public schools are glorified indoctrination labs for the political left, and she earns her “F” rating with the IFF by voting for education budgets.

“Our public schools do a tremendous job with the resources that they have, and it’s not all about test scores,” Den Hartog said. “Introducing a little competition in the mix is good. We saw that with open enrollment, where districts highlighted what they were doing well. If you have a monopoly and parents are not happy, for whatever the reason, what is the motivation for schools to respond?”

Over the next few months, we’ll see how many “choice” proposals will come to the table. An early frontrunner is a bill by Den Hartog and Rep. Wendy Horman of Idaho Falls (co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee). That would provide $5,000 tax credits to students who don’t attend public schools (up to $50 million) – with the priority going to those with lower incomes.

There will be plenty of pushback to the Den Hartog-Horman plan, of course. But if early political momentum means anything, we’ll be seeing some kind of subsidy for families seeking alternatives to public schools.

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